Monday, January 24, 2011

My 'Daily Organization System'

I have had my eye on this for awhile....you know, while perusing the PBK catalog and wishing my house could look as organized and cute as the ones in the catalog!  Anyway....they have this cute little set in a laundry/mud room that I loved but no way I would pay for!  Its basically a set of a white board calendar, a chalkboard and a cork board.  Simple right?  But pBk wants $99 per board! No way I would pay $300 for that but I do still love the look.

 I found this set of 3 frames at Goodwill awhile back for $14.  Wasn't sure what I would do with them at the time, but the price was right and I knew I could do something with them!  And this was it!
The dimensions were perfect.  The width was the same but they are not as tall but that is fine with me.  I wanted to put them in my laundry room and there isn't that much space anyway. The only thing I bought for this project after the frames was a package of cork tiles.  They were on sale at Michael's for $10 and I had a 40%off coupon.  Score!

So, here is what I did.  First I took out the lovely old children's art work and glass and painted the frames.  pBk has wooden ones but I wanted black to show up better in my room.  A quick coat of spray paint and we were looking good!
I took two of the glass coverings from the frames and the plan was to spray paint one with chalkboard paint and the other with just white paint for the dry erase board. (note to self....don't craft in the backyard with boys running around.  They actually stepped on TWO! My fault for even trying to do the second one while they were around so I had to have glass for the white board and now needed to get creative for what to paint for the chalkboard.  
Luckily I had a box in the garage that I could cut down to the right dimensions so box it was!  Project salvaged! :)
 While the paint was drying, time to fit the cork board.  It took two tiles to fit into the space.  
I wasn't a fan of the lines it left so I added some pizazz with some grosgrain ribbon and made some cute rosette pushpins for it!
 The chalkboard was easy.  Just pop it in.  Make sure to treat the board by coloring it the first time and then wiping away and its good to go!
 Last was the whiteboard. In case you didn't know, any piece of glass can turn into a white board.  I contemplated but fabric or burlap under the glass but decided to keep it in line with what I was copying!
I used a permanent marker to draw my calendar on the glass.  I knew I didn't have enough room for both a weekly and a monthly calendar so I decided to make a monthly view and leave room for notes or      To-Dos lists underneath!

 Once the calendar was made, it was time for the Silhouette to come into play.  I used American Typewriter font and cut it out onto black vinyl....and transferred it on!
And that's it!  Here is each one in all their homemade glory!  Pardon the lighting...they are hanging in my laundry room so no natural light! :)  I couldn't line mine up the same as PBK thanks the alarm and light switch but that allows the chalkboard to be low enough for the boys to play on anyway!
 And here they are all together!  LOVE!  Adds so much character to our little room and a great place to make and leave notes as we head out the door to the garage.
 I think they look awesome and for a mere fraction (About $20 total cost) of the pBk price, woohoo!  

4 comments:

  1. very cute...whare do you find the energy???? I am most impressed with you actually MAKING the things in the PB Cat, instead of just flipping thru it like me and saying that I could.

    ReplyDelete

I love your comments!

I want to be able to reply to you...make sure I can by following this simple tutorial! :)

http://www.thehouseofsmiths.com/2011/01/tutorial-how-to-let-me-reply-to-your.html