No More Trash Bag MacGyvering

This guest post was written by one of our summer interns, Dorothy. She is working in our marketing department!

I’ve spent the summer working and relaxing here in Huntersville, so I decided to change things up and spend the weekend at home with my family. Home for me is a cozy townhome where my dad and brother live. Little did I know that my teenage brother and his friends have also deemed our quaint suburban dwelling their new hangout spot – lucky me! This usually means lots of videogames, lots of snacking, and inevitably lots of trash. Before the 4th of July festivities even started, our trashcan was overflowing with garbage.

Used coffee filters, egg shells, food wrappers: not so easy on the eyes, or the nose! Yikes, you can see the bag already slipping into the can. Dad was happy to hear that I brought home the 52qt LinerLock Spring Top Wastebasket to try out.  

He loved the sleek look of the black can and was eager to try out his very first covered trashcan – a breath of fresh air, literally! After years of somewhat “MacGyvering” his trash bags into place, my dad was at first skeptical of the can’s easy locking ability. However, he reported back that he was pleasantly surprised by the wire latches’ firm grip on the trash bag and how well the bag fit into the can.

"The container is so closely matched to the size of the bag, there is no way for the bag to slip lower in the can and come loose from the rim.”

My dad was able to secure the trash bag in a few simple steps:

1. click the lid of the can to the base
2. press the tab on the lid to open it
3. place the bag inside the can as you usually would
4. lift the wire latches in the lid and wrap the edges of the bag around them
5. lock the latches back in place and you’re good to go! 

So do your worst little brother; we no longer have to worry about the unpleasantries that come with several teenage boys – at least regarding the amount of garbage they produce. Overall, my dad seems pleased with his new Liner Lock can.

Now it’s time to vent about your trash bag troubles! Leave a comment below telling us a horror story about when your trash bag fell into the can. Funny, smelly, downright disgusting – product manager and fellow blogger Shannon Joyner along with Dorothy will choose 3 of the best (or should we say worst) stories to receive one Black 52qt LinerLock can each. All comments must be in by July 26th at midnight. Please include an email address in your comments so we can contact the winners. All entries without an email address will not be judged. Good luck!

This contest has ended. Thank you to everyone that entered!!!

June Ratings and Reviews Sweepstakes

At Rubbermaid.com, we recently launched a sweepstakes! It's called the 'Rubbermaid Reviews & Ratings Sweepstakes'.

Four winners will each receive a Produce Saver 4 piece set and a Carafe.

This sweepstakes will run from 5/25/2010 through 6/30/2010. For every product review or Tips & Solutions review you write you'll get one entry into the sweepstakes.

To get started, browse our product catalog to find a product to review. Or you can read one of our Tips & Solution articles and write a review/comment on the article.

Good Luck!

Rubbermaid Scavenger Hunt

CONGRATULATIONS TO SONYA OF PENNYPINCHINGPARENT.COM. SHE WAS THE WINNER OF THE RUBBERMAID EASY FIND LIDS 20PC FOOD STORAGE SET.

It's been a little while since I've posted but I have a good excuse. We have so many new bloggers on the Rubbermaid Adventures in Organization blog I haven't had to write a post. But... I've missed it.

To make up for my lack of blogging I'm going to dive back in with a Scavenger Hunt Contest.  That's right, a super-duper Rubbermaid scavenger hunt.

Here's the way it will work. Below are a handful of questions that you need to find the answer for. Once you have all the answers collected please leave a comment on this post with all of your answers.  I will collect each comment and edit it prior to posting so the answers aren't viewable by everyone. At the end of the scavenger hunt I will take all the correct responses and randomly pick a winner. The prize will be a Rubbermaid Easy Find Lids 20pc set. The scavenger hunt will end Friday, December 11th at 11am Eastern.  The winner will be announced on this post at that time.

Q1 - What is the name of the Rubbermaid Garage Organization System?

Q2 - Name 3 of the 5 Rubbermaid food storage products that utilize the Easy Find Lids system.

Q3 - How many Rubbermaid bloggers are there?

Q4 - What is the URL for our Flickr photostream?

Q5 - What image do we use for the profile photo on our Facebook Fan Page?

Happy Hunting!

How to Unclutter with Evernote and Rubbermaid in 4 Steps

Evernote recently contacted us at Rubbermaid about working on an organizational project. In case you didn't know, Rubbermaid is great for organizing your stuff and Evernote is great at organizing information electronically so you don't forget anything. So could we combine these two? Evernote decided to try! They organized their storage closet and it turned out great! Read about the four steps they used to organize with Rubbermaid and Evernote products:

http://blog.evernote.com/2009/08/26/unclutter-with-evernote-and-rubbermaid-in-4-steps/

Go read the post!!! It has some great advice about remembering what you put where...and you MIGHT be able to win some Rubbermaid storage containers. I mean MAYBE, POSSIBLY...we're TOTALLY giving away some containers so you can try the four steps yourself :)

Easy Find Lids - Rubbermaid Employee Rivalry Contest

We are excited to announce a little internal competition here at Rubbermaid.   To give you a bit of history on how this competition came to be, the team was in a marketing meeting back in November.   One of our goals was to brainstorm ways to get the word out about our Easy Find Lids System food storage containers.  Around the table, we all had different opinions on what favorite thing was, and  realized everyone uses them quite differently in our own homes!

We want YOU, the readers, to vote who has the most compelling argument.   In your post, list the NAME of the person you think has the best idea and WHY. To thank you for your vote, we will be selecting 5 posts at random to win an All-in-One set at the end of June.    

So here goes..... 

Lauren Spahr -  Leader, Marketing Communications

My favorite feature about Rubbermaid Premier is how well they stack together, both in my refrigerator, and then when I want to take food on the go. Check out how the entire contents of my barbeque are stored for a nice week of leftovers and how I can easily grab the stack to take them to work for the week.

Jim Deitzel - eMarketing Manager

  

There are so many great features about the Easy Find Lids food storage system that it was really hard to pick just one (but Lauren made me). So, my favorite feature is how the containers nest inside of each other (plus that lids snap to lids, plus there are only 3 sizes of lids so you have a really good chance of finding one that fits).

As you can see from this photo, I have three main stacks of containers in my cabinet. One stack for the 1.25 & 2 cup, one stack for the 3 & 5 cup, and another stack for the 9 & 14 cup. I also have a separate stack just for the Produce Saver containers, which I nest all together.

Within each stack I have both Premier and Easy Find Lids containers. Since all the containers within the system are the same shapes they all nest neatly together, which makes it very easy to keep the cabinet organized.

I store all of my lids in a single stack. Large lids on bottom, medium, then small. This conserves space as well and it makes it easy to keep the lids organized. One of the nice things about these lids is that even though I have six sizes of containers there are only three sizes of lids. This makes it very easy to always find a lid that fits and I’m never searching for missing lids.

NOTE: This picture was taken back in October but my cabinet STILL looks as neat as it did in this photo, which is amazing. Additionally I’ve added another small Produce Saver as well as a medium Produce Saver to my collection. They are absolutely invaluable when it comes to storing strawberries, blueberries & blackberries.

Megan Murphy -  Leader, Product Marketing

By far my favorite cabinet in my kitchen is the one that keeps my food storage. The Easy Find Lids System has provided me with the perfect organizational method. Every time I open up this cabinet I feel accomplished - like I’m doing something right. My Premier, Produce Saver, Easy Find Lids and Lock-its are all neatly stacked with lids snapped to the bases. Depending on my need, I always have the right container at the ready. Now if only my pantry made me feel the same way!!

Doug Marquardt-  Sr. Manager, Product Marketing

 

One of the coolest things about Rubbermaid containers is how they are specially designed for different uses. I think this is a great feature of the product line because it makes storing leftovers a lot less frustrating. For example, I don’t enjoy throwing out lettuce a couple days after I bought it, so I really like how Rubbermaid Produce Saver containers keep leafy vegetables fresh and crisp. I also like my plastic containers to stay clean and odor free. I used to throw them out when they would have leftover pasta sauce stains or onion smell. This isn’t a problem anymore with Rubbermaid Premier containers – they always stay clean and odor free!

Now for the bonus feature - you might think that keeping a bunch of special containers would take up a lot of space in my cabinets, but they actually nest together in one stack because of the Easy Find Lids system. Besides nesting together, the lids snap together and also attach to the bottom of containers. Pretty cool!

Katie Parsons-   Manager, Product Marketing

   

I love Rubbermaid Premier because I can always find the lid I need, when I need it. I’m not really known for my culinary skills but I decided to test them out by making a big Sunday dinner, last weekend. I managed to whip up quite the feast but had a lot of leftovers. I grabbed my Rubbermaid Premier and transferred the food into the container. My green bean casserole was still warm, so I snapped the lid to the base and left it on the counter to cool. I was able to move the container off the counter to clean it, and the lid stayed attached. When I was finished washing dishes, my leftovers had cooled off. I moved the lid from the bottom to the top and into the fridge it went! It’s really a handy feature!

Rachel Pike -  Associate Product Manager

 

My favorite feature about the Easy Find Lids system is the fact that the same lid fits different size bases. For example, the same Premier lid fits the 3-cup, 5-cup, and 7-cup bases. That means when I pull a lid out of my cabinet, the first lid I grab will most likely be the right size for my base. It’s just another way that this system eliminates the frustration and time drain of the "great lid hunt."

Share your food storage organization story and win prizes

Yesterday we launched www.EasyFindLids.com, a brand new Rubbermaid website. We created this site for people to share stories about their food storage organization stories. We're hoping you will submit stories about your success and challenges organizing your food storage containers.

In addition to sharing your story on www.EasyFindLids.com we've incorporated a feature so you can also post your story to Facebook. Our hope is if you have a challenge you can share it with your friends and they can help you with your problem. This is our version of 'Group Therapy' :)

And if your friends can't help you get organized, maybe we can.  Once a week we are going to randomly pick 5 winners to receive a 20 piece set of Rubbermaid Easy Find Lid food storage containers.  Even better, at the end of October we're going to pick one winner to receive $500 in Rubbermaid product.

With that said, share your story. If you have a challenge, maybe a friend can help you out. If you've already conquered your food storage container problems, sharing your story will help someone else out.

I hope you enjoy and have fun!

P.S. As an extra bonus we've included coupons on this website for $1.00 off select Rubbermaid food storage containers.

$500 Product Shopping Spree Winner Named - Congrats Susanna!

When we went to the National Association of Professional Organizers EXPO in Orlando, one of the things we did in the booth was to offer a chance to win a $500 product shopping spree on Rubbermaid.com.

We are excited to announce that Susanna from Nashville won the contest, and I wanted to share a few of the products a professional organizer would order!!!

Susanna ordered a few of the wrap & bag caddies to help her get her kitchen organized:

 

Next on the list was FastTrack garage organization system, and specifically the golf bag holder - apparently, she has a big golfer in the family:

 

She loaded up on coolers for the family, including a 6 day endurance cooler, as well as water jugs in multiple colors, as she indicated her kids were big into sports.   Only a professional organizer would think to order these in different colors to ensure they didn't get mixed up.

Congratulations, Susanna - we hope you enjoy your prizes!

NAPO - Lauren (aka @rubbermaidtwo)'s Top 10 List

Wow, it was quite a week last week!  Jim and I traveled to NAPO EXPO down in Orlando, Florida.  For those of you who are not familiar with NAPO, NAPO is an acronym for the National Association of Professional Organizers.  NAPO is an amazing group of people who help people get their homes, offices and lives organized.   We really enjoyed getting to know many of them! 

Below is my "Top 10 list" from the show:

10. Weather / location - we were lucky to have such beautiful weather. I spent the previous week in Chicago in the snow, so it was a delight to have sunny skies to make it easy to fly in & out as well as get around in Orlando

9. Participant energy level - I have never been to a trade show quite like this one.  Everyone was a delight to talk to, and they were genuinely excited to learn about the new organizational tools available to them to help their clients.

8. Sue DeRoos's session where one of her favorite things was Rubbermaid Premier - we love the recommendation!   We were happy many of the organizers were big fans of the Easy Find Lid system products.

7. Giving away a $500 product shopping spree - Congrats Susanne Starr at HOUSE-SPOUSE for winning :) We look forward to helping you pick out what products you would like later this week.

6. Dinner with Carson Tate, our local NAPO rockstar, was awesome!  It was certainly WOW service.

5. Entreprenurial Spirit -  I was amazed at the variety of new inventions that small companies had on display.  A few of my favorites:
--Priceless Legacy - organizes memories of aging family members into a beautiful photo storybook
--Recipe Relish - excellent storage for recipes
--Collectify - software to help inventory (given to me ironically b/c my house had a small electrical fire when i was in Orlando, so the VP of Sales gave me a FREE copy to try)

4.  Scott Roewer and Kim Oser did live interviews from our booth, great to have them visit!

3. Jim had the brilliant idea of Tweeting live from the booth - it was pretty cool to be able to have our favorite Tweeple send messages from our account.

2. Expert advice - a special thanks to Julie Bestry @proforganizer for taking us under her wing and letting us know the ins-and-outs of the show, since it was a first time for us.

1. Meeting our Twitter friends at the Tweet Up -  As a new Tweeter, it was really cool to meet the folks face-to-face at the Tweetup we have been talking to for a few months.  Thanks to Scott @declutteryou for organizing.

  

Get Organized Garage Makeover

If you remember, back in January we held the Get Organized contest.  There have been multiple posts (see links below) and many people have commented on the great results.

While we were doing the garage makeover we brought in a film crew to document the process (I guess my Flip video camera wasn't considered high enough quality).  Just this morning I received the final video file.  I hope you enjoy.



================================
Here are links to the previous posts
- The winning entry
- Planning for the makeover
- The garage makeover project
- One Week after
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The ripple effects of the Get Organized Garage Makeover

Just today I received an email from Aimee, the Rubbermaid Get Organized Contest Winner. Here's what she had to say.

Jim,

The Rubbermaid garage make over has made a big difference all over my house. I've sent some pictures to demonstrate. The first is me standing in my walk in closet.  Before there were two totes of gifts I've been collecting for birthday parties, baby showers, etc that took up precious space in our master bedroom closet.  Now with the amazing garage makeover there was room for the gifts in the garage.

 

The second picture is of my craft closet.  I went crazy with the label maker you gave me.  And the little Rubbermaid stool fits perfectly inside the closet to help me reach the kids crafts that are up high.  All my friends agree that a label maker is the perfect gift for me.



As you can see from the third picture my laundry room is free and clear of shoes.  I can open my front loading washer without an avalanche of shoes falling off our old shoe rack.  Now our shoes (and the dirt that comes with them) stay in the great Rubbermaid cubbies in my "mudroom" section of the garage. 



The final picture is of my van which fits with room to spare in the garage.  In fact earlier this week when it snowed my husband fit his car in the garage too.  That hasn't happened for about 3 years and 2 kids ago. 



We can't thank you all enough.

Aimee

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Here are links to the previous posts
- The winning entry
- Planning for the makeover
- The garage makeover project
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