As a Mom, sometimes it seems like I spend half my day “picking up” after my family. I often spend so much time getting the small stuff in order that I never make it to the deep cleaning. Consequently, I’m always looking for cheap tools to help speed up the the process. Two of my favorites are my Butler’s Broom and my ultra-handy Grabber.

It’s kind of amazing how quickly the kitchen floor can go from clean to crumb-covered. Even if the mess is isolated to a certain spot (like that pesky area under the stools) - the kitchen gets so much foot traffic that the initial mess seems to spread within minutes. My solution? Catch the mess early with a Butler’s Broom - or better yet, make your kids do it. I bought this handy little tool in the cleaning supplies section of Wal Mart for around $10. Its short size makes it very kid-friendly and allows it to tuck away neatly on my pantry door. It’s perfect for sweeping up small messes and reaching into tight corners. As a bonus, the handle-mounted dustpan saves you from bending down and it’s large enough to hold even the bigger kitchen clean-ups. I’ve used mine several times a day for the past two years and - although it’s starting to signs of wear - still works like a charm.

My Grabber was another Wal Mart find that I can’t live without. On any given day, I probably pick up dozens of random items off my floors, tables, sofas (and pretty much any other horizontal surface). I guess it might have something to do with the 4 people in our family that are less than 40 inches tall. You long time readers might remember the stash boxes I created to help deal with this pick-up-after-yourselves problem. Although the stash boxes and our weekly stash box challenge help a ton, I still hate bending over a zillion times a day to pick up what remains. That’s where this handy tool comes in. Designed to help people with disabilities extend their reach, the Grabber is perfect for Moms looking to streamline their clean-ups.  It’s narrow and lightweight which makes it incredibly convenient for grabbing kid shoes, papers, matchbox cars, couch cushions and pretty much everything else that wanders out of place each day. Best of all, the long handle virtually eliminates the need to bend over and provides extended reach for when your son decides to stash his rotten apple core behind the way-too-heavy-to-move-by-yourself armoire.

I loved having my Grabber during pregnancy - especially during that last trimester when I couldn’t bend over to tie my own shoes, let alone pick up Polly Pockets. If you’ve got a baby shower to attend in the near future, I highly recommend skipping the sea of traditional pastel baby presents and picking up a Grabber instead. Trust me, yours will be the first thank you card she’ll write! You can find the Grabber at various sites online or in the “as seen on TV” section of your local Wal Mart for around $10. Just thought I’d pass it on.

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About a year ago, we added a TV to the toy room in our basement. The kids loved having it, but I hated going up and down the stairs over and over again to help them find a good channel. One afternoon I came down to find my 6 year old watching a steamy soap opera and decided I needed to do something. We almost got rid of the TV; then I found this handy solution.

I bought this universal kid-friendly remote on eBay for around $9. It’s called a Weemote and it’s made by Phillips. It’s designed to allow you to program up to 5 mom-approved channels. The remote has big, colorful, numbered buttons that are very easy for the kids to learn; even my 3 year old can do it. For example, if they want to find the Disney channel, they don’t have to remember numbers, they just push the yellow star. There’s also a power button, volume control, and a channel changer that will only rotate through the 5 approved channels.

It can be programmed to work with any TV. The set-up was incredibly simple. It took me about 2 minutes. My treadmill is downstairs too, so if want to bypass all the Weemote programming I just grab the original remote or manually push the buttons on the TV. I noticed online that they also make a DVD player version, but I haven’t tried it yet. If any of you have, make a comment on this post so I can find out if you like it as much as I like this one.

To help my kids keep track of their remote, I stuck some sticky-back velcro on both the back of the remote and the side of the TV. Now it has a place and doesn’t get swept into the toy bucket on clean-up day. Sadly, it won’t stop the fighting over who gets to hold the remote, but I haven’t changed a channel in over a year which makes it a keeper in my book. Just thought I’d pass it on.

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At $20 a piece, DVDs present a problem. We buy them to keep our kids entertained while we get some much needed Mom time, but at that price we hesitate to let our kids touch them. Rather than be the constant middle man between the DVD player and my kids, I created this simple binder system.

The first step (and this is a tough one for some people) is to ditch all the plastic cases. The fact of the matter is that most scratches come not from using the DVDs but from kids trying to take them out or put them back in their cases. Save yourself the hassles, the space and the scratches by purchasing these inexpensive and compact CD cases.

I purchased three different colored cases to help keep my family organized. The first case is for kid’s DVDs. The second is for Mom & Dad movies. The third holds all the “bonus features” DVDs that we never watch but can’t seem to throw away.

