Washi Tape Mail Holders

Whether you have a small family or a large one, it can be so important to keep track of everyone’s activities and plans, and communicate these to everyone else. Often the kitchen or living room becomes the place where this information is likely to be seen easily. At Crafty HQ we have an open plan kitchen living room where we spend most of our time and it has quite a large blank wall which is perfect for notice boards.

Earlier in the year I came across an awesome idea to add to my kitchen/ living room wall. It has taken me MONTHS to get back to it but this week I did it!

You might remember that I already some things on our wall to help keep our household organised.

I have a couple of dry erase boards which I made from large picture frames. These are used to write all kinds of notes – right now there is “clarinet reed 2”, thanks to Little Miss, and “Do for ONE what you WISH you could do for everyone”, a snippet that I heard one day on the radio and jotted down to remember.

We also have three Weekly Calendar Boards next to them. These get comments All. The. Time. from other Mums who visit our place. They are where I write the things that are happening this week, next week and every week so the family can see at a glance what is happening. The kids often check the every week board in the morning to make sure they don’t forget to take library books or musical instruments to school. (I know they look blank in the photo, but that’s only for the photo shoot – we really are pretty busy!)

The newest addition to this area is a couple of mail holders. These are going to help me get the mail off the table when it comes into the house, and get the important mail back out of the house, whether it has to be returned to school or actually mailed.

Generally when mail comes in it gets dumped on the kitchen table where I usually have my computer and various other papers. I often open it but then need to leave some things for Crafty Daddy to see when he gets home, and other things I need to pay or file. Then other things get dumped on top of it and I find mail days later that should have been actioned – oops!

The new mail sorter will mean I can pop mail up on the wall where I can save it from disappearing, see it to take action on it, and remember to show things to hubby.

The other mail sorter will be for things that are going out of the house again. There are often papers to be returned to school, envelopes that need to be dropped in a post box, and vouchers I need to take with me to the shops. All of these will now go into the mail holder and I hope to make it a habit to check that spot as I leave the house each day. It is right above where the kids leave their school bags during the week too so they will be able to help me remember as we leave each morning.

The mail holders are black plastic by Deflect-o and purchased at Officeworks. They are designed to hold A4 size brochures either to stand on a desktop or hang on a wall. I used a couple of 3M removable hooks to hang them. I decorated these with some rainbow washi tape to match the rainbow theme of the rest of my organisation wall.

All up this was a 20 minute project – mostly to make sure the hooks were in the right spots. I’m really looking forward to keeping another little thing organised around here!

What have you organised recently?