Finished Friday: DIY Magazine Files

 

I'm trying to hold myself accountable to finish some of the projects on my to do list by posting each Friday about a project I've completed. For the most part these projects aren't part of my daily or weekly household chores, although many weeks finishing those items is a challenge all of its own.

Several months ago, we "purchased" a voucher for a free box of used children's clothes from ThredUp using some credits on our Deal Pulp account. When we signed up for an account on ThredUp they automatically sent us lots of Medium Flat Rate Priority Mail boxes to encourage us to also list boxes of our used children's clothing.

However, since we save the majority of our kids' clothing to pass down to younger siblings, we had no use for all of the flat rate boxes we were sent.

No use, that is, until we started organizing books by subject for our first year of homeschooling. Then I saw the idea of using flat rate priority mail boxes as magazine files on Pinterest and knew that I'd be adding this tutorial to my to do list.

I forgot to take a true before picture, but here are our magazine files all lined up and functional, but not quite pretty.

I also decided to use the same type of boxes to make our own version of workboxes for homeschool use. I made these boxes with a higher front so items wouldn't fall out as easily. (Make sure you check the height of the box against the height of your shelves. I had to cut the boxes down a little so they would fit.)

**Edited to Add: I simply drew the line I wanted to cut on and cut through the box with scissors. Then I used the cut off shape to trace the lines on the rest of the boxes so they would all be the same. Then I assembled the boxes by removing the cover from the adhesive strip and folding the bottom of the box closed.

Once I had all the boxes cut I trimmed coordinating scrapbook paper to fit the fronts. I then glued the paper to the fronts and covered it with clear contact paper. I allowed for some overhang on the contact paper and wrapped it around the sides of the box. (You can see the shine of the contact paper on the workbox above.)

I also folded an extra inch or so of contact paper over the top of the front panel, and stuck it to the inside of the box.

Ah...much better, don't you think?

I still have to attach labels to the boxes, but I was glad to have the boxes ready to use and pretty for our first day of school this past Monday.

What things have you crossed off of your list recently?

Linking up to Finer Thing Friday and Frugal Friday. 

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