Nestling: DIY chalkboard animal lables {family room sneak peak}

Happy Monday!

I am so excited to say that we FINALLY finished up the family room this weekend!! We have had it about 99% done for over two weeks now, but really needed to finish up a few projects. (Most of which I will be sharing over the next week or two!)

The project I am sharing today was one of the cheapest and one of my favorites. Not often I can say that, ha! It all started this past summer when we stopped by a local rummage sale. I have mentioned in the past that I tend to have a radar when it comes to good finds, and that day it was on high alert. I was literally on the other side of parking lot, when I spied it. A complete 6' ELFA storage system. (for those who aren't familiar with this, it's a storage system that The Container Store sells- it's completely versatile, but can get pretty pricey. Just one of these baskets alone costs $15- $17. Not including the liner or shell!) I gasped, "is that an elfa?!" (to which Jason, said, "a what?" LOL). I ran over, he bargained, and we got the whole set for $15.

I honestly didn't know where to put it, I had so many ideas. But the family room made the most sense, since the kids have a ton of things that needed to be organized. In the beginning of this little make over, it just sort of floated in the room. It looked horrible. One of the the first things we did was install wood around the sides and the top to make it look more built it, and it completely transformed it. It went from looking cheap and cluttered, to custom and clean.

Just take a look:

...and ahem, pardon the mess. The first pic was mid-organizing :)

The drawers are really large and have been working out great for us. I knew that I wanted to label them somehow, and when I made my chalkboard labels for our kitchen, the idea came to me to paint some cheap little wooden animals. I loved the idea that it was something kid-ish without being overly cheesy.

First, I bought up a bunch of cheap, little wooden animal cutouts from Joann's. They have other shapes other than animals as well. I wasn't able to find enough flat ones without repeating, so I bought a few of the 3 dimensional ones as well.

I just flipped the 3D ones over so that I had a nice, flat side to paint on.

Next, I sprayed 2 coats of chalkboard paint onto them.

Once they were all dry (sorry-no pictures of this part!), I attached some ribbon I bought from the store as well (couldn't resist a yellow chevron-esq one!) using my hot glue gun to the back of the labels.

Then, I attached them to my drawers by tying them around the bars.

Ta-Da!

The drawers fit SO MUCH stuff. I am really impressed. Part of the organizing process was really going through what we owned and deciding what to keep, donate, or toss. I also gave up the notion that things had to be kept in the boxes they came in- case in point: puzzles.