Getting Something Together... Pantry (pt 1)

I've been feeling exceptionally depressed lately, so I haven't had much to say. But this morning I got it in my head that I would make a dent in the pantry so I can make a dent in the kitchen.

First item I felt like tackling was all of our spices.

We had a MILLION it seems, and I had an ancient spice rack in the back of the pantry, bottom shelf - completely inconvenient to get to and annoying. Well, no more. I pulled *most* of my spice and herb bottles out and gave them a good once over: what is still good, which are 7 years old...

Here's a pic of all the bottles I pulled out of the pantry:

That's 35 bottles!! 35 bottles that were being under utilized, ignored, or otherwise just taking up space. And kindly ignore the basket of laundry... I'm working on getting that all straightened up too. Another post on that some other time...

Here are the bottles that are going back into the pantry:

11 containers going back into the pantry. That's IT.

So here are the containers that are NOT going back into the pantry:



So I'm sure you're wondering... "Did she really only have 11 herbs/spices that were salvageable out of 35?? Really??" The short answer is: No, that is not quite the case.

So where did all of my herbs and spices go? Why, on the walls, of course!

The 5 spices I use most often are over by the stove for convenience, tho if I plan on making something, I can swap out for whatever the recipe calls for, and put my "ol' faithfuls" back with their friends.

Here's the other 20 herbs/spices that I had in the cabinet that were still good. But now they are in