DIY Desk Organizer - Polka Dotted Blue Jay

  This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission,
at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link.

My home office has been a workhorse for the past 22 months; working from home, daycare/preschool for Jed, and my blog office. I was so happy when I came across this DIY desk organizer design in the Silhouette Design Store. My desk goes through a LOT every week and my “this should only last 2 weeks” set up just wasn’t working anymore and I needed some more organizing of my desk supplies.

I love that I can make a DIY desk organizer for myself, Jed, and Houston. They would also make a great gift for a teacher; just add the teacher’s name with some vinyl, paint, or a marker to the front. The tutorial from Lori also shows how to add some patterned cardstock for some extra pizzaz on your desk organizer.

Estimated Time: 20 Minutes

Skill Level: Intermediate

Supplies Needed:

Step One: Create Your DIY Desk Organizer:

Open Silhouette Studio® on your computer.

Select the Page Setup Window and adjust your cutting mat size to 12×12 (or the sized mat you are using).

Open your design in your design library (after you buy it).

This design is larger than 12×12 (I used four 12×12 sheets of cardstock) so you will have to ungroup it and cut it out in sections unless you have the Silhouette Cameo Pro. Select each group of designs and move them one at a time into your cutting mat template. Just make sure you select all the elements so your score lines and cuts line up.

How the Desk Organizer Design Opens in Silhouette Studio:

How to Ungroup the Designs:

Highlight all the elements, right click, select “ungroup”

How to Prepare Your Desk Organizer for Cutting:

Select one group of elements and move them onto your cutting mat.

Step Two: Cutting Out Your Desk Organizer Pieces:

Turn on your Silhouette CAMEO® 4.

Attach your cardstock to the cutting mat and load it into your machine by lining up your mat with the guidelines and pressing the “up” arrow.

Then, click “send” in the Software and then select the type of cardstock you are using from the dropdown menu.

Double-check to make sure your design has been selected to cut and the Silhouette CAMEO®4 autoblade had been selected. The autoblade will adjust to cut based on the type of material you selected. I suggest always doing a test cut to make sure it will work with your cardstock – there is a “test” button at the bottom of your screen.

Select “Send” to start cutting.

Press the “down” arrow when your machine has finished cutting your design to remove the cutting mat from the machine.

Repeat this process for each section of your design. If you have the Cameo Pro you can cut it all out at once!

You can also cut multiple colors at one time if you space them out on your cutting mat to match your software layout.