mom's mail station

I tend to be a "put it" person. Put it on that counter or in that pile.

I've gotten better. I have the sweetest basket for gathering my mail.

It is all that other stuff that I don't know what to do with.

We have grown children that don't live at home,

and grown ones that do.

Still other grown ones that move in and out with frequency.

They all use our home address as their mailing address.

They come in and might see their mail or they might not.

They might look at it and then leave it sitting there.

They're not nearly as neurotic as I am in the paper department.

It has been driving me absolutely crazy.

Especially this one small counter next to the refrigerator.

And the fact that I just don't know what to do with all that stuff!

 

 

Okay. You see the camera lens and the hammer.

The camera lens certainly isn't the kids' mail.

The hammer ... well, that would be mine as well.

 

I spent some time on Pinterest looking for ideas for storing mail.

First on the list was cheap, cheap, cheap.

I know I could have gone out and bought some cute organizing thing but

I really didn't want to spend any money.

 

I probably spent about a week off and on working with fabric to make something.

I didn't like it and pitched it.

I had an errand to run on Friday and as luck would have it, it was right down

the street from Hobby Lobby so I swung in.

I wandered around the store looking at all kinds of ideas and

finally settled on these brown Kraft bags for 50 cents a piece.

 

 

Folding the bag flat, I used a circle to draw a cutout on the front side of the bag

and cut the rounded piece off, leaving the handle intact.

 

 

I cut each bag in half along the fold line on the sides and across the

bottom so I had two equal size sides of the bag.

 

Taking my trusty little glue gun that is probably still hanging around from the

last century, I glued the parts together putting one bag inside the other.

I put the front of the bag on the outer side so that the seam ends up in the back.

 

Taking that reserved circle with the handle, I cut the handle out along with the

"hem" of the bag.

 

Then glued that extra piece to the back of the bag so that handles and

upper edges line up. I figured it would give extra strength to the hanging weight

of the bag. I'm guessing that the bag will probably accumulate lots.

 

Off to the computer to print some name labels.

I like to download free fonts from dafont[dot]com, found one that

I liked and printed names onto one sheet of cream colored card stock.

 

I raided my meager scrapping supplies and started inking, cutting and gluing.

The hammer and some small nails combined with a wall that is out of the

eyes of visitors for the most part yet easily accessible to the kiddos ...

and the bags went up!

And the bags started getting filled!

My counter top is clean again.

At least for the moment.

I'll probably add hammers and camera lenses real soon, but the

mail won't accumulate there anymore.

The day after the bags went up, one of the girls went out to get the mail.

She came in, sorted it and plopped it the appropriate bag!

 



 

I still would like some kind of wood sign over the bags.

Maybe even a sign with pegs on it to hang the bags from.

Maybe I'll even have the sign read

Mom's Mail Station.

 

Organization .... one corner at a time!