Hey Ya’ll! I have been on a cleaning/organizing trend here the last few weeks. My desk is so horribly cluttered that I had to do something to get things straight and to lessen the mess. The DIY Custom Decor Desk Organizer had to match my new office decor of course! I am cleaning and redecorating my entire office space and unfortunately, there are not that many products on the market that match my decor style. So… off I was to make my own desk organizer.
Besides, what is better than upcycling or recycling old boxes and things into something new? Not only do you save money, but you can make the finished product look exactly how you want it to look! It can’t get any better than that! I thought that I would pass along the process that I took in making this desk organizer so you might be inspired to make your own.
Gather Supplies:
Gather a bunch of old boxes and crafting supplies of your choice. You can really use anything you want. I chose some old priority boxes, an old pencil holder, some tin cans, left-over Christmas gift boxes and some foam board that I bought for a whole $1.50! The rest of my supplies I had on hand, such as the paint, glue, river rocks, etc.
I did purchase some fabric that I used in this project, but my purchase of fabric had more than one use as you will see in upcoming projects. That is also why the fabric does not appear in the following pic… I bought it after I started this project.
Organize the Layout:
When you start organizing the layout you may find that you want to replace one of the items you have gathered for something that works better. I ended up changing several things like not using the duck tape, toilet paper rolls, and one of the cans.
Just do whatever works for you! There is no right or wrong way to set up this project.
You can use whatever box you want to hold all the other compartments. I happened to chose to make the base and drawer system out of foam board. I would not recommend this process unless you really want to spend quite a bit of time on this project.
If you would like to know how exactly I made the base (pictured below) for this DIY Custom Decor Desk Organizer, leave a comment in the comments area at the end of this post and I will do my best to go into more detail on a future post.
I wanted to have my file folder boxes different heights so I added a riser in the back of my main box.
As you can see, the base to hold all my other compartments did not turn out as neat and tidy as I had planned. I really recommend using a regular cardboard box for the base and instead of making drawers like I did, just pick up one of those small drawer sets from the Dollar Tree. The dollar you spend on some small plastic drawers will save you a ton of time!
Painting, Decorating, or Adding Embellishments:
Go to town spraying, painting or adding fabric to all the compartments. Use whatever colors, paints, markers, fabric, or embellishments you want. This is your project so make it your own!
As I mentioned before… I bought some fabric. It matches the rest of my decor and provided a theme to my desk area so I incorporated the fabric into my desk organizer. I simply sprayed the old priority boxes with spray glue and wrapped them in fabric. I won’t bore you with the details cause it is really no different than wrapping a present.
Be creative! Let your imagination soar. The desk organizer above was just a little to plain for my taste. I ended up adding some custom designed graphics to fill in some of the black spaces. You can easily add a sticker, glue on a printed graphic, or paint whatever design you want. I actually used some gel and paint pens I had to apply a design I had sketched out. The dream catcher design went on top of the drawers and an arrow design went on the front of the organizer.
Finishing:
Assemble your work and ta-dah… you have your own customized desk organizer without spending a lot of money, if any money at all! It’s a win-win. You can have a helpful tool to get a bit more organized and you did it without ruining the budget.
This ended up being a really fun and creative project. I hope it inspired you to make one yourself. If you have any questions please let me know below and don’t forget to share this post please 🙂
I would also love to see how your DIY Custom Decor Desk Organizer turned out so message me on Facebook or follow me on Instgram. Send me a message or something. I love to see the projects all of you wonderful readers are making.
Happy Crafting!