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Dishes would pile up in our house partially because nobody knew if the dishwasher was full of clean or dirty dishes. I was about to throw an old scratched CD away when this idea popped in my head, a recycled CD clean or dirty indicator! I quickly threw together this mock up of my idea. With a little extra time the finished product could look real nice.
and on the other half write "Unload Me Please." 
On mine, I attempted to draw an overfull dishwasher on the unload me side and a hungry skinny dishwasher on the load me side.
Now all you have to do is remember to turn the CD each time you load or unload the dishwasher. 
By StellaBell from Manchester, WA
All I use on my dishwasher is one piece of paper with a piece of tape on it saying "clean", and another piece of paper with tape on it saying "dirty". I keep these pieces of paper stuck to my fridge, and I take each one off the fridge as I need it and tape it to the dishwasher.
I have had no problems with anything from the tape sticking to either the fridge or the dishwasher, I simply put the one I need on the dishwasher, and the other on the fridge. Easy peesy! The dishwasher is either dirty or clean, the dirty dishwasher gets the dirty piece of paper, the clean dishwasher gets the clean piece of paper, and the family has no trouble figuring it out.
When we unload the dishwasher and load dirty dishes, we also load the soap dispenser. A loaded dispenser means dirty dishes ready to wash. A clean empty dispenser means clean dishes. We haven't been confused once using this simple (and hidden) clue. Even visitors recognize that a loaded dispenser means dirty dishes.
