I LOVE my reusable grocery bags!  I even remember to take them with me to the grocery store about 95% of the time.  But we didn’t have a great place to store them, so they just sat in an annoying pile on the dryer, and got in the way.  Not long ago, I was walking through Target and came upon some wire mesh magazine holders in the office supply section, and an idea was born.  I brought home two of them, and used one in the laundry room to hold our grocery bags, and one in the garage to hold our reusable Costco bags.  I just hung them on the wall using Monkey Hooks (which are AWESOME, by the way!).  This picture is terrible, but this is a Monkey Hook:

You can see one that’s already been installed in the wall in the upper right corner of the photo.  We discovered these bad boys when we first moved to IL, and promptly discarded all of our fancy photo hanging equipment.  These are cheap, easy to use, and in my opinion, much sturdier.

Anyway… Now my grocery bags are neatly tucked away on the wall, and not scattered all over the counters and other horizontal surfaces.

Fast forward to yesterday… Ryder and I were on another trip to Target, and happened to discover other mesh baskets that were similar to the magazine holders, only they were shorter.  The best part was, they were on CLEARANCE!!!  So for less than $4, I couldn’t just leave them sitting there.  I bought three, even though I only had a for-sure use for one of them.  Our laundry room is very small, and serves as the passageway to and from the garage.  Keeping it clear of clutter is quite a challenge.  There are a couple of small wire shelves on one wall that hold my laundry detergent and cleaning supplies, but my Swiffer is always getting knocked down and usually ends up falling into the dogs’ water bowl.  With the help of the Monkey Hooks, I stuck one of the wire baskets next to our coat rack.  It’s now a great place to stash my sh-mop covers (www.cleanteam.com) and my Swiffer.  I’d like to get another basket to put on the other side of the coat rack for hats and gloves.

It didn’t take long for me to figure out what to do with the other two baskets.  Using the same strategy as with the grocery bags, I attached them to the wall above my sewing machine.  Now I can keep all the bits and pieces for my current projects in there where they’re out of reach of a certain curious monkey I know.  And the added bonus is that my sewing table is instantly clutter-free.  I’m gonna get two more baskets for the other side of the window to help minimize the clutter on my computer desk as well.  They’ll be a great place for assignments I’m working on, etc… and Ryder can’t reach them.  YAY!!!

This wasn’t a major undertaking… cheap and easy, which makes it even better.  But SOOOOOO effective.  Gotta love the little things in life, huh?  🙂