An Alphabetized Spice Drawer (with Printable Labels)
Last week was a busy week. Brand new internship for my college daughter, end of school year & birthday for my youngest. But there is something I had to share with you, even if it is brief. I just reorganized my spices into an Alphabetized Spice Drawer!
Organized Spice Drawer
Serious quantities of spices and I go way back. When I started out in my first apartment, one of the first things I bought was a spice rack. I quickly realized it didn’t have enough of the spices I needed, so I bought a second, dumped the duplicate spices, and substituted more exotic things like saffron and cardamom. The two spice racks hung side by side for years.
When I got married and we bought our current house, I moved into spice heaven. An old ironing board storage unit in the kitchen, turned shallow cupboard, held… like a million spices. In any size jars. Alphabetically.
Life was beautiful… until we remodeled the kitchen. Then I dumped everything into a drawer and shut my eyes.
“Before” Spice Drawer
Ever try to find the right jar out of dozens randomly tossed in a drawer?
Here is how I arrived at my Spice Drawer solution (it only took 5 years…).
I use a lot of tomato paste and the glass bottles it comes in are a perfect size for spice jars. After lots of homemade spaghetti sauce, I had enough. You need uniform size spice jars in a drawer or they shift and go out of order (ask me how I know).
Spice Jars for Free
Next, Avery (and no, this is not a sponsored post), ran a free shipping special on their “design and print” labels. While the frugal part of me was tempted to print my own labels on brown grocery bags, I knew these would have really good glue and come properly aligned, so I decided to go for it.
They arrived a few days later and voila!
Spice Jars (with blank “expansion” label)
I should have done this years ago (hmm, didn’t I say that about the kitchen remodel too?). Now all I have to do is get the kids to put them back in the right places.
In case you’d like to try something similar, you can visit Avery, or I am including a downloadable pdf of my label proof (just bypass the proofreading instructions on page 1) if you’d like to try printing at home.
Spice Labels
Have you done a reorganization that made your life easier?
Beautiful! So convenient!
Hi Inger! Long time no see! I was just sitting here wondering if you still had your blog. Did a quick search and there you are! I just reorganized my spices exactly the same way! I mostly buy from Penzeys so my jars are uniform size. I also used stickers from Avery – bought them at office max. Such a simple solution – why it took me years to come up with it is beyond me! Hope you and the family are enjoying life to the fullest!
Good to hear from you Judy! I wish Penzey’s carried organic–that would make things so much easier! I was thinking about you the other day. I’ll bet your kids are up to interesting things! We should get together to catch up one of these days.
Awesome organized spice rack!!!
i wish i can made that tidy and alphabetical spices jar,,,,
It is definitely making cooking more enjoyable!
love this. My spice rack is alphabetical also – so are my CDs.
My CDs used to be until my husband got into them. How am I the only person in the household who understands alphabetization?
Love your spice drawer. I’ve done something similar (alphabetized too!) but I haven’t put them in cute matching containers. Yours looks great!
Thanks Beth. If you have any tips for inspiring my daughters to keep things in order let me know 😉
Wow, I am impressed Inger…so nice and organized…the last thing I organized was my clothes after reading Kondo’s book…you just inspired me to do more…
Enjoy the rest of your week 🙂
I have heard so much about the Kondo book. My sister is doing her clothes right now. I am on the waiting list at the library and can’t wait!