DIY Decorative Organization with Fabric Binder

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DIY Decorative fabric covered binder

Do you have a place where you keep all of your home’s files?  Until this past week I did not.  In our last home, we didn't really have any sort of system at all.  When we moved into our new house here in NC, the prior homeowner left us a bunch of paperwork that went with the house.  He was the first one to live in this house, which made it even easier to keep good records. 

We aren’t much for filing cabinets, which is probably why we have minimal records in the first place.  I am really focused on keeping house records up to date, especially because we are going to be doing a lot of work on the unfinished walkout basement in the near future.  So, I decided to get the largest binder I could and use that to organize all the files. The only thing was that the binder was unattractive and too business-like for a house so I spruced it up.

This inspiration came from my mother.  When I was growing up, she would decorate photo albums and give them to people as gifts.  She would put batting and fabric along with small fake flowers or even a cross stich on the front.  They did get pretty intricate, but I have many memories of my mom hot gluing these albums together.

I had some fabric left over from a prior project so I used that fabric.  I didn’t use any batting to maintain a flat look.  To cover the inside fabric overlap, cover a piece of slim cardboard and glue it on the inside cover.  I used simple dividers for each category (appliances, electronics, outdoor) and then whole punched the papers to fit inside.  I used a business card holder for the companies that have done the work or ones that we might use. 

Before

This was a simple and easy solution to organizing our paperwork that could be left out in the open. This can be used for  school or any type of paperwork or even a nice photo album. Use as you choose.

After

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