Gross. I hate getting splashed with the dirty dishwater that hangs out in flipped cups. Don’t you? Thankfully, one Cook’s Illustrated (one of my favorite magazines) reader had a great solution. It’s a simple trick that works like a charm.

Next time you have a top rack full of flip-able plasticware just toss a cooling rack on the top. It’s heavy enough to keep the cups and bowls in position yet open enough to let the soap and water work their magic.

It’s an easy trick that will make your next dishwasher unloading a whole lot easier. Just thought I’d pass it on.

It’s Monday again. Time for a recap of a few fabulous ideas from around the web. All of these sites were featured on my Facebook fan page last week so, if you haven’t had a chance, you should check them out. If you liked them as much as I did, take a minute and let the content authors know. Bloggers love comments; so share the love when you stop by their sites.

Remember, if you’d like instant access to the links I love and a few other tips and tricks, you can sign up to be a follower on Facebook by clicking the Facebook icon at the top of the page or by following this link and then clicking the Like button. Here are the links from last week…

Taste Spotting

I love looking at vibrant blog photography; especially when the the pictures are focused on fabulous foods like the recipe links found on this great site.

The Idea Room

Want to add a splash of color to your kids’ bath and get them cleaner at the same time? Check out this cool bath paint tutorial.

Skip To My Lou

Tomorrow is the first official day of summer for my kids. I think we’ll kick things off with one of my favorite childhood FHE treats – homemade pulled taffy like the recipe on this wonderful site.

You’ll spend countless hours of your life lugging, sorting, and folding laundry.  So why not get supplies that make the job a little easier?  These smart, stacking laundry baskets are among my favorites.  I usually fold laundry on the kitchen table or my bed but I hate constantly bending over to reach the clothes.  These cool baskets from WalMart solve that problem for me.  When the handles are folded in the baskets stack, allowing me to grab clothes from the top without any bending.  When the handles are out, the baskets nestle inside each other and tuck away neatly.  As an added bonus they also have wheels which makes moving my laundry (and my toddler on occasion) tons easier.  Just thought I’d pass it on.

Looking for another great laundry link?  Check out this handy stain-fighting site.  Just plug in your specific stain and it will give you a host of home-based treatment options.  My favorite stain fighters?  Liquid Tide poured directly on the stain and generic Oxy Clean added to the load.  How about you? What laundry tools do you love?

Here are the links to the rest of the series…

Tackling Laundry Mini-Tip 1: Set a Schedule and Stick To It

Tackling Laundry Mini-Tip 3: Incentivize to Minimize

Tackling Laundry Mini-Tip 4: Hang Out Outside the Closet

Tackling Laundry Mini-Tip 5: What You Give is What You Get

Laundry Tackling Tip 1: Set a Schedule and Stick to It

Lots of Moms subscribe to the ‘do a load of laundry every day’ method but not me.  If fact, my project-minded personality finds this idea kind of depressing.  I like to be able to look at the empty baskets on laundry day and relish in the thought that I don’t have touch them for another week.  That being said, I also have seven people’s clothes, sheets, and towels to launder so doing it all on one day is out (my 12 year-old Kenmore dryer just can’t take that kind of stress).

At our house I tackle different laundry on different days and keep track of it on my iPhone calendar and Mom Game Plan chart.  On Monday I wash and fold parent laundry, Tuesday and Saturday I do kid laundry, and every other Wednesday I do linens.  Each of these groups of laundry has it’s own basket around the house so I don’t have to pre-sort anything – I just grab the basket and head to the laundry room. By keeping things separate during the washing phase I’m able to streamline the sorting/folding phase later which saves me tons of time over the course of the week.

Want to read another great solution for simpler sorting?  Check out this great post from OrgJunkie.  I thought it was brilliant!  Just thought I’d pass it on.

Here are the links to the rest of the series…

Tackling Laundry Mini-Tip 2: Get the Right Equipment

Tackling Laundry Mini-Tip 3: Incentivize to Minimize

Tackling Laundry Mini-Tip 4: Hang Out Outside the Closet

Tackling Laundry Mini-Tip 5: What You Give is What You Get

1.  Cover Your Bases

Newspaper and paper towels can only go so far.  When you want real protection for your table you need something stronger.  My personal favorite?  Puppy training pads.  They’re designed to catch wet messes under puppy cages so they’re perfect for this project.  Essentially they’re like a giant, flat, super-absorbent diaper.  The pads have a plastic backing so they offer great protection – even against big spills like those you see below.  They also have built-in adhesive strips on the back so they won’t move around your table once you’ve got them in place.  Best of all, they’re totally disposable so you can toss the whole mess in the trash once the fun is over.  You can buy a pack of 20 for around $7 in the pet aisle of WalMart or Target.

2.  Secure the Perimeter

My kids are terrible with cups.  We rarely make it through a dinner without someone dousing the table (and themselves) with their drink.  Since the thought of a dozen cups of permanent dye tipping over scares me to no end, I hedge my bets by putting all the dye cups in tin foil oven pans.  The disposable pans catch most of the big spills and keep the majority of the dye off my table … and my kids.

3.  Stop the Fights Before They Start

“Hey, that was my egg!” or “That’s not fair, she did more eggs than me!”  Sound familiar?  Avoid the whining this year by giving each kid their own special container of eggs.  Cut the lids off your egg cartons and then cut the base into sections.  Give one section to each child.  We did 9 eggs each (an 18 pack cut in half – see picture above).  Not only will they have their own egg stash to enjoy, but they’ll also have a safe place to put their eggs once they fish them out of the dye.

4.  Keep It Together

Once all the eggs have been dyed and the mess cleaned up a whole new dilemma emerges.  Where to put all those colored beauties?  Since the original egg cartons are probably covered with drips from the previous step try this simple trick.  Place your finished eggs in a mini muffin tin.  The 24 small compartments will keep the eggs from banging together and help them store neatly in the fridge.

There you have it.  Four cheap and easy ways to make the Easter egg coloring process a little easier.  If you’d like even more tips on this topic check out this great post from Make and Takes; one of my favorite idea blogs.  Good luck.  I hope you have a happy, stain-free Easter!  Just thought I’d pass it on.

All you need to create it are two boxes of tissues and a few rubber bands.

1. Open the side of one box and pull out the entire fold of tissues.  Place the whole fold into a ziploc bag – you’ll use it to refill for your other box later.
2. Re-fold the flaps of the empty tissue box and place the two tissue boxes together.  Be sure to sandwich the side that has the open fold.
3. Snap on two rubber bands to hold the two boxes together.

There you have it.  An instant tissue trash can!  Now you can send your child to bed (or anywhere else) with a box of tissues and a place to put the used ones.  Isn’t that great?  To empty the used tissues just pull off the rubber bands, reopen the side flaps and dump out the old tissues into the trash.  If you run out of clean tissues before the cold breaks just open the side flap of the clean box and refill it with the tissues from the ziploc bag.

It’s a simple fix that costs almost nothing and will save you from picking up loads of germy tissues.  Trust me, I’ve wiped enough little noses to know.  Just thought I’d pass it on.

So, for her last birthday, I created this simple catch-all for her collection.  To create it, I bought this plastic bead organizer in the craft section of WalMart for around $2. I wanted to make it unique to her (it was a birthday gift, after all) so I opted to add her name and the title of her collection to the lid of the box. First, I printed out the details on a sheet of paper and then taped the paper to the inside of the clear lid for a guide. From there, I simply closed the lid and traced the lettering with my sparkle paint pens (purchased in the same craft aisle of WalMart for $8). Once it was dry (about 20 min) I removed the paper template from the lid.

Our basic rule is that she can keep as many rocks as will fit in her box.  Once it’s full she has to start purging her least favorites to make room for any new additions. Not all her rocks fit in these small slots of course, so she’s allowed to have up to three big ones on her shelf – anything else she finds has to live in the flower bed outside.

Of all the presents Emily opened that day this is the one she uses the most.  If you ask her, she’d tell you that her favorite part is that the lid closes very tightly so it’s virtually impossible for her inquisitive little brother to raid her stash.  She likes to display her Rockin’ Rock Collection box on her shelf but it could just as easily stack vertically in a bookshelf or get tucked under her bed.

So, for around $10 (and almost no effort) I created a simple solution that keeps my daughter’s tiny treasures organized and out of my way. If you’ve got kids that love to hoard stuff too, you should definitely give this easy tip a try. Just thought I’d pass it on.

One of my favorite ways to combat the motherhood brain-drain dilemma (without locking myself in a closet) is to listen to free podcasts throughout the day.  Lately I’ve been really into the ‘Stuff You Missed in History Class‘ podcast.

My high school world history teacher was also the varsity football coach so my grasp of global history was a bit rocky to begin with (when our team was prepping for the State Championships he had us watch Last of the Mohicans repeatedly instead of covering the chapters on Native Americans).  I studied a lot of Art History in college, but my actual knowledge of world history and events is definitely lacking.

Maybe that’s why I find this podcast so fascinating.  They take on familiar characters and stories in history and manage to break them down into interesting and understandable chunks.  The podcast is hosted by a pair of witty and engaging women so it almost feels as if you’re going out to lunch with some history-loving friends rather than a listening to a formal history lecture.  Their easy-going style is right up my alley.  It’s the perfect accompaniment to mundane tasks like folding laundry, mopping floors, or waiting in the pick-up line at school.

If you’re brain is in need of a little historical brush-up, you should definitely give this podcast a try.  I download it onto my iPhone from directly from iTunes but you can also listen to the podcast on your PC or download it to your phone or music device by following this link to their archives.  Just thought I’d pass it on.

Do you have any podcasts you love?  Have you come up with other strategies to keep your brain in-the-know throughout the day?  If so, I hope you’ll share your ideas with the rest of us in the comments area below.  Thanks!

I purchased this plastic cart at WalMart for around $12.  I think it’s designed with scrapbookers in mind.  It has several small drawers on the top and three larger drawers below.  I keep it stashed in my front closet – just around the corner from the kitchen table where most of our homework happens.

The smaller top drawers are dedicated to housing school supplies (I labeled them with my P-Touch labeler).  The first holds scratch paper and lined writing paper.  The second and third hold random school supplies like pencils, markers, crayons and erasers.  I also keep a few teaching aides in there such as timers, dice and post-its.  The fourth drawer holds all my dry-erase supplies because I love using dry erase boards to help my kids practice math and spelling.  I bought each of my kids a small Expo dry-erase board at WalMart for around $4 each.  I love them because they’re small enough to fit in the drawers and they’re lined on one side for easy handwriting practice.  You can find them near the Crayola stuff in the office supplies area.

The three larger drawers are the kids’ “homework boxes”.  They each have their own and it’s labeled with their name.  Inside I have them keep their reading logs, spelling lists, library books, and any homework supplies that are specific to them (for example, they each have a set of math flash cards that are specific to their grade).

I love the homework boxes because they’re so easy for my kids to work with.  Everything is at their height and it’s all in one place.  When they’re scrambling in the morning to find their library books my first question is always “Did you check your homework box?”  When it’s Friday morning and I’m trying to give my son a quick spelling refresher before his test, I have him grab his list from his box.  When I’m trying to get dinner going and there’s a mess of homework covering the table, I have them bring their boxes to the table and dump their stuff in.

I can’t say it’s the prettiest system in the world, but it works!  Remember, the goal of organization when it comes to family life is not to achieve perfect order.  The goal is to teach your kids to keep track of their own stuff and to see the benefits of staying organized.  In my opinion, it’s our job as a parents to provide the tools and training.  It’s their job to do the rest.  This inexpensive homework box is a great example of how you can do just that.   Just thought I’d pass it on.

Create a Drop Zone

Schools have easy to reach coat racks and long bays of lockers for a reason. Teachers know that helping kids manage their stuff is critical for a smooth transition from home to school. Follow their lead by creating a drop zone within your home where each of your children has a dedicated area for backpacks, jackets, and shoes. If you don’t have a mudroom wall to work with, consider revamping your hall closet. Ditch the hangers and install several rows of sturdy hooks at varying heights for backpacks and jackets. Attach a clear hanging shoe organizer to the door to catch shoes, sports supplies, and cold weather gear.

Free Up The Fridge

Each day our kids come home with binders full of papers for us to review. Newsletters, volunteer requests, homework notices… somehow we’re expected to manage it all. Get control of the paperwork by picking up a simple file organizer from your local office supply store. Label the first section “Must See,” the second “FYI,” and the third “Brag Box.” Papers that need signatures or involve immediate action go in “Must See.” Newsletters and PTA notices go in “FYI.” Art projects and graded papers go to the “Brag Box.” Magnetic versions are perfect for the fridge. Wall-mounted styles work well on mudroom walls or inside entry doors.

Keep It Together

When it’s time for practice, are your kids digging through baskets and dumping our drawer to find everything they need? A simple set of lingerie bags may be just the solution you’re looking for. After the kids come home from dance class or soccer practice, have them put all their clothing into one of these large mesh bags before they toss it into the hamper. When laundry day comes around, simply add the entire bag to your load. Once it’s dry, have your kids add the bag to their weekly clothing organizer or clip the bags to the wall in your mudroom for easy access.

*This post is an excerpt from an article published by Organize Magazine, Sept/Oct 2007, Volume 02, pg 42-49, written by Maria Eckersley, photos by Lanola Kathleen Stone.