The End of The Paper Pile Up!

I have several weaknesses.

This is one of them:

(Paper Pile Up)

Every time a paper comes into our home, and it's not a bill, it ends up in this spot.

(On the side of our couch, hidden behind an end table.)

I needed to come up with something to solve this problem.
Pronto.
Using my 40% off coupon at Michael's, I bought a cute basket.
But I wasn't going to use this basket to just throw all my papers into.
That would solve nothing.
Before I know it, that basket would have ended up over flowing.
My basket needed dividers!!!
Cute ones!
So I went to work, using only supplies I already had hanging around the house.

First, I measured my basket to see how big my dividers needed to be.  I used an old cardboard box I had laying around and cut squares out, that were slightly bigger than my measurements, so that they would fit in my basket nice and snug.

Then I snagged some fabric from my craft closet.

I used a regular stapler to attach the fabric to the cardboard.  I probably could have used hot glue instead, but I didn't think about doing that until hours later.

Oh-well.

I folded in all my edges so I would have nice clean lines.

Then I used some card stock to make labels for my dividers.

I cut out a shape I liked, printed out each category that I wanted, and then mod podged the two pieces together.

I hot glued my label to the top of each divider.

My categories include:

- To Do

(This includes bills, things that need to be returned to my children's school, or other pressing papers.)

- Receipts & Statements

- Coupons

And this is my final product!

Looking at it actually makes me excited to organize that daunting paper pile of mine!

My goal is to have that entire paper pile gone (and organized) by Monday.
I'll post my progress by then. 

How do you keep the "paper pile up" from happening in your home???
Any helpful suggestions?


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