Secret Storage (Thanks To My New Blue Shoes)

Little bit of style, lotta-bit of resourcefulness happening in this post.

During one of my Christmas shopping excursions, I happened upon the Anthropologie sale (where it was 50% off already-clearance merch). I found me the perfect little pair of cerulean blue leather leather flats, originally priced at $98 but reduced with all discounts to a sweet 15-dolla. That’s $15.00 American cash. That’s it.  Soft and lush and perfectly my size (8.5) and how could I not buy them when I have a whole bunch of summer weddings to attend this year? It’s the year of bluesy feet. I mean, according to me, and probably only me.

Bonus, they came packaged in a sweet little lemony box with magnet closure, practically worth the $15 itself. After I removed the shoes (and pranced around the house) the empty box went straight on the bookshelf so that I could adore it and figure out what it’d become.

Of course, while in that above photo it was shown on the dining room built-in shelves, I knew it would really work much better on the shelving in the living room that’s organized in a very rainbowesque pattern; I was lacking yellows when I originally showed you my little collection.

So I got busy making it pretty, first removing the only really sales-y label, the size sticker along the spine. Most peeled off cleanly, and I dabbed a little Goo Gone on the stubborn spots to clear it right up.

Because it was a large + hollow volume, I decided to maximize its upcycled potential and use to to organize my overflowing assortment of note cards/thank you cards/special occasion cards. A girl has many kinds of cards (and yet still has to write her Christmas Thank You notes, sorry fam + friends). There was plenty of space inside the pretty box to just toss everything inside it and call it a day, but I wanted to add a little pocket to prevent the cards from getting unwieldy.

I used a piece of scrap mat board (from yesterday’s Kid’s Art College) and used a utility knife to lightly score the surface (but not cut all the way through the stock).

Once scored, it should fold easily without tearing apart (mine did, at least). Reminder: Paint fingernails.

I measured the width of the yellow box and scored the other end of the mat paper too so that it would fit in the base easily to serve as a little folder, but before I actually installed it I decided to wrap the plain white stock with a piece of coloring book paper from my favorite hidden-from-the-real-child Anthropologie coloring book.

It’s the same book that I used when I created new shades for the living room driftwood lamps; the book is filled with many fun and bold patterns on ivory stock, like these:

This time around, I selected this print:

Cut to size, I glued the paper in place around the edges of the pre-measured and scored piece of mat paper. Shown here, I trimmed the piece of paper long enough to hang over the back an extra inch; it’s glued tight back there, especially where it’ll be folded inward at the corner.

With the paper glued to the mat board, I folded the scored edges inward and attached the edges to the standing walls of the yellow shoebox book.

I made another little shelf on the top too, not that it’s big enough for cards (it isn’t deep enough, specifically), but I thought it would be a good place for other things I’d want on hand when I’m writing thank you notes, like an extra book of stamps, or special sparkly pens. I did not cover it with special paper, thought at the time that it would look cleaner with just the  pattern only on the bottom half, but that’s totally open for creative interpretation, whatevskis.

Once dried, I put it to the test. It held a lot.

I forgot I had these ABC stencils (something I found at a garage sale and have been holding onto), but they were tucked amongst my note cards and happen to fit perfectly on the little top shelf for now.

Little green doggie from this summer yard sale is just holding the book cover open while I photograph. No significance. And if you’re wondering what the light green tag on the inside of the cover is, it seems to be a security sticker, but I haven’t really tried to remove it yet; seems like it’s about to tear the yellow finish off when I force it, so I’ll leave it as is because it’s not hurting anyone.

Closed, it fits perfectly in the yellow section of my rainbow-y bookshelf.

One last thing, reorganizing these thank you notes actually allowed me to eliminate the two remaining wicker IKEA baskets from the EXPEDIT shelf and give me a little more space for colorful book spines. Also, the magazine racks on that I added after our last IKEA excursion really helped to clean up the shelf, so the whole she-bang went from looking like this:

To this:

File rainbows and blue leather shoes under things that make me happy.

What’d you guys do this weekend?