Tips and Tricks: Tablecloth clips

Do you remember those cheapo tablecloth clips that hold your tablecloth down on a picnic table? I remember them vividly from my childhood summers eating outside (usually holding down a vinyl checkered tablecloth). I found a set a few years ago for $1 at Joanns with their retro picnic supplies. The silly nostalgic in me picked up a set and thought I'd use them someday.

Well, I've found a use for them!!

Instead of holding a tablecloth to a table, I use them to hold down a large sheet of newsprint (you can buy end rolls at our newspaper for just a couple bucks). The paper completely covers the top of a card table and Ellie can color to her heart's content without me worrying that she's going to color on the dining room table. She loves it. Here she is coloring with a friend last week:

Ellie really likes to color on the BIG paper!

My Solution: Fridge Magnets

I love fridge magnets. I think they're a great tool for helping kids learn the alphabet and it gives them something to play with in the kitchen so they're not so underfoot. Unfortunately, my daughter preferred to spread them all over the floor when she was finished playing with them, and thus my kitchen looked like this all too often:

Please tell me it looks familiar to someone else out there, too! It drove me CRAZY. Always stepping on those little magnets. Ellie running into the kitchen and slipping on them. I tried to make her pick them up, but it was just a long, tedious, tiring process every time.

So one day I was at Target and I found this little pouch to go on a fridge or filing cabinet. I bought it as a place for us to put our receipts instead of having them pile up on the counter. It was a hot spot reduction purchase, so I was okay with the price. It was around $5.

I got home and really liked how it looked on the fridge, and then I realized it would probably work well as a place to store those pesky fridge magnets, too. Sure enough, they fit nicely inside. My fridge front was a whole lot less cluttered now! But the real test was whether or not Ellie would still play with them, and what she would do with them once she was done playing. You know what? She recognized that they have a home now and she puts them away when she's done using them! The few times they do end up all scattered on the floor (usually when one of her little friends is playing with them, too) I just ask her to pick them up and she puts them all back in the pouch! It's pretty amazing. She's happy, I'm happy.... it's a win-win for us.

I'm sure you could make something like this yourself. It's just a fabric pouch with four heavy duty magnets sewn into the back. But I don't have the time right now to make one, and I really like how the brown looks on my white fridge. So while I think $5 is sort of pricey for a little bin to keep magnets in, it's a small price to pay for a little bit of order and sanity in my day.

Tips and Tricks: Flashcards

A while back I bought Ellie some flashcards at the Target $pot (can you tell I love that place?). They just have pictures and words on them, and are very general. But she loves going through them with Leif. Unfortunately, they were not meant to withstand the rigors of toddlerhood, so they are all bent and crumpled, and I'm always finding them scattered about on the floor. Then last week I got an idea...

I laminated the flash cards with clear contact paper and trimmed around the edges, rounded the corners and all that jazz. Then I used my Cropadile (a heavy duty hole punch for those of you who aren't crafters) to punch a hole in the corner of each of the flashcards. I put them on a ring so they can be removed if needed, but stay together otherwise. And once again, Ellie loves them! Plus they are getting crumpled less and will last longer because they're laminated! And I don't have to find them all over my house...