organizing the spice rack

If you know me, you know that I am a big procrastinator. I always like to do things well and if I feel I can't, then I put it off until I can. (which sometimes means a very long time!) So that makes for a lot of projects hanging in the wings that start to bog me down. Well, I decided to start doing something about it again. (once in awhile I get on these kicks:) I decided to start getting myself on an organizing schedule, something I have always struggled with. I thought that I might as well get ahead of my new year's resolutions this year. :)

I started reading Jennifer Berry's Organize Now book as part of my New Year's resolution last year but never got too far because I got so overwhelmed! lol. (I really needed help!) It is a great book though for all of you that are in my boat and need some help with the organization in your life. I did get the book out again recently and was inspired to do a little organizing...

So the other day I was looking at our spice rack that we received as a wedding gift 7 years ago and realized that it is just taking up counter space. The spice containers were either empty or partially full of old spices that we never use anymore. I kept all of my regularly used spices on the counter top or on top of the stove - taking up a Ton of space and making things look cluttered. I finally got tired of it and did something about it.

First, I washed all of the containers in the dishwasher and let them air dry for a day or so (ok, for almost a week - but that is actually good for this procrastinator! lol)

My 3 year old was anxious to help so I gave him a few small tasks to help with and he was pretty excited about that. He mostly liked taking the empty bottles and pretend he was cooking with them. lol

I should have taken before pictures but I never thought to do it at the time. Here are some afters though to show you how I gained some well needed counter space back.

So here's the above mentioned spice rack. I still like it a lot and didn't want to just get rid of it. So I filled the pre-labeled containers with the spices that it indicated if I had them and actually used them regularly. Some of them were still empty here because I needed to buy some new ones.

For the ones that I didn't use, I simply took a sharpie and crossed it out and re-labeled it with something I actually had and used. I know, some of you perfectionists out there may gasp at how I did this. Why didn't she use a fancy label maker? Why write on it in marker?? Well, if I didn't do it this way, it would probably still be waiting for my procrastinator self to get on it. So I did what worked for me and what was easiest at the time. :)




This is a picture of all of the old empty spice bottles that we either emptied into the spice rack containers or into the garbage if they were old. My toddler enjoyed helping me fill this bag up and take it out to the recycle bin. I couldn't believe how many we had!!

This is all of the extra counter spaced I gained from where the many spices were previously. So nice!!


And I put the ones that I didn't put into the spice rack on top of the stove. It looks a ton better then it did before when I had the small ones stacked on top of each other for lack of a better place to put them. I love how organized it looks now.
I find that doing a little bit each week (or day if possible but that's usually not the case in my house!) is really helpful to my sanity. Do you feel better when you clean and organize? It's not my favorite activity to do at the time, but it sure does feel great when it's done. And this little project didn't take more then 30-40 minutes or so. And it was a great thing to do with my son.

How do you stay organized? Do you keep a schedule for cleaning and organizing? I would love your tips!

Thanks for reading and have a safe and healthy weekend. Maybe take a few minutes to organize a small section of your home.

Rebecca

PS - I am very excited to share the new Shaklee promotion that is good through December 31st. For all new members to Shaklee (membership is $19.95 with no annual fees and always gives you 15% off all products) you will get a FREE 30 day supply of Vivix , Shaklee's awesome anti-aging tonic, with a $100 order. It retails at $100 so it's a great deal. And Shaklee continues to run their free membership special with an order of Vitalizer supplements. All very good deals that I am excited to share with you. :)