When it comes to organizing, I’m kind of a paradox. If you visit my home, it’s decidedly messy, but if you look at my notes and general habits, I am a pretty organized person. I know where things are (even in the mess) and I like to be able to find things.
Today I’m sharing an easy ten-fifteen minute project that you can easily do yourself: a mail organizer! Why spend over $20 for something you can upcycle out of a cereal box with newspaper, pair of scissors, and glue?
Materials
- a box (cereal box, pancake mix box–whatever you choose to use)
- pair of scissors or a box cutter
- glue
- newspaper, wrapping paper, old pages from books, magazines, anything to cover the box with
- pencil (kind of optional)
- ruler (optional)
First, chop the box you’re using into two parts, and make sure one half is taller than the other. You can use a pencil and a ruler to help you as you mark where to cut. For me, the cereal box was extra long, so I had to divide it into three parts.
Second, take your two halves and glue them together. When you’re done, it should look something like this:
After that is the hard part: deciding what you want to use to dress up your organizer. Some mediums I would suggest: old magazines, old book pages, newspaper, wrapping paper, fabric. I used the arts section of the New York Times:
And voila! It’s that simple. Now you can have a nice little place to keep all your incoming and outgoing mail. You can easily cut the cereal box length-wise to store longer paper, scraps, or any other kinds of paper. There are many ways to use organizers, so see what works for you! 
This would be perfect for children to make to store homework/artwork/craft supplies. Thank you for sharing such a cute, inexpensive organizational craft!
I’m glad you liked it
Thank you for reading!
-Sharon