Bedside Phone Charging Tidy

Where do you put your phone when it's charging? Do you have a special place for it?

Bedside Phone Charging Tidy

We have coasters on our bedside tables, for that late night or Sunday morning cuppa. Very sensible, very normal. Except someone (not me!) had a slightly odd habit of putting his mobile phone on his coaster! When you're carrying two mugs of tea you really just want to be able to put one down, not faff about moving a phone first.

I thought if I made a place especially for the phone it might help so this is what I came up with: a "Bedside Phone Charging Tidy"

How to upcycle a box to make a bedside phone charging tidy

What you need to make a bedside phone charging tidy:

The box I chose to upcycle started life as part of some packaging from a nail varnish set. I'd used this in our old house on my bedside table to corral my bits and pieces (pen, bookmark, hand cream, nail file etc) It was just too nice to throw away! Any study flat box would work for this though.

packaging tray.jpg

But in our new house we have a classy cream/white and gold look going in the bedroom so for this to work it was going to need a makeover!

Covering the old box to make your bedside tidy

First spray paint the inside of your box, I used gold. 

spray inside gold.jpg

This was just a little left over spray paint from my geometric DIY art work and gold heart pot.

The base of my box turned out a little lumpy so I decided to cover that with the same lovely textured wallpaper that I planned to use to cover the outside.

cutting paper to size.jpg

The paper I used is just a sample bit of wall paper, left over from my "divide and conquer" drawer dividers.

Draw around the box onto the back of the wallpaper, you can see I used my cup of tea to keep the paper from rolling up.

Cut the pieces out just a few mm inside the line you drew and check it fits inside the box nicely.

Draw around the sides of the box in the same way and cut those out too. Cut the outside pieces on the line you have draw to start with, hold them against the box and then trim by a mm or two as necessary to get a good fit.

Used a layer of Mod Podge to stick the papers in position. Apply another coat of the Mod Podge over the top to seal. 

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I left my covered box to dry on a tin like this so it didn't stick to the table.

Once the Mod Podge is dry cut a little hole for the charger lead to poke through using a craft knife.

hole for the lead.jpg
Bedside Phone Charging Tidy
bedside table.jpg

That’s it, your bedside table phone charger tidy is finished. Here is the one I made in action. And look - the coaster is free, all ready for a nice cuppa!

I made a different kind of phone charging holder a few years ago, in fact it was one of my really early posts. You can find it here, it's type where you upcycle an old plastic bottle and it hangs from the plug socket. They worked great in the kitchen at our old house, the kids have them in their bedrooms now. 

Julie