Crafty wood file organizer

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December 31, 2014: Here’s a surprise craft project that I stumbled onto out of the blue while browsing through the aisles at AC Moore. This unfinished pallet platform was being offered on sale for $4.99. I quickly snapped up the last two.

Although many would use this for a wall decorating project (a sign or a picture using acrylic paint), I instantly saw it as an organizer base instead. I laid it flat, zeroed in on the slats and worked out the details of how to quickly pull the project together.

While in the store, I found some wood boards ($1.29 each) and tried them out as dividers by placing one in each wood slat. So, for roughly $11 – $12, I’d have myself a lovely wood file organizer that I could paint or stain in any color I wanted.

At home, I stained one slatted wood base and five wood 8 x 10 boards with my all-time favorite stain (Early American) and glued a wood decorative shape to the front wood board as an embellishment. The wood shapes can be found at Michaels.

Here’s what I put together on December 28. Same base – two different front wood dividers – one with a dragonfly and another with a sun.

I decided to take this organizer to work. So here it is in my lovely Tech Office space in my new worksite in DC.

I did another decorated wood board in the Tech Office New Years Eve.

I used Elmer’s wood glue to attach the wood shape to the wood slats.

I placed the dragonfly at the top right corner of the wood board. VERY IMPORTANT: Allow this to dry.

While drying, I tried to clean up the excess glue as much as possible without shifting the wood piece.

My Bedford Stuyvesant inkjet image to wood transfer served as the front divider stand-in while waiting for the wood piece to dry.

And it’s done. And looks great!

This was just the beginning of not only transforming our space at home in the condo, but also adding interest and warmth to my Tech office space (something that is pretty tough to do, given the nature of a Tech Office).  But I’m determined to make it look less of a CompuCenter stock room and more of a living and breathing workspace.

I also introduced the lovely Tech Owls to the staff I support as the unofficial office mascots. But in the meantime, I enjoyed having these file organizers on hand as a beautiful and functional home and office craft piece. V-