Anyone else have a huge collection of sports cards? See how we used an old card catalog for baseball card organization.
Oh. My. Goodness!!! I am SO excited about what we came up with to organize all my son’s baseball and football cards. I could seriously scream with delight. As one who knows zilch about sports, I didn’t actually think I was going to like this part of my son’s room makeover, but (AHHHH!!! There’s the scream 🙂 ) it turned out so cool!
My original idea (which you can see from last week) was to organize these cards in fabric covered boxes of some sort, however, when I started looking through our garage for a little inspiration, I found these two metal card catalogs I had bought years ago.
I was so excited until I went into my son’s room and saw just how many cards he had…
Ummm… all those cards were never going to fit in two small card catalogs. Then I remembered the old wooden card catalog my dad gave me for Christmas a little over a year ago. I had been wanting to redo it and use it in my office space, but I knew all those baseball and football cards could easily be stored in those beautiful drawers.
The card catalog is only 13″ tall, so we’d need to elevate it somehow. I went around my house measuring everything I thought might work: night stands, trunks, etc; and then I found it! My dad had made my daughter a very basic table to put a dollhouse on, and it was the perfect fit… but my daughter wasn’t having it. Ugh. So, instead, I’m thinking we’ll maybe go with some hairpin legs I found on Amazon.
The card catalog needed a facelift. It was dirty and still had old plastic labels on some of the drawers, but it was nothing a little cleaning and paint couldn’t fix.
I started by removing all the drawers, and then I sanded, primed, and painted the main box, leaving the drawers as-is. I used only one coat of primer because the wood grain was hardly noticeable. And then two coats of paint.
I went back and forth on whether to spray paint the hardware, but eventually decided against it as I feared the removal of the screws may not go so well (they’re old and kinda rusty). Instead I gave all the knobs a good cleaning with some cotton swabs and rubbing alcohol.
I removed the labels from the drawers and gave them a thorough washing as well, and then put everything back together.
The last step was to create our own labels for the drawers. The old labels had left dark areas when removed (as you can see in the previous image).
And here’s the finished card catalog… well almost finished. We need to replace the piano bench that it’s sitting on with some actual legs, and make a top for it, but we’re almost there 🙂
Update on Our Baseball Card Organization Project
Here is what we ended up with… you can find out more about the legs and top in week 3 of this challenge. For the full room reveal, click here.
Total Budget… So Far:
Card Catalog Makeover- 35¢
- Card Catalog- FREE (Gift item from a couple Christmases ago)
- Primer- FREE (Already had)
- Paint- FREE (Already had… I swear this can of paint has lasted forever. We painted our coffee station, dining room table, two built in cabinets, and now this… all with the same gallon of paint!)
- Paint & Cleaning Supplies- FREE (Already had)
- Card Stock for Labels- $0.35… Yep, that’s right. I used a 40% off coupon on a 59¢ piece of cardstock 🙂
Total cost of this room makeover so far… $0.35
Want to Catch Up or Jump Ahead?
Week 1 // Week 2 // Week 3 // Week 4 // Week 5
Be sure you check out what all the other participants are up to this week!
Check Out Other Participants Here
I love how you organized your son’s football and baseball cards. It was ingenious. I have an extensive collection of possibly 15,000 baseball, football, hockey, and basketball cards from the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. Currently, they are sitting in my storage locker in department store boxes. I would like to display them and have my friends enjoy them as well. How many cards does each card catalogue drawer contain, as I am trying to figure how many I would have to buy? Furthermore, how did you organize your son’s cards, was it by team, year, or manufacturer? Please let me know if you have any other insights or advice. Thank you very much, Mark
You are so lucky to even have a card catalogue they are few a far between here in GA, you cant find them or get one to save your life! Lucky guy because it looks great!
What a brilliant solution, Erin!
I love it when I find something that works perfectly for storage. This piece looks stunning now.
I am beyond amazed at how it turned out! What a gorgeous and creative way to organize al the cards!
OMG Erin, I am in love with this card catalog idea. Now I may have to go looking for one to make over!
I am in love with this! Such a fun project and way to store baseball cards!
Erin this is so creative!! And so pretty. I love it!
OMG I love this! I need to do this for my boys (including my husband, who has about a million football cards!)
That is seriously awesome! I love it Erin! Can’t wait to see it with the legs and top too. And amazing job using a coupon for cardstock! Haha!
Love, love this idea! What great idea for repurposing a piece of furniture. May I make one suggestion…put the three lighter wood drawers in the center row 🙂
I enjoy following your blog.
Oh wow, what an awesome find to store all those baseball cards! It turned out so pretty and I love that you left the drawers in wood tone. The hairpin legs would look so cool with this piece. Looking forward to seeing it all finished!
Those are such a perfect solution for baseball cards! Can’t wait to see what you come up with to finish it!
Wow! I love your card catalog. I always want to buy them at antique malls but now I realllly want one. I could use it for seed and plant labels. Thanks so much for the inspiration!