Magnet madness

Finally got around to making the sheet steel backing in the medicine cabinet a permanent installation. Liquid nails is great!

Not all of these things will go here in my cabinet permanently, but earlier today a friend asked what i would hang like this. So i tried everything i could think of in 5 minutes. Note: tube of neosporin didn't work. But that's ok because it's got an adhesive hang tab and a cup hook
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Total project, including the liquid nails (of which there was a lot left in an already partially used tube) was about $15.
steel: $6
liquid nails: $3
magnetic hooks (4): $3
20 pack 8mm magnets: $3
(the bulldog clip was junk from a drawer, no idea where it came from or how much it cost at the time, but harbor freight sells a 3 pack for $3)
Result: no more lost little items or bandaids stuck to the bottom of sticky cough medicine bottles.

There are multiple techniques at work for hanging:

1. Steel items can be stuck to super strong magnets that are stuck to the steel sheet. Like hairpins, scissors, nail clippers, spare drain plugs with a steel ring in them, little containers of lip balm or lotion (this example is burt's bees res Q balm).

2. Lightweight containers with thin walls get a loose magnet dropped in. Take the container down to use and the magnet automatically gets drawn back to the sheet steel when you hang it back up. Good for pill boxes, bandaid/gauze boxes, sewing kits from the dollar store, little thin walled plastic tubs. This might also work with dental floss containers but i already messed with my roommate's dental floss this week and i didn't think she'd appreciate me opening it up to put magnets in it. (definitely wouldn't work for my waterpik!)

3. Magnetic pencil holders, 25 for $1 from american science and surplus. This is good for any light cylindrical items that fit. Eye pencils, lipliner, a pen, toothbrush. I also use these on my fridge for the dry erase markers.









4. Thin things held up in a "normal" way with magnets. Loose bandaids, tooth whitening strips, sudafed, plastic baggy of pills, whatever will hold. the ace bandage clips will be staying in my cabinet like this because i lose them like crazy.







5. Slightly heavier non magnetic containers with magnets glued on. In this case a plastic tub of safety pins.

putting it in the cabinet is for demonstration purposes only - the safety pin tub actually hangs on the wall from a giant washer nailed up, that you see in the left in the above photo



7. Magnetic bulldog clip for heavier flat things. No, i don't know why a spare house key was loose on the shelf in my medicine cabinet, but it was so i hung it.

8. Magnetic hook. Great for hair ties!

 

I am sure you could come up with more things for your own cabinet.

the magnets came from dealextreme. Super cheap but also slooooow (free) shipping. they carry several sizes of super strong rare earth magnet discs in packs of 10, 12, 20 or 100.
harbor freight also sells a 10 pack of rare earth magnets for $3, but they aren't as thin and i have not tested them so i am not sure how strong they are
There's also an after photo so you can see how it works with the bottles and shelf items in place. And yes, i do use a cut up cardboard box as a mini shelf in there