A New Pinterest Inspired Creation

I was in Tucson visiting a friend who just moved into a new house. Our goal for the week I was down there was to make headway on decorating the new place. I have been obsessed with the idea of finding an old shutter and making it into a mail holder for my kitchen since finding this on Pinterest. So naturally we found the PERFECT pair of shutters for $8 when I was thousands of miles away from home with no way of getting one home with me. This didn't stop us from buying them for her house, and she sold the second one to her sister in law for $4... Lucky Sherry!!

We started by removing the hardware off the top and bottom, and cleaning it up a bit. We had debated sanding it down to make it easier to paint after, however we wanted to keep the white underneath to aid in the distressing we planned on doing. Home Depot sells samples of paint for just under $3 so we bought a sample of a teal colour, as well as a cheap dollar store unscented candle. Once washed, we rubbed the candle over parts of the shutter. The wax acts as a buffer to the paint, so it is easier to get back to the white underneath the top colour. To be perfectly honest, for the amount we actually "distressed" I think this step could have been skipped! Then we painted.

Maybe it was the hot Arizona sun but that paint dried fast. We are NOT known for patience, so true to form we waited maybe an hour and then went out to distress it a but. It is recommended you wait the full 24 hours to allow the paint dry. We didn't distress as much as we thought we might, which is good because I think it looked perfect after! All we did was go over a few places with sandpaper, just to reveal a touch of white.

 Now we had to decide how to ensure that the mail stayed in place rather than falling and getting trapped when it was hung in place. One post we read recommended plywood. Since that sounded more difficult than I would have liked to do, measure, find somewhere to CUT the plywood into the right sized rectangle, somehow secure it... and our goal was to be as frugal as possible, we found a cheap knock off version of plywood. My friend had a few extra boxes laying around from the move we decided to cut one up and secure it to the back. Securing it in place was a process of elimination. First we tried to super glue it. Nope... epic fail. The glue did not hold onto the slats in the middle. Then we found a roll of Duct tape. That was great but still left too much room for the envelopes to slide down. So out came the hot glue gun with just enough glue left to finish this project. We glued a couple slats at the top, middle and bottom. Then duct taped the rest up.

 Beautiful from the back eh? But it got the job done. Cheap and effective. Fairly easy too. The envelopes sat in there exactly and didn't slide around.

I didn't actually get to stick around to see the final end product. After I flew home (without a beautiful shutter for my kitchen) my friend ran to Walmart and grabbed a pack of key hooks for a whole dollar and attached them to the bottom. I can't tell you how obsessed I am with this project! I sat there wishing that my colours were teal or turquoise so I could do this exactly!! It was super easy. And could not have been cheaper!

The shutter cost $4, paint $3, hooks $1 and candle $1. The glue, duct tape, sandpaper, paint brush and cardboard were all ready on hand. So for $9 my friend got an awesome pop of functional colour on her wall!! Hopefully I can find shutters for that cheap!!