The color coded cases and the easy flip-through, clear sleeves help them find exactly what they’re looking for. Better yet, there’s no particular order to the DVDs so when they need to put one away, they flip through the sleeves until they find an empty slot. The sleeves are made of soft, flexible plastic so scratches are a thing of the past.

We’ve also found them very handy for road trips. Rather than sort through which DVDs we want to keep in the car, we grab the entire case and slide it under the front seat. It’s also very handy when you want to keep your Mom & Dad DVDs out of the hands of little kids or babysitters. It’s not a fancy system, but it simple, cheap and makes life just a little easier. Just thought I’d pass it on.

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After my last post, I went through my games and thought I’d add a few more details.

First off, there are tons of choices in these leftover-type containers. I thought I’d pass on a few of my favorites.

For the larger-size games (pictured here) I like the Glad-brand “family” size containers. For the smaller games, like Sorry or Monopoly, I use Rubbermaid brand. I can’t remember what the containers are called on the label, but they have the number “2″ on the lids and bases. Rubbermaid offers these number 2 containers in both open and divided styles. The divided containers are great for games with money, like Life or Monopoly, because they allow you to store the money separate from all the pieces.

As for the game rules, I stash those in a sheet protector that’s stored in the trunk with the boards. There are a few games that print the rules on the box, but most common game instructions are available online if you search Google. Simply print what you need and add them to your packet.

One more loosely related tip, if you have any of those obnoxiously loud kids games like Duck Pond or The Fishing Game, you may want to experiment with the batteries. I found out, completely by accident, that if I removed one of the batteries from our Duck Pond game the pond would still move but the annoying quacking sound was disabled. Just thought I’d pass it on.

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Thanks to Julianne for your question about games and puzzles. I’m a big game lover. My house has tons of games and puzzles. However, I hate the bulky, awkward boxes they come in. So I opted to pitch the cardboard and replace it with stackable plastic.

Like I said, I have tons of games, so I used the most inexpensive container I could find. These disposable plastic containers designed for leftovers were both cheap and shallow (unlike most tougher plastic containers). In most cases, I just cut the image of the puzzle or game right off the original box (generally the sides work well) and stuck it to the lid with double-stick duct tape.

I used my label-maker (WalMart $15) to make a small label to put on the back of each folded game board. The game boards are stacked together and are kept in the trunk with the game piece containers.

I also have one container that stashes extras. In it, I keep a few extra dice, a timer, some random pieces from old games, a notepad and some pencils.

Unfortunately not all my games will store this neatly. Games like Connect Four, Hullaballoo, and Battleship are still stuck in their original containers. But the vast majority of my games are now contained and much more accessible.

As a side note, Julianne, if you were referring to the wooden-type kids puzzles, I have a bunch of those too. I treat these like they are one toy rather than individual toys. I keep all the pieces for all the puzzles in one container. The puzzle boards stack on my son’s shelf next to the container. Whenever he wants to do a puzzle, he lays out all the boards, dumps out the container and finds the pieces he needs. The bonus here is that he’ll stay focused much longer. When it was just one puzzle, he’d finish too quickly and get bored. Now it takes time and keeps him interested. Of course, it also offers a very quick clean-up…a must for me. Just thought I’d pass it on.

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Maybe I was just way out of the loop on this one, perhaps you’ve all been using these for years, but I just discovered them and had to pass it on.

I’ve been using the 3M command adhesive hooks forever and found them very useful. So, when I happened upon these picture hangers based on the same ‘easy-remove’ technology, I had to give them a shot. By the way, I found them near the hooks in the Wal-Mart hardware department. I believe they were around $3 for 3 hangers.

I couldn’t believe how easy they were! I’m horrible at hanging pictures. I hate all the measuring and leveling. I also have a newly painted house and dreaded putting holes in all the walls. These handy little velcro hooks provided a great solution. Essentially, they work like the hooks. Whenever you decided you want to remove the hanger (off the back of your picture or off the wall) you simply pull down on the hanging tab and it pops right off. The two velcro strips can separate without pulling the strip off the wall, so it’s really easy to pull all your pictures off for cleaning and then put them right back on.

When I created this arrangement, I laid them out on the floor and figured out how I would want them to look on the wall. Then, I took a picture of the floor arrangement with my digital camera. After that, I stuck both pieces of the velcro hangers on the backs of all of the frames. I then placed the frames on the wall (starting from the center and working out) by referencing the thumbnail-size picture on my camera. In less than 10 mintues, I had a cute, well spaced arrangement on my wall and I didn’t use a nail, measuring tape or level. Better yet, when I get sick of it or when I need to add new pictures, I can easily rearrange the pictures without any damage to my wall. Just thought I’d pass it on.

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