Challenge: 30 Days to an Organized Home--Day 14 Results

Challenge: 30 Days to an Organized Home--Day 14 Results

I can't even tell you how excited I am about today's assignment!  I've been waiting for this one for 2 weeks.  My spice drawer really needed an overhaul.  Just look at my before picture and you'll see what I mean:

What a mess!  And there's a ton of spices, herbs, premixed seasonings and even food coloring in here.  But I do use all of this.  I love to cook & bake.  In fact, it's a passion of mine.  I love to try new recipes and even create some myself. 

 So this drawer is very important.  When it looks like this, I despise it.  I can't find what I'm looking for.  All the black & red caps look the same so I end up pulling out 5 different bottles before I find what I want.  It just wasn't working for me anymore.

I bought these little gems at Ikea the other day(I really love that place!).  They weren't exactly cheap($2.99 for 2), but I have been eying these for about a year.  I decided with all the money I saved us over the past 10 months, I can spend $30 on spice jars!  

I also picked up a package of labels at Staples for $2.99 after coupon.  I thought they were for the printer but I was wrong.  So I had to hand write the labels.  Not exactly what I wanted, but it worked out just fine.

I took everything out of my drawer to find that a red food coloring bottle had spilled over causing a big red mess.  I cleaned it the best I could, but there's still mark in the drawer.  Sorry I didn't snap a photo of it.  It didn't really cross my mind at the time.

Next I got to work labeling and filling the jars with my most used spices & herbs.  Since I only bought 14 jars, I knew there would be a few that wouldn't make the cut(I'm talking to you, Marjoram).  

This part took me the longest.  The kids really enjoyed using the funnel to help fill the jars.  Of course, I only let them do the mild spices, no playing with crushed red pepper flakes!

I put all the jars back in the drawer.  And my less used spices are way in the back.  I also couldn't think of a good way to get rid of the huge Mrs. Dash or Seasoned Salt jar, so I just laid them in the drawer like I had them before.  I don't really like it that way though.  Maybe I'll come up with a better solution(like more Ikea jars?).  

Looks better, right?

Now you may be wondering what I did with all my left over spices.  I had some pretty large bottles jammed in this drawer.  I came up with a good solution.  I grabbed a shoe box, sandwich bags & my trusty Sharpie and went to work.  

I simply wrote the name of the spice on each bag and poured the remaining amount inside.  I put all the baggies into the shoe box in alphabetical order to make them easy to find. 

Voila!

I took this box to the basement and stored on a shelf with other food items.  Now when one of my jars needs a refill I can go grab what I need very quickly.  Plus I don't have to store a bunch of half full jar bottles.  Another bonus is I can quickly go through this box and see what I need to buy soon. 

I hope these assignments are helping you as much as they are helping me.  Please leave a me comment and let me know how it's going!  I would really love to hear from you!

Check back tomorrow at 10am for the ext assignment!

 
Live Frugal.  Live Happy.