Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Mail Holder Makeover - Silhouette SD

This is a project I've wanted to do for a while, but I was putting it off until my craft room was cleaned up. Crafting is much easier when I can actually sit at my work space. :O)

I purchased this mail holder from Goodwill for $3. It still had the Target price sticker on it where it had been clearanced, so I don't think it had been used (the price sticker was on the front of the mail holder). My goal was to clean it up (it had been sitting around for a long time ...), spray paint it black, and use my Silhouette to create "IN" and "OUT" labels for it. Simple.

The more I thought about it, simple "IN" and "OUT" labels didn't seem to have enough pizzazz for me. I didn't want anything flashy, but I wanted more than just "IN" and "OUT". In hindsight, the simplicity of the "IN" and "OUT" would have saved me a lot of time this afternoon, but I'm still glad I chose to do something different. :O)


I mentioned that I wanted to clean it up first. There were three Goodwill price stickers (Have you noticed that Goodwill always puts a lot of price stickers on their items? I suppose they want to prevent price switching.), a stack of Target price stickers, and the original bar code sticker on it. Some of the stickers came off easily, but some were tricky. I purchased this bottle of un-du adhesive remover several years ago. It's was marketed for scrapbooking, but it comes in handy for removing stickers. It almost always works, and this time was no disappointment.


This is the final product. The top bin is for mail we receive, and the bottom bin is for mail going out. Isn't that so much cuter than just "IN" and "OUT"?


If you ever come to our house, please promise me you won't look at the paint job. I think I should have sanded the mail holder first. The finish on it reminded me of the white shelving units that can be purchased in boxes and assembled. I tried painting one of those, and I could scrape the paint off with my fingernail. This project didn't turn out that severe, but it has a very uneven finish, even after multiple coats of spray paint. From a distance, it still looks nice. That's all that matters, right? Projects that look good from a distance = successful projects, right? Right?

I hung the mail holder on our entry wall that is by our front door. We don't have a mud room, but this works for us. I need to add a small picture above the mail holder. Maybe I could just add an empty frame to match the other two empty picture frames that are hanging on the wall. We've only had the house a year and a half. I still need more time to decide on which pictures will go in those frames. Maybe I'll decide before the 5 year mark ... maybe ... I make no promises.


Thanks for reading! It makes me feel special. :O)

I thought I would attempt to link to Tatertots and Jello's weekend wrap-up party. Let's see how it goes.



4 comments:

  1. It looks very nice. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love it! So glad you went with the envelope idea instead of just in and out...it turned out so great!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you, Justine! Yours is the first comment I've had outside of my immediate circle of friends. :O)

    ReplyDelete