Slicing my way to some new laundry bins!

I received the most amazing new gadget for my new blog! The wonderful people over at Making Memories sent me the greatest product! Their handheld, cordless digital design cutter, called the Slice! Let me repeat: handheld. cordless. It does all the work of cutting your designs out, doesn't require its own cabinet for storage and you can take it with you to your BFF's house for craft night! Yes, please!

*shown here with 12x12 cutting board

Isn't it beeeautiful? When people aren't looking I refer to it as Betty. Yep, for real. I even got their pink one (I have a thing for pink), which is a special edition breast cancer Slice. Pretty cool, eh? Betty also comes with a special edition breast cancer cartridge full of inspiring words and pretty pictures. Love it.

Of course, almost before I had the beautiful Betty upstairs I was unwrapping all of the packaging and trying to decide what to do first. I settled on these lovely bins for my laundry room, which I've been dying to make for a while now.

I'm what you call - um, cheap. I don't like spending lots of money on things that I feel like I could make, and cute organizing bins are no exception. Of course, every time I go to Target I gaze longingly at their beautiful bins and tubs, but I just can't bring myself to spend $15 each - especially when I need like 10 for all of my various rooms.

So I went to Walmart and found a pack of 10 of these Banker's Boxes in the stationary/office supplies aisles - about $14 for all 10

I painted the first box white with a coat of primer left over from a previous project, but then realized these bins would fit pretty tightly into my laundry room so you couldn't see the sides, anyway, for the most part, and I just plain got too impatient to wait for paint to dry, so I just moved on to the next step.

I took some of this liquid gold...

and applied a thin layer to the side of each box that I wanted the cute paper on. I cut my paper down to size and applied each page to a box. I turned the boxes over onto the paper side and weighted down the inside then, to prevent bubbles and waves in my paper from the Mod Podge. Then I waited very impatiently for about 15-20 minutes, and voila! Cuteness adorned my banker's boxes.

After applying a top coat of Mod Podge to each cute box side, I got to the fun part: using my Slice to cut out labels! I can't believe how super easy it was to use - you just select the size you want your image to be, press start, and Betty takes care of the rest. I zoned out on Oprah for a minute while I repeated this 4 times - making your car a "no phone zone". :)

After that it was a simple matter of gluing another cute paper on the inside of my labels, writing in what that particular bin was to be used for, and gluing each label to its respective bin.

So, SO easy - I did the whole project in less than the time it took Munchkin to take an afternoon nap. To celebrate my newly organized laundry nook - what else? I threw in a load of delicates and grinned hugely as I pulled stain removers and laundry soap out of their respective bins.

:)

Want your own Slice? Click here to find out how to try one out for 30 days, risk free, for $14.95, free shipping. Think of all the amazing things you can whip up in 30 days! Of course, I guarantee you you're going to want to keep it at the end of that glorious 30 days. You'll be glued at the hip. The slice not only cuts, it cuts fabric (embellishing clothing post coming up!), and it also embosses and draws!

I almost have to take a nap here, I'm so worked up and excited about this nifty little cutter. Heck, try it out just to make yourself some cute bins, you'll still save a bundle! And don't forget to tell the fine people at Making Memories that Chili Pop sent you over.

Tah-tah!
-mary-