Phonebook Organizer

Thanks to cell phones and the internet, phone book usage has diminished immensely, with most getting immediately thrown out, especially in areas where you get more than one each year! But as always, we have found a new, functional use for old phone books. Follow this tutorial to turn your old, useless phone books into organizers for every room in your house! You will need: 1 phonebook, a sharp utility knife, aluminum T-square, 1 cardboard tube, mod podge, paint brush, scissors, 5 binder clips, hot glue and a pencil. First, you need to cut the phone book down to size (you wont want the finished organizer to be taller than about 4 inches). So use the aluminum T-square to measure four inches from either the top or bottom of the from cover and we will be cutting off the rest. Keeping the aluminum T-square in place, use the utility knife to begin cutting through the book as far as the knife will allow. Once you have a chunk cut from the front of the book, fold this section back and follow the knife along this cut, down the spine of the book. Make sure that this cut is lined up with the cut on the cover. Now that the spine is cut, you can fold the already cut pages back and continue cutting through the book. Once you have the 4” section of the phonebook, cut off the front and back cover as close to the spine as possible. Now, separate the pages of the book into 5 equal sections, securing each section with a binder clip. Next, you need to roll the spine up tightly. So take the pencil, cut it so that it is 5” tall (or an inch taller than the cut phone book). Hot glue the pencil in the middle of the spine with the cut edge lined up with the cut edge of the book. Cover the pencil in hot glue and roll the book up around it, holding it in place until it is set. To form each section of the organizer, you will take one section at a time, remove the binder clip, curve the section around a cardboard tube, smoothing the pages to form a loop and reapply the clip to the end of the section. The end of each section will no longer line up nicely so cut the edge of the section so that it lines up, once it fits well when pushed into the crease, line the edge with hot glue and push the edge into the crease, holding it in place until it sets. Repeat this process with the other sections to make four more loops. To make it more secure, put a line of hot glue on each section about an inch from the spine, and secure against the neighboring loop. Once dry, you will coat the entire organizer with mod podge, to make it even more secure: do two coats on the outside, then two coats on the inside, then coat both the top and bottom, letting it dry between each coat (this shouldn”t take long). If you would like to line the bottom with something so that you can move it without your things falling out, trace the organizer on a piece of 12” x 12” card stock paper, cut it out and glue it to the bottom of the organizer. Fill it with your things and you are good to go!! Visit the blog where I found this idea for step-by-step photos and a multi-level, multi-color phone-book organizer tutorial! http://www.chicaandjo.com/2009/02/24/recycle-phone-book-into-pen-organizer/

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Written by: Karly Poole