In the past, I’ve also used a dedicated ‘Home’ channel/custom field group, then use Playa (http://pixelandtonic.com/playa) to define which items I wish to display in a particular block on the home page. Playa solution is nice because from a content managers perspective, they manage the home page from a single entry, and the Playa field allows for searching and filtering should you need it to find a specific entry. My clients really find Playa a very easy to use way of creating multiple relationships.