Cumin?  Do I have enough?

It was also difficult to see what I had on hand, and what was getting low.  I’m a visual kinda girl.  So, I’ve been collecting spice jars one at a time.  Yeah, except they don’t exactly match.  And who has the time to take off all the labels?  Not me.

Putting together the perfect spice cabinet begins…

So, about a month ago, I took some ideas I found, and I started thinking about what my ideal spice cabinet would look like.  I started with buying these containers.

What if I mounted them to the cabinet door?

I wanted more space in my actual cabinet, and I have all this glorious open space on my cabinet doors.  So, going from a previous Alton Brown episode, I decided I would mount the containers on my doors.   The thing was, he put them on the doors with velcro.  All I could think about was the gunky-goo that would accumulate in the velcro fibers.  Disgusting.  Really.  No velcro for me.

“Do you have metal strip thingies you could mount on a wall?”

I didn’t know what the term was I was looking for.  This made it difficult to ask for the product in the crafty-craft store.  ”Do you have those metal strip things you can mount on a wall?  I’ve seen them in organizing stores.  You can put magnets on them?”  Blank stare.  ”Let me call my manager.”  Yeah, manager didn’t know either.  Next time I will arm myself with better vocabulary…

The office supply store should have that, right?

I strolled into my local office supply store.  Surely they would be able to decipher what I needed and direct me to make my perfect purchase.  After artfully dodging the disturbingly friendly greeter at the door, I wandered around the store looking for that metal thingy.  Then I wandered some more.  Not by the magnets.  Not in the organizing section.  Nada in the clearance section.  No luck.  So, I tried my best to look lost, knowing I would attract a friendly helpful employee.

Me: “Do you know where I can find those metal thingies you can hang on the wall and attach magnets to?”

Helpful employee: “Uh, let’s look over here….how about this cork strip?”

Me: (trying to understand how “magnetic” led us to cork….)  ”Um, that’s not quite what I’m looking for.  Thanks for your help.”

One last try…

A little disheartened, I crossed the street to another crafty-craft store.  It seems everytime I need something strange like this, I find it there.  (Hmm, perhaps I should just start there in the future…)  Again, I wandered around to see what I could find.  I happened on some magnetic bulletin boards.  It turns out they were samples, flanked by supplies to make them.  Eureka!  I grabbed two 12×12 pieces of the sheet metal and headed for the door.  Who needs metal strip thingies anyway?

My Spice Cabinet Makeover:

(Cost: I spent less than $30 USD)

1. Attach the metal squares to the doors.  Drill a small hole in each corner of the metal squares.  Put a little adhesive on the back (to help the sheet lay flat) and attach the squares  to the doors with small, short wood screws.

2. Prepare the containers.  Label and fill  containers with existing spices (or new if it’s been a while).  Attach adhesive magnetic tape or hot glue magnets to the bottom of each container.

3. Put them in order and arrange.  I recommend alphabetizing the containers (makes them easier to find) and attach them to the doors.

Below is what my spices look like now.  Isn’t it pretty?  Best of all, it’s all in one place and I can see exactly what I have.  Love that!

photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/enigmachck | CC BY 2.0

photo by: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mellis | CC BY 2.0

photo by: http://www.flickr.com/photos/taste-buzz | CC BY 2.0

photo by: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mckaysavage | CC BY 2.0

photo by: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kirrilyrobert | CC BY 2.0

photo by: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sudhamshu | CC BY 2.0

Ok, so maybe my spice rack won’t look like this, but how gorgeous is this?!

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[All photos are licensed under Creative Commons 2.0]

A couple years ago, a friend was preparing to sell their house.  Going through thirty years of raising a family (and then helping raise their grandchildren) really takes a while!  I was helping her with a lot of different things, including picking out wall colors and color schemes to sell the house.  Along the way, she gave me a couple antique apple crates full of canning jars.  I love canning so I was so happy to get them.  However, there were so many, I didn’t know what to do with them all!

I love the look of canning jars.  Like the ones above from a local Barnhouse sale…

How cute are those?  Of course I didn’t have the piece of mind to buy them all. (*sigh*)

Canning jars = inexpensive (and cute) storage.