It was a "Turntable Pill Bottle Caddy" that viewer Orma Carstons of St. Paul, Minn., wrote to us about, and it prompted me to make her version of this handy tool keeper. Orma wrote the following:
Anytime I wanted to do something or make something, I always had to hunt for the tools. So . . . I took a bunch of pill bottles that I had saved for goodness knows what . . . (don't we all do that?) and glued them to a plastic turntable. Now I can find what I want when I want it, whether it's a pen or pencil or a scissors or a ruler or just a toothpick to apply a dab of glue.
What a simple idea, and what a good one! Not having an extensive supply of empty pill bottles . . . at least not in the variety of sizes that they are now available today, I went to my local pharmacist and asked if I might buy some. The result? I was given a number of the bottles without charge. To make certain they would be available in places other than my friendly neighborhood drugstore, I also inquired in a big chain store in Los Angeles. Same response. Whether you pay for the bottles or not, at least they are available, but probably the best place to start is either in your own house or by asking your friends.
I used one of the plastic turntables that Orma mentioned. These are usually available in a variety of sizes from the housewares department of a store. I decided that I wanted the bottles to look less like pill bottles, so I cut off the top lip. To facilitate matters, and to prevent the plastic from cracking, I first stood the bottles upside down in boiling water for a few moments. The heat softened the plastic enough to make it easy to cut with ordinary household scissors (figure A). I went one step further by covering both the turntable top and the bottles with Con-tact paper (figure B). The bottles were attached with adhesive-backed dots. Hot glue would work as well.
Orma even offered one more idea:
I liked it so much that I took four lids from spray cans and glued them to a base, put glues and everything in those lids, and now I'm not forever knocking them over (figure C). Am I organized? Of course not. I'm a crafter!
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