Poster/Cabinet Can Keep Music Behind the Scenes

An Arizona company has introduced an inconspicuous way to store compact discs and cassettes at your home or office--in a wall cabinet hidden behind a framed poster.

Behind the Scenes Storage Frames are customized metal-framed posters and storage cabinet combinations that open to reveal a music storage cabinet, similar to a medicine cabinet. The poster “door,” which is hinged to the hidden cabinet, opens with a magnetic touch release. And the cabinet is constructed of melamine-covered, almond-colored particle board.

The poster/cabinet combination, which protrudes only 4 3/8 inches from the wall, comes in eight sizes. Available in horizontal and vertical, the smallest poster sizes are 18 1/2 by 20 inches; largest, 32 1/4 by 36 inches.

The artwork ranges from museum quality to pop art, from Picasso to Nagel. Though there are also many signed, limited edition posters available, customers may supply their own posters or original artwork to be made into storage cabinets.

Behind the Scenes Storage Frames for compact discs can be ordered to hold 36, 48, 54, 60, 72, 90 or 96 cases. CDs fit in clear acrylic holders--each stores 6--that give you front viewing, and also swing out for a side view of the five CDs behind.

The cabinets for cassettes can be ordered in 63, 84, 93, 105, 124, 126, 155 or 168 cases and feature shelves to store tapes vertically.

Prices for Behind the Scenes Storage Frames start at $179.95 for CDs; $139.95 for cassettes. To order, contact Parallel Productions, 919 W. Mission Drive, Chandler, Ariz. 85224; phone, (602) 899-8057.

Get a Handle on Grocery Bags

A new handle to help shoppers carry more than one plastic bag at a time without hurting their hands is so simple it’s a wonder no one thought of it before.

Grocery Tote, designed by Eric Stoft and Bill Cloonan of Sylmar, is a heavy-duty blue plastic handle with hooks at each end to keep the shopping bags’ plastic handles locked in place. Stoft advises shoppers to place the heavier bags on the tote handle first, so they can easily balance a large number of bags at the same time. The underneath portion of the handle has finger grooves to give shoppers a comfortable grip.

Grocery Tote weighs a few ounces, so it’s lightweight enough to carry in a purse or back pocket. It retails for about $2 and is available at Ralphs markets or by mail order from Castech Enterprises, 13145 Bromont Ave., Suite 7, Sylmar 91342; phone, (818) 367-4474.

Lean on This

Back pain bothering you? You might want to try a German-built inflatable lumbar support cushion that was designed for cars but seems to work just as effectively in airplane or train seats, or on office furniture.

Zender Aerodynamiks of North America, based in Anaheim, is offering the durable cloth-covered cushion, originally constructed to fit current model Volkswagen seats and other high-performance auto seats, for about $38.

The inflation bulb attached to the cushion works like the armband machines used to test blood pressure: You turn the valve slightly and pump up the pillow to the desired firmness; to deflate it, turn the valvee the other way.

Said a Zender representative, “I use one in my chair at the office for back support.”

The cushions are available at any of Zender’s 2,200 nationwide auto accessory dealers. If you don’t have one of the company’s dealers in your area, contact Zender Aerodynamiks of North America, 2267 Via Burton St., Anaheim 92805; or call (800) 672-6060 in California, (800) 421-5544 outside California.

Parenting Advice

On Sept. 7, the National Parenting Center, a new 24-hour, seven-day-a-week hot line began offering parents expert child-rearing guidance in seven categories--pregnancy, newborn, infant, toddler, preschool, preteen and adolescent. The service can be accessed only from touch-tone telephones.

Television director-producer David Katzner, who also runs an independent production company in Los Angeles, began working on the concept for the center shortly after his daughter Alana, 2 1/2, was born.

“Suddenly I found myself searching everywhere for information on how to be a parent,” Katzner explained. “The National Parenting Center was a natural extension of my own search for child-rearing information.”

Callers to the center will receive child care information from one-minute tapes made by nine of the country’s top physicians, obstetrician-gynecologists, psychologists and authors on subjects ranging from teething to temper tantrums to truancy.

After listening to the tape, the caller can cut through to a voice-activated response system, which includes the option to leave a question for an expert and receive a written opinion.

Cost for calling the center is $1.95 for the first minute; $.95 for every minute thereafter. Parents also may buy memberships via phone for $19.95 a year, which includes a touch-tone phone, a monthly newsletter with updates on new topics, novelties, brochures, and discounts on books and videos. To reach the center, call (900) 246-MOMS.