Graduation Gifts for the Girls!

I was so happy to see my best friends and share my freebie acquisitions with them!  I took them to my favorite Italian deli in Baltimore for sandwiches before going through and divvying up materials.  Finally, I took them up to my office for their real presents:

Desktop Organizers!

The top one in pale blues and greens is for my dear friend Mrs. H and the bottom one in crazy brights is for the matching personality of Miss S.  I've seen this idea here and there on the web and they are all over Pinterest. It was a really simple craft, the most difficult part was choosing the scrapbook papers dealing with the 16 yr old Home Depot employee.

I must tangent for a moment: I usually make it a point to avoid employees in hardware stores.  I'm usually stopping on my way from work, dressed up and click clacking in my heels.  I get the looks and every male employee asks if he can help me.  I know, I know it's not their fault that they don't know me and that they judge a book by its cover.  I usually know exactly where I am going and what I am looking for.  I worked with my father my entire life as he remodeled each house we lived in and worked remodeling houses for others.  It was entirely my fault that I went up to the employee working in the closet storage aisle and explained that I was looking for a box "this big" (as demonstrated with my hands) with little plastic drawers in it.  He told me I was only one aisle away.  That aisle had Sterilite drawers for closets, not even the tiny ones.  I returned to the aisle and said to the boy "Ignore that I'm a girl, pretend that I'm a man asking for a set of little drawers to store say wire nuts in."  (I thought that an excellent description of what a man would use this for) This kid, however, decided I was insane and told me that "We don't carry something like that."  As I turned on my heel (not actually wearing heels for once) I mumbled that he was wrong and that I would find it myself.  Not three minutes later I had what I wanted and couldn't resist returning to the kid's aisle for show and tell: "They are in aisle 12, exactly as I described them."

Sorry about that, it just gets under my skin when people don't know what is in their stores.

So back to the project!  Once home, I filled all of the little drawers with goodies:

The goodies (top to bottom L to R) included index cards, post-it notes, large post-it notes, assorted binder clips, glue stick, brads, rings, tiny post-it notes, large paper clips, rubber bands, small paper clips, staples, scotch tape, felt tipped pens / highlighters / permanent markers, erasers, thumbtacks, chalk, bandaids, gum / drink mix for water bottle / change for soda machine, dry erase markers, thank you notes, and stickers.



Then I cut the papers on my amazing rotary paper cutter: and labeled the paper directly with my label maker.




In hindsight, perhaps I should have placed the labels on the outside of the plastic drawers, the girls could then change out the paper at any time to redecorate.

 I'm now trying to decide if this is something I would like to make for myself.  I had an idea to use candle jars to hold paper clips and such.  These came out so nicely though, maybe I can make one to match my theme.