Monday, September 12, 2011

Mondays with Martha

This week's tip from Martha is on ring storage. Not the kind you wear, but the kind that might be on your workbench.

"It's hard to keep track of small hardware such as washers, grommets, and nuts. Here's a handy way to organize them by size and type: String them on shower curtain rings. Hang the metal rings on a board above your workbench so the loose hardware will be even easier to spot."



Oh, Martha, if you only saw our garage, you'd see that how to store our bolts and grommets is the least of our problems. I'm pretty sure we don't even own any grommets. But if we ever get to this level of organization, now I know what to do.

So for the really handy tip of the day, I'm going to share my new school-year organization system. I've always had an "in box" on my desk to collect the papers that kids bring to me. School calendars, weekly newsletters from teachers, piano lesson schedules . . . everything went into the basket. So did  my own stuff--recipes, books I was reading, coupons. It was not a good system. So this year I got smart and bought this.


It has a cubby for each child plus one for me (which Abigail will someday use). So far it's working pretty well. The kids are still learning to put their weekly homework in there, but they'll figure it out soon I'm sure. Last week when I needed Bradford's preschool papers, I knew right where they were. And the girls are able to find their own orchestra schedules, etc.

I got both the organizer and the pretty folders (William Morris designs) on Amazon.

3 comments:

  1. Do you think magazine racks from IKEA would work as well? I can't tell from the picture if it's a set on a desk sort of organizer. In my home I guess wall-mount would be better, since the size of my desk space after computer is not very big :) Thanks for the tip, Nancy. Maybe you should come over and give a personalized overhaul of my organization space, although there's not much more to try :) Thanks. MB

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  2. cool! I am looking for something like that that could be mounted on the fridge...right now I use big magnetic clips for each school/child...but it's messy looking...I will have to peruse Amazon. thanks!

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  3. Margaret, this is on the kitchen wall, under the calendar. I'm not sure if a magnetic one would be strong enough, Jules. The thing itself is pretty heavy. Maybe near your back door? or around the corner from the fridge?

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