I've been doing a happy dance all week, guys. I'm so excited to introduce a new series here at Simply Liv! It's more of an "ongoing" series- with no end in sight, but I can't wait to start sharing it with you all.
I'm calling it my SIMPLE LIVING series (you never saw that title coming, did you?) and over the course of a few months (or forever maybe), I'll be sharing practical ways to simplify your life and live with intentionality. I'll share everything from DIY's, to recipes, to random life hacks about parenting and marriage. Since this is more or less the theme of my blog, I thought it would be fun to have more posts be specifically about practical ways to live simply.
I've been rounding up ideas for a long time and decided this would be a great first post, since I haven't done a DIY in months, and my creative brain needed some release.
Raise your hand if your dining room table is overflowing with stack of bills and other random pieces of mail? Mine too. It's been driving me crazy for months- having to push everything to one end just to make room to sit down to eat. I've been brainstorming ideas for how to solve this problem and I think I finally came up with something that will work!
This mail organizer is super simple and can be made with basically anything you have around the house. I used pegboard, fabric and an old chalk board because it's what I had lying around- but the possibilities are many, my friends.
Here's how I did it:
Materials:
-Peg board (Or any kind of board. I thought about using a bulletin board.)
-Fabric scraps
-Super glue
-Left over paint
-Scissors
-Sharpies
-Magnets (I actually ended up not using them- but I think it would be awesome to make one of these for your fridge!)
1. First I sewed the fabric into little pockets for the mail to go in. Don't be intimidated by the word "sew". I literally hand-stitched up the sides and tops to make sure it wouldn't fray- super quick and easy. If you're anti-sewing though, you could just pin or glue the fabric pockets on without sewing up the sides.
2. I painted the pegboard with left over paint from our walls. One of the good things about remodels- LOTS of paint. Here's what it looked like after one coat:
I ended up doing three coats.
3. Attach the pockets. I picked the easiest thing I could think of for this- super glue- and I don't think those pockets are going anywhere soon. I made the little labels with cardboard, because I'm super fancy. Then I painted them white and used the sharpie paint pen to trace around the edge for a little bit of distinction.
4. Superglue the chalkboard on and trace around the edges. I recycled the chalkboard from another piece of art I had around the house but wasn't crazy about- but you could also just use chalk board paint and another (super fancy) piece of cardboard or thin board.
And there you have it! Your dining room table suddenly has room to be used as nature intended AND you have a super cute (super cheap) way to store all of those bills that you've been ignoring.
What are some simple solutions to clutter in your home? I'd love to hear your stories of simple living success! And as always, be sure to let me know if you try this one out!
Ps. to see my DIY TV tray makeover from the picture above click here
Simply,
Liv