February 9, 2011

Rolodex Redo

Here’s a fun little project for all you organizing fans out there – I made my own address and telephone number box to replace my beloved Rolodex. I love to have numbers and addresses handy in the kitchen by the phone – but I wanted to come up with a cuter way to keep those contacts handy.

say goodbye to this little guy
start with a box – this could be a vintage recipe box tin, an old recipe card box that you no longer use, or (this is what I did) you can purchase an unfinished hinged box here at JoAnn.com (get an online code from retailmenot.com to get an even better discount) 
choose your paints – I mixed these three colors to get just the right color to accent my kitchen
paint entire box (inside, outside, bottom)
in a word document, type up dividers for your sections – or I made a printable of the ones that I used – there’s a black and a teal version
print out labels to divide up your contacts alphabetically (I printed mine on a patterned piece of scrapbook paper, cut to 8 1/2 x 11 inches)
cut into desired shapes
decoupage label to box and paint the gel medium on the entire box 
(I use Martha’s, but Mod Podge is awesome too) 
glue labels to index cards – carefully space the labels so you can see all the labels at the same time, like file
folders 
put your addresses and phone numbers in your new box
some ideas for how to organize your information:
  • hand write names, addresses, numbers, birthdays the old-fashioned way
  • mail merge your digital address book on labels (use a cute font and center it) and affix the labels on index cards
  • print out the addresses and numbers on cardstock using this Avery template (you can buy perforated note cards too, but I like to cut the cards so I have a nice clean line)
  • I like to put birthdays and anniversaries on the cards too for an extra place to reference those important dates
  • glue down business cards to notecards to keep everything the same size and easy to find
 

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Organizing