Organizing Spices – Enabling my OCD

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zero-budget-project

The OCD gal in me has been wanting to do this for ages. I have this strange obsession with unifying things. Like spices. I typically buy my spices in bulk, so they’ve not been pretty. Not at all.

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Having these new jars around has been so nice. My house is a complete mess these days, so I can at least open up my cupboard here and see this pretty sight.

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This is what it looked like before. A complete mess. And it took me forever to look for the right spices when I needed them.

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I found these jars here, they’re not actual spice jars, but I like that they’re wider so I can actually fit my measuring spoons in and they were cheaper than the spice jars. It’s not like it was a huge price difference, but I liked these. It seems like a really lame thing to spend money on, spice jars, but it’s worth spending $20 to have a cupboard that’s always neat and tidy.

What little things to you spend money on to keep your home organized? I’d love to hear!

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    1. Rachel says:

      LOVE these! I’m going to buy some asap… where did you get the larger all-silver tins that you have parmesan + other stuff in? And is that homemade bread???

    2. Deauna says:

      This is a great idea. I need to be able to see my spices too because I keep buying ones I don’t need, but never have the ones I do need in stock.

    3. Katie says:

      My spices are piled into an anthropologie bag in my pantry. Talk about a headache!

    4. I love how they turned out! Is that purple washi tape? I just tackled our art supply closet with these chevron boxes from the dollar store.
      http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=428574737231135&set=a.363325573756052.92144.362284447193498&type=1

    5. Polly says:

      I LOVE those jars! Thanks for the tip. I was just thinking yesterday how I would love to be able to fit a measuring spoon in my spice jars – and here is the solution. Ask and ye shall receive! Thanks so much!

    6. samarahuel says:

      Love it! I, too, took forever in reorganizing my spices, but it was so worth it.Check them out: http://thisisstilllife.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/my-spice-rack-spiced-sweet-potato-fries/ I got my containers at Specialty Bottle too. They’re great! (I spent a little more than $20 on the whole project though; how you can make things look so good with so little is a real skill, Melissa.)

    7. Summer says:

      Glad I’m not the only one that thinks matching spice containers are a must. I buy my spices in bulk so before I organized they were all in tiny ziplock bags. Disaster. I bought these spice jars from ikea (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/40113613/), and it’s been very easy to add extras as I’ve needed.

    8. Ella says:

      I just spent a fair amount of money on mason jars so that I can get rid of all the plastic containers and bags of rice and pasta and boxes and whatnot. Adding chalkboard labels for identification and including any cooking instructions. So much nicer in my cabinets this way.

    9. Heidi says:

      Nice! I really like how wide those jars are. That is the annoying part about my jars (they aren’t very wide) but they have shaker tops. I buy my spices in bulk too so it was nice to switch to something more unified. And I put them in a drawer that I wasn’t using–not the neatest look yet but they are super easy to find now.
      I recently realized that I’m a total perfectionist and that’s the reason my house is such a mess. I don’t like the idea of getting organized when it’s not the way I really want it. (Usually because I can’t afford what I really want at the time.)

    10. Slip says:

      I just bought new spice jars, too. I happened to have the world’s worst ones before. They were top heavy and would fall over like bowling pins, after just touching them. They were sort of ruining my life. One Saturday a jar of caraway fell on my brunch plate and broke it. That was the last straw. You don’t mess with my food and get away with it.

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