organizing the kitchen cabinets & FREE labels

I love the idea of open shelving in the kitchen but currently I am not a good candidate for these. My cabinets have a lot of stuff and they’re not always organized or look pretty. That’s what the doors are for. am I right? But I do love to see those pretty open shelves and I think it makes a kitchen look so open and airy. Someday, I will have open shelving in my kitchen and they won’t look like a disaster.

So I figured I should start cleaning up my cabinet mess, organize them and keep only what we really use and need. Then maybe they’ll be open-shelf worthy. If not, at least they’ll be organized and it will be much easier to find what I need. Cabinets simplified.

I started with my spice cabinet. baby steps. I am an ok cook, I don’t love to do it. I cook dinner almost every night but usually stick with a few standard meals and once in a while I’ll mix things up and try a new recipe. This is where my spice problem comes in. My spices had their own shelf and I would just keep adding to them. It was a little out of control. I had 4 nutmegs. I don’t use nutmeg. So I cleared out this cabinet which also included some other random kitchen items and baking ingredients. Then I had to add baking items to my organization project.

This is what I did for the spices:

– went to Bed, Bath & Beyond and bought 15 small clear glass spice jars (.99 each), and a stacked spice shelf ($5.99). I had to switch my spices and baking cabinets so that I could fit the shelf.

– went through all my spices, threw out what was old, gave away anything that was unopened to our local food pantry and then poured each spice into it’s own brand new glass jar. So pretty.

– The spices I use a lot and frequently (garlic powder, parsley, pepper, cinnamon) didn’t fit in the smaller glass jars. So for now, I’m keeping them in their own containers but I just grouped them together on a separate shelf, making it easier to find them.

– I made very simple spice labels. Attached them to each jar and put them on their new shelf.

For the baking items: 

– bought a few clear jars also at Bed, Bath & Beyond in different sizes to hold some of the smaller items I had {sprinkles, birthday candles, cupcake holders}

– cleaned out all old stuff {I had lots of food coloring???} and kept the necessities.

– I could have gone crazy and put all the baking items like the baking powder and baking soda in their own pretty jar but that was little too much for me.

– I discovered cute silver canisters stuck way back in my cabinets that held sugar & flour. I put them together and they’re open-shelf worthy now.

That was really about it. The most time consuming part was pouring the spices in their new jars. But a few snow days was the perfect opportunity to tackle this project.

If you are feeling the urge to organize your cabinets too, I’ve included my spice, sugar & flour labels as a freebie for you. Just download the file and print onto label paper {or regular paper and use a little glue stick to attach}, cut them out and attach. My only suggestion is if you’re using a stacked spice shelf, attach the labels towards the top of each jar so that when they’re on the shelf you can still see their labels.

Visit my freebies page to print these labels. To get my freebies, you must be a subscriber to my blog. If you’re not yet a subscriber to my blog, it’s easy to do, there’s no commitment and you get access to lots of free stuff. Enter your email address in the box on the right (above the SUBSCRIBE button). Click the SUBSCRIBE button then follow the instructions fully. Be sure to confirm your subscription – and then you’ll have access to all my free stuff! If you’re already a subscriber, you should have received an email with a password to access these fun freebies already.

Have a great weekend!