Desk Organizer: Trash to Treasure (with unexpected success)

So I set out to make a desk organizer for my new crafting corner (YAY! crafting! You know, it's the first time I have had all of my arts and crafts stuff in one place before? it's a very exciting moment). So I gathered together some tin cans. They were too uniform in size so I decided to mix in some glass jars. There was too much roundness going on so I took some old stacking blocks and turned them upside-down. Eventually, I got this snazzy configuration:

Now, one thing I would change about what I did next: paint first, then glue. Buuuuuut, in my defense, I was in a hurry. The downstairs has been a disaster for a week longer than I wanted and it's freaking me out. So I was not interested, initially in prettiness. I wanted function and by golly I wanted it now. 

Thus, I glued these pieces to the cardboard, waited for it to dry and then took it out to garage and painted them.

sorry it's dark, the shop has poor lighting.

It looked....better. But not amazing. I wasn't supposed to care though! I wasn't going for amazing! I was going for functional! BUT BUT BUT....it COULD be pretty! Right? How long could it take?

/sigh

Yeah...the internal battle began. My need to have things be pretty started fighting with my need to have immediate usefulness. As I stared at the uniform hammered steel colored organizer, contemplating, the need for pretty...won.

I started to pick at it, put one color here, another there. Decoupaged old pages and fun words. There had been no original vision, so I wasn't expecting much. And...yeah...it's not the best thing I've ever made, but it was unexpectedly cute! I was so excited by this turn of events that I really loved it by the end. 

Isn't it cute?? :) It got a bit of steampunk influence. See, the reason I had to do hammered steel paint is because my white paint up and died! It's a full can, you can feel it, it's not clogged, it just doesn't let the paint out! anyway, since I was in a hurry to make this happen I just grabbed the next best neutral I had. When I started adding color, all we really had was left over paint from our steam punk costumes. It works though :) My living room is burnt orange and neutrals, I like to think it ties it all together. 

I cut the cardboard off the edges to finish it off. And added a penny to the flower :) I just love it, I do!