Custom Made Desk Organizer

Original Custom Made Desk Organizer Design

In my pursuit of my hobbies in the realm of pens, papers, and inks, I have acquired a mass of papers and inks to which I have run out of space. Living in a small apartment I find that just putting them anywhere was unacceptable. I used to put my notebooks on my computers, by my feet, on the dressers, or in the closet. A desk organizer from say Staples cost upwards of $50 and is bulky and distasteful. Hand made wood organizers are great, they are attractive and highly functional to be custom built to suite your needs... I however do not have the tools at my disposal or the space. I had a stroke of genius, as vague as it sounds, why not make your organizer out of paper? Cardboard to say the least which came to this. No I didn't make it but it gave me a foothold to work with.

Shortly afterwords I found a video slightly different than the attended subject. The material used was a foam board. The neat part about making your own custom desk organizer is that... its uniquely yours!

<insert blue prints here>

Now I know its not much to look at but this is my first attempt to make this design. Its still got some polishing. Actually It works quite well, the foam board is stronger than cardboard and it comes in huge sheets, I bought 4 sheets and I only needed 1 1/2 sheets. What I originally thought was to have the pieces interlock without any glue. This as it stands is only held with a series of pins, and it is amazingly strong!

So after... months of just being held with pins I finally had the momentum of inspirational boredom, I finished the rest of my design with a new twist. I actually got the top and bottom mixed up. Before that I was at Michael's craft store with my lovely wife around October. There they had some really cool scrapbook papers on sale and I decided to pick a bunch up, with what little spending money I have. Then sitting at home, unable to sleep I built this!

 It actually turned out fantastic. I left the pins in and reinforced the sides with hot glue.

 The Desk organizer is 21"x17"x18" It was made with about 4-6 hours of labor and an addition 2 hours in taking apart and gluing back together. The total cost of this project is less than $10

My Masterpiece!!!

 In the next design I plan to make it a simple 12"x12" size for the scrapbook pages, add a drawer or two and have it be combined with another organizer to interlock side by side. I would also like to have no glue or pins necessary just a simple slit for the pieces to slide into. Maybe if more were interested I could have some available for sale.

The best part is that now because of my mess up, I can store my extra notebooks like a bookshelf  leaving me with plenty of room for my inks!

Well I'm glad you had a chance to view my little adventure into custom desk organization. Now that I know what I'm doing. If the need shall arise my next attempt will be better planned and much more tasteful.

Please feel free to comment, I'd love to hear what you have to say.