Simple Home Projects: Organizing Kitchen Counter Mess

I have completed a few small projects around our house in the past couple weeks. Recently, I had a quick moment and ran into Fantastic Thrift. I came across this piece of old office equipment and then remembered this post I had seen on the Jones Design Company blog. So for less than $4, I decided to take it for our kitchen counter mess. We have a spot on our counter where everything gets dropped...mail, keys, ipad, iphones, papers from school. It normally is a total mess. 

The brand is Curmanco and in doing a quick google search I found a bunch on ebay and etsy for around $20. So $3.99 was not too bad for a price but the condition of mine was not great. 

The mess! 

I considered doing something bright and fun but didn't really want to introduce a new color into our kitchen space. In the end, I went with black because it sorta blends in and I already had the spray paint on hand. 

And in other organization news, Camille loves to draw and color so our bin of crayons is always out on the counter. I picked up this wooden divided bowl at a yard sale at my grandmother's retirement home months ago. I am sure it was just a $1 or $2 because I am cheap like that. I decided to bring it out for crayons. I picked up a new box of Crayola's and voila! This looks a little neater out on the counter.