Organizing the Design Clutter!

As you may know, I am a design student. What you may not know is that what this really means is that I am required to buy a lot of REALLY expensive art crap that I never end up using and can't bring myself to get rid of in case I need it in the future. :) So now FINALLY I have found a solution to the organizational hell of my design clutter! And it only cost me $32! Ahhhhhh Heaven. Read on to see whats inside the "magic design cabinet".....












I Found this great cabinet at Thrift Redefined  for only $20. It was a steal especially since it matches all my other Ikea dressers Perfectly. The sky parted and light came shining down when I saw this thing. The only bummer was that it didn't have any shelving. My dad had some leftover shelving MDF and cut it into shelves for me that fit and added in some more secure pieces to hold up the shelves. I put a little shelving unit that I already had in there on top of one of the shelves so I could set even more stuff. I bought all the green baskets at The Dollar Tree... for a dollar each..duh.. which totaled $12. Then I separated all of my design stuff into categories. The pink bin I already had and put some of the bigger items in there. I even have a little space to lay all my pads of paper! Take a look at my layout.

Each basket is labeled on the front so that I can easily see which basket is which. I labeled each basket using magazine pages and packing tape. I cut squares out of pages that I liked then wrote all my different labels on them. For example "markers", "crafts", "tape" etc. Then I "laminated" them with the clear packing tape. To attach them to the baskets I used large safety pins which I already had (you can also buy these at The Dollar Tree). The pins easily stuck through the tag. You can also use ribbon and a hole punch if you want something more decorative. This is a great way to customize the tags to look more "girly" or more "boy-ish" or to match different rooms. Here is a picture of how they all turned out:

A simple, inexpensive way to organize your stuff. $12 for the baskets, $20 for the cabinet and the rest of the stuff I had on hand. The project's wopping total comes to *drum roll* THIRTY TWO DOLLARS!!  Not too shabby. Not quite found in the Alley but pretty darn close. I'm so happy to finally be organized!