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Jen, over at I Heart Organizing, is hosting a challenge “daring” us to try organizing with a new supply. In other words, use something you have never used before. As you may know, I am currently working on our laundry room, as it was in desperate need of some love and attention. I decided to use a cereal box (new supply) to create a DIY Lint Box. Easy and budget-friendly.
I have given myself a total of $100 to redo our laundry room. That’s not a whole lot when you’re painting the walls, painting the dryer, making a shelf, adding storage, etc. As of yesterday’s post, I have spent just under $58.
One thing I really wanted to do, was come up with a solution for our dryer lint. For the past 5+ years, this was my “solution”:
Ummm… yuck! Perhaps I should explain that my laundry “room” is actually a laundry closet, and there is literally no room. This over-sized trash can, shoved between the wall and dryer, is where I tossed all my dryer lint. (According to the above photo, I wasn’t even doing a good job because my dryer is covered in lint… To be fair, this was a before shot of the laundry room and I believe every before shot should include real life photos. No cleaning up. No tidying. Real. Life.)
Because I have such a tight budget, I needed a cheap solution to fix this disaster of a trash can. Enter the cereal box. A Costco-sized Honey Nut Cheerios box to be exact. I headed outside (and who wouldn’t when it was 70°… in Minnesota… in November?) and grabbed some spray paint, two large decorative clothespins I had found at Michael’s, and some dark stain.
I cut the flaps off the top of the cereal box and painted it with a hammered metal spray paint. Then, I stained the clothes pins.
Once everything was dry, I decided I really needed to spruce up the box a bit, so I headed to my craft bin and found some sticker letters I had leftover from a previous project.
Luckily, I had the letters to spell out L-I-N-T, so I applied them to the box, using a ruler to make sure it was straight and centered.
It still needed something, so I added a strip of washi tape around the top.
Using Command Strips, I secured the clothespins up on the wall. (For some reason, I had a little trouble with the strips sticking to the wood clothespins… I lost the directions to the Command Strips, so maybe they don’t do well on wood? I found that sanding the area where I was going to apply the strip was helpful.)
Then I hung the box, using the clothespins.
What I love, is that when the box is full of lint, I can unclip it from the clothespins, empty the lint from the box, and clip it back up again. So much better than that trash can!
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Loved it! As soon as I saw this I made one. I bought 12″ clothes pins beacause they were so cute not knowing what to do with them. Made your lint box as soon as I saw your post! Thx!
Such a great idea and so simple! I need to copy it!
After the lint box is full, I put the stored lint near the bird feeders in September and October. The birds use it to feather their nests every year.
What size are your clothespins? I got the 12 inchers and they are clearly too big lol
🙂 I just went up and measured mine. They are about 6 inches long and 1 1/2 inches wide. Hopefully that will work a little better for you.
Mine doesn’t look as pretty as yours, but it does the job! I didn’t have spray paint so I used contact paper (the one you cover books with), and I didn’t have nice pegs or Command Strips, so I hot glued some magnets to the back.
I always think of these posts as a base for creating your own ideas. Glad you were able to use supplies you already had on hand and create your own look.
I realize this was posted a long time ago, but gluing magnets to the back is seriously genius. Thought you should know.
Ooooo we just got a Michael’s store in Bismarck. Love those clothes pins.
I live at Michael’s 🙂
Loving this idea! I have a garbage can that is too big for my laundry closet and keeps getting in the way. Maybe after my new washer arrives (mine broke last week), I’ll need to do a mini-makeover to my room. Thanks for the ideas 🙂
Thanks Katie! This was such a simple fix for the lint, and it looks a whole lot better than my trashcan 🙂 Sorry to hear about your washer. Never good to have laundry on hold.
I love this idea, and yes this looks way better than the trashcan. 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Viviana! Seriously though, wouldn’t anything look better than that trash can? How embarrassing!