With Bangle Stacker™ Chicago-Area Inventor Brings Uncommon Sense to Jewelry Organizing

Kate O'Malley's innovation goes from "Not today, Mom" to The Today Show!

Like so many products, the Bangle Stacker's roots can be traced to a simple problem: how to organize jewelry efficiently.

One rainy day in July 2014, Kate O'Malley tried to enlist her daughters in a project that tackled the issue. Neither was interested in the least, so O'Malley grabbed duct tape to secure two golf tees and a pair of toilet paper rolls atop a plastic plate.

What initially prompted eye rolls from her tween-age children has developed into an eye-catching product called the Bangle Stacker featuring five vertical posts that hold bracelets, rings and other accessories.

It has made a substantial splash, including a January appearance on a NBC's popular Today program, segment led by Stephanie Sisco, a Real Simple magazine editor.

"That was such a validation of my instincts", O'Malley says. "There are so many people, particularly women, whose dressers are a mess because they don't have an efficient, sleek way of keeping their jewelry organized without stashing it in a box."

Specifically, no other product enables the display of jewelry, rings, hair and other accessories neatly atop a dresser. In addition, one of the competitive advantages of the Bangle Stacker, in terms of appeal to retailers, is that it can be stacked in sets of 20 and therefore occupy precious little retail space.

O'Malley, a longtime television advertising executive before becoming a stay-at-home mom to her two daughters and one son, previously demonstrated a penchant for practical invention. In 2007 she created the I'm Hot You're Not dual insulation non-electric blanket. After procuring a patent for the blanket in 2012, she produced I'm Hot You're Not, which addresses the dilemma posed by so many hot-blooded/cold-blooded partners with contrasting insulation needs.

In early 2015, production began on the first samples of the product. By August, barely a year after that rudimentary rainy-day design, O'Malley began receiving large-quantity shipments.

Made of acrylic, and coming in clear and black options, the Bangle Stacker is a 10-inch wide, 7-inch long tray with five vertical posts: two larger (which can fit a bracelet with a diameter as large as 3¾ inches) and three smaller (especially useful for rings and earrings).

The base retail price is $12.99. Soon, O'Malley plans to offer a wider variety of customized prints and textures at additional price points.

FiAir changes the heated debate over Charcoal vs Gas grilling

The first & only TRULY PORTABLE powered blower for Wood & Charcoal fires!

Nearly everyone prefers the flavor of charcoal, but the time it takes for charcoal to reach cooking temperature can be a turnoff. Some have converted to propane gas grilling for speed alone. Others refuse to give up briquettes or lump charcoal, but use accelerants and/or a chimney to hasten the heat. The process still takes 15 to 30 minutes or more with these traditional methods. Now the days of trading taste to save time are over. No matter how you light your coals, FiAir cuts the time to cooking temperature easily by HALF the time you're used to - typically, just 8-12 minutes.

Who cares if there's a chill in the air with FiAir at the hearth or campsite?

There's nothing quite like the sights, sounds and smell of a real wood fire. Now, a cozy fireside is just two minutes away. It's true: FiAir kindles wood to a robust blaze in two minutes or less and keeps it that way with a few well-placed bursts of life-giving air each time you add more fuel. You can blow on it or use ineffective squeeze bellows and there are plenty of fancy fireplace tool sets, costly accessories and special starters on the hearth and outdoors market. But if you simply want to enjoy your wood fires more and mess with them less - all you need is FiAir.

Meet Alan i Harris, Founding Member and FiAir Chief

After 9 years working with Ad Agencies, I started my own Creative Shop, AiH Group, Inc. in 1974, a Marketing Communications firm whose clients included the Fortune 500 and others whose fortunes were in the making. A few years ago, it was time to retire. I always wished I had a product I could pull off the shelf and say "that'll be X Dollars please" - a very different Business model from the Creative World I came from where every project was different and had to be quoted based on our best educated guesstimate. So, in the new void, my mind turned to a product idea I had many years earlier.

The spark of the idea: impatience.

I love the taste of charcoal grilled food, but hated waiting for the coals to turn white so I could start cooking.

That became a real problem when the kids were young and every time we grilled, there came the repeated mantra: Is it ready yet? We switched to a gas grill to quiet the kids and speed things up, but taste went down the tubes.

Same deal with our fireplaces. We really loved a real wood fire on a cold winter's night, but hated the time it takes to get it going and keep it at full blaze.

One night, I was having an especially hard time starting a fire in our bedroom. After failing with a squeeze bellows (ours had fur on one side and was quite handsome) that did nothing for the fire, I finally resorted to blowing on it until I hyperventilated. As I lay recovering on the hearth, I yelled to my wife in frustration: "Why is this so #?/@# hard? All it needs is AIR!

So I grabbed our hairdryer from the bathroom, turned it on low and aimed it at the kindling. Wow. It worked almost TOO well!

I know I'm not the first to try this trick, but it got me thinking - air really is all it takes, right? Why not make a "hairdryer"- without the heating element (no heat, no power cord) - that can direct a controlled, continuous flow of air to fire from a safe distance? Make it elegant, affordable, portable and battery powered and we're in business. I WANTED ONE! So I set about finding one.

I looked at every catalog that came in the mail, searched websites and roamed through every store I could think of that might carry a product to feed fires like the one I had in mind. I even bought some of them. None had the combination of features I envisioned. I wanted a sleek, lightweight, handheld tool with a battery-powered motor to create continuous airflow. Existing blowers either required users to blow into a tube, crank by hand or plug into an electric power source. I decided I'd have to make it myself.

I was determined but if I could not make it in the USA, I would not make it at all. Happily, FiAir is made in America for Keepers of the Flame Worldwide. We've been shipping for almost 3 years now and the response has been very gratifying: FiAir users in every State and 46 Countries!