Receipts running rampant....

That post title makes no sense but I have an unrelenting love of alliteration and try to fit it in anywhere.  In the spirit of the usual New Year goal of getting more organised, I did a little makeover of my receipts folder.  Living the dream over here, let me tell you, and yes I am just going to ignore the fact that my last post was still a Merry Christmas one....  ah, things have been busy.  We went for a visit back to Australia for 3 weeks and I don't like to post about it online beforehand, for security reasons, but that was a welcome break from the cold up here in Minnesota.  After that we had school camp to get ready for, hubster travelling for work, everyone but me coming down with the flu, the start of gymnastics meet season, yada yada yada.  You all know how it goes.  Another thing that has been getting in the way of me posting has been the difficulty I have found in finding a spot to photograph my projects adequately in this house.  This has been an ongoing source of frustration but I have just rigged up something that seems to be working.  I will post about that another day so you can feel free to copy my amateurish ways...ha!

Ok, well on to this makeover I mentioned.  I have had this receipts folder for umpteen years and it irritates me.  Always has.  You know how sometimes it is the little things that just get under your skin?  Well, ridiculous as this is, this little folder which I use quite regularly just hasn't been functioning great and it is a source of minor, but present, irritation so I decided to just do something about it to bring some pretty functionality into a mundane task of my life.

You can tell how old it is by the red Dymo tape label on it - yeah baby.  Those things are probably collectible now.

First things first, I really didn't like the flap so I cut it off as close to the hard cardboard shell as I could.

Then I chose a cute patterned scrapbook paper to glue to the outside covers, measured the exact width and made it a little longer (top to bottom) so I could fold it over on the inside for a neat finish.

I used Mod Podge but you could use any glue you have to hand (a glue stick would work fine).  Spread your glue on quickly and....

press it onto the side.

Here is that little bit of overhang.  I used a regular glue stick along the edge and folded it over to the inside.  Just held it for a few seconds and it stuck fine.

The inside was still looking like a hot mess thanks to my oh so beautiful sticky notes stuck over printed labels so I wanted to make this look a little nicer too.

I grabbed another piece of scrapbooking paper and cut off a strip that I thought would be wide enough to cover up the printed lettering on each little flap.

Then cut them into little rectangles, folded them in half......

slapped a bit of glue on it.....

and added it to each flap in the three sections.  This looks fiddly but I just eyeballed everything and it went really quickly.  I may or may not have made sure each piece of paper was lining up the same pattern of lines...

Then I got out my trusty label maker and added labels that I will actually use.

This little folder lives on a shelf above my computer so I added a label to the end by poking a hole through on the side and tying this little hanging tag on there.  I bought some cheapo letter stamps at the Target dollar section a little while ago for the kids and used it here.  I am claiming a quirky charm to it rather than admitting my stamping effort looks a little wonky.

I might make an elastic band to go around it if I find it needs it but it doesn't usually get full enough to warrant anything like that.

So, there you have it.  A quick and easy little office update which I am sure will make me smile just a little bit every time I use it and, really, who doesn't need more little smiles in their life? :)