brilliant or crazy, you get to decide!

I've been having TROUBLE this year. With school papers! Every year, I come up with a new organizational system, one that breaks down soon after.

This year, was my "throw everything in a pile and sort out the pile every night" system. Lemme just tell you now, that is NOT a good system.

Especially when your PILE resides in the dining room, which is where we do homework, eat all of our meals and keep the recycling bin.

Things are getting lost, getting food on them, turned in late... I'm having trouble keeping track of administrative type papers like lunch order forms and homework papers, like PROJECT NOT DUE UNTIL NEXT FRIDAY VERY IMPORTANT INSTRUCTION PAPER.

I've been searching for a solution and saw this in the last Ballard Designs catalog.



Maybe a wall pocket for each kid would work! I've never tried a system like that. (I've done chronological-by-due-date, schoolwork vs. paperwork, color sorting (also not a good system, but pretty!), the aforementioned PILE system.)

I recently gave up trying to make our dining room look like a Nice Dining Room. It's our hub. It needs to work like a hub. I made a little mud room section because the kids had nowhere to put their backpacks and coats. Because those fancy dinner parties I envisioned myself throwing? Yeah, you guessed it. Never happen.

Realism takes over. So let's hang some wall pockets on the wall!

Except, being that they are from Ballard Designs, they are a little pricey. $89 for the four-slot one. And, knowing my history here, I'm just not SURE this system will work for me. I might EVENTUALLY want to buy the Ballard ones, but I'd like to try it out first.

So I checked office supply stores and organizing stores and even IKEA and OF COURSE, since I had already seen the nice ones from Ballard, NOTHING looked good to me.

So I started brainstorming... (that was that burning smell the other day)

What could I hang on the wall and keep papers in???

The logical answer, of course...

GIFT BAGS!

I went to my basement stash of gift bags just to look at sizes and see if papers actually fit in them, and I found this



A Target CLEARANCE pack of 6 toile gift bags! Aren't they cute?! Can you SEE that price tag? $3.24 for SIX! They are even a little sturdier than your usual Target bag because they are from the wedding aisle. They are supposed to be used as goody bags for out-of-town guests.

(Sorry out-of-town guests to my wedding. I had NO IDEA I was supposed to make you a goody bag!)

And guess what? They are the perfect size!

Then, I had ANOTHER flash of brilliance. (Seriously, check your smoke detectors.)

YEARS AGO, I saw some numbered hooks in a magazine layout and I went to the buying guide and immediately ordered them. They are numbered 1-4. At the time, I didn't even HAVE 4 kids, but I thought they would be so cute.

Ok, the receipt was still in the box. This was 2004.

Then I promptly stuck them in a closet and never used them. (They aren't really strong enough for towels or coats, and I never had another use.)

But ALAS! Here they are:



And they're black and white... LIKE THE GIFT BAGS!

Go ahead, call me genius. Here's what we ended up with.



Ok, need to remove that tag that says Welcome! We're so glad you are here!



Ok, much better.

Now mind you, this system totally cleared up The Pile, but it still did not stop me from forgetting to turn in the Pizza Tuesday Order Form you see there in bag number 2 on time. But at least no food was spilled on it!

So you decide. Brilliance. Craziness.

Vote below.