I tackled one of my New Years projects on New Years Day. This year I didn't host a daytime celebration; instead I celebrated at someone else's party. While I love being the hostess, sometimes it's nice to be a guest so you can spend the rest of the day getting other things done. My project
de jour was to organize one of my cupboards - the one that contains baking supplies, including a million bags of different types of flour and every possible cookie add-in, beans, pastas and grains. Unfortunately I forgot to take a before picture, but the end result is so fabulous that I want to share the after picture and what I used for my pantry organization project.
Here are the details:
I used several plastic
ClickClack containers and glass jars that I already had, and bought about a dozen new glass jars. I couldn't find the exact glass jars to match my existing ones, but I found some with similar silver lids that coordinate well. The large jars were about $4 each and the smaller ones were $3 (both purchased from a small store in Brooklyn near my office). I used a wooden box from a holiday gift to corral half-used bags of dry pasta. I also repurposed a
cabinet shelf ($4) and plastic
turntable ($6) from the Container Store, which were both sitting unused in a cupboard above the fridge.
Next I purchased several packages of Martha Stewart Home Office with Avery
removable labels with orange and gray picture-frame borders from Staples, which were on sale for $2 per package. I purchased 3 packs of
large labels (18/pack) and 2 packs of
small labels (36/pack). I went into Staples looking for chalkboard labels, but realized that they were way overpriced ($6 for 12 labels) and I decided I would prefer the look of printed labels rather than handwritten chalk that was likely to wipe off if I touched the jar with wet hands. The removable labels turned out to be a great idea; no sticky mess to remove when I want to reuse an empty jar for another item. I saved the sheets that the labels came on to store printed labels that are not in use. I only used the gray border labels for this cupboard to create a uniform look, and plan to use the orange labels for another cupboard.
I wasn't so off in my exaggeration of how many types of flour I have in the cupboard. Whole wheat pastry flour, whole wheat flour, white flour, coconut flour, almond flour, oat flour, gluten-free flour mix, garbanzo bean flour, brown rice flour, sweet rice flour, etc. The list goes on and on, and that doesn't even include the half-dozen sweeteners that I have on hand. Sifting through bags and bags of white powdery mixes jumbled on the shelves made baking a little less enjoyable. Now I look forward to baking just so I can peer inside my beautifully organized cupboard.
