SoDu DIY - charger station

Yes you too can make this above! We all have an area in our home that is a mess of electrical plugs, cords, cables, random portable chargers (most dead), tablets, phones, and more. It's messy looking and half the time you have to unplug one device just to find a cord for another. I was getting sick of it and found a cool solution, then altered it to make it even simpler. Here's what you need (and if you want to support my blog, you can buy the few needed items through the amazon ads you see that'll take you right there):

First I got a box from Michaels (but of course any craft store or my amazon link below would have these, and amazon would have the biggest variety) - it's meant to hold photos and doesn't have the dimensions printed on it, but for your info it's 11.3 length x 7.25 width x 4.25 depth, so make sure that fits in the area you want. You could use a different type or size of box but this one is what I'd recommend because this one fits a 4 outlet power strip and the other cables, any smaller wouldn't fit and the cardboard type sides it has are easy to cut through. There are lots of designs to choose from, classy to retro, cartoony to flowery. These are around $5-7 each, so stock up if you want to have other boxes to match this one on a shelf. (Now you can also save a normal shoebox and then use spray adhesive and hot glue to glue down fabric to match your home, or cloth that you have leftover from recovering chairs but that's a lot more work.)

Also grab some of these eyelets. You don't need grommets (even though that's what the package says above), just eyelets (half of a grommet) will do. I would get 1/2 inch size so you can be sure the cable will fit through, and white looks nice but they typically come in gold or silver as well. I've also seen them in bronze on Amazon which has all kinds of colors.
If you don't have super glue at home, pick some up too to hold the eyelet in place. (Although I didn't use super glue, they stay in place pretty well.)

Last is Washi tape. You can find lots of varieties so I'd pick one that most closely matches your box colors, because this will help hide your cuts for your extension cord.

All in all (if you already have your extension cord and power strip, if not pick them up, and I'm assuming you have your iphone/device plugs and cables) you've probably spent $15, and you'll have washi tape and eyelets left over if you wanted to make a second box for another room in your house or as a gift. This charger station works better than solutions I've seen for sale for much more so to me it's worth it. Now you're ready!

First put your power strip in your box and position your box on your shelf or counter the way you want it. This is important because it will impact where you cut the larger whole for your extension cord. You can see I needed to have mine on the back right. Due to the shape of the female end of the cord that needs to pass through I had to cut a square hole. I did this with one blade on a sharp pair of scissors but a box cutter would work. This looks pretty messy, but we'll fix that next.

You can see above that I applied washi tape to pull in the ragged edges and then made a border with it. This is at the back of the box and facing the wall so it's not as important as the cable exits on the other side.

I flipped the box to the other side, measured it level in a line, spaced them out accordingly and marked with an x.

Next I took my scissor blade and punches holes through the x's one by one. As you can see I drank some wine while doing it so it's not hard (but still be safe while cutting)! Once you punch the hole, turn your scissors around in a circle like below to make a rounder hole, big enough to fit the eyelet in.

If you left it like this it would look terrible obviously so just pick up your eyelet and push it in gently one by one. Look how pretty it is now!

It was easy to insert them and none of the pierced cardboard shows through on this side. If you think it's a little loose for your taste you can put a small ribbon of glue behind the eyelet to secure it but I didn't.

Next I arranged all my cords, the extension cord going out one side, attached to the power strip and used smaller plugs for my cables to make sure they all fit. I put the white iphone cables on the first two spots and the mini usb's with black cords on the right to make it more aesthetically pleasing. I also put a strip of washi tape on the back of my cord to keep it from pulling through.

Wow! In less than 20 minutes I completed a really nice looking cable hideaway / storage box that looks a lot better than what I had before. Plus this keeps me from snagging a cable to take with me in my purse and then not having one at home. Let me know in the comments if you have and suggestions and have fun crafting!
If you like this DIY post, please consider clicking on my amazon associate links throughout the post or the ad on the right to purchase your supplies, which will support my writing and SoDu Parents Posse. Thanks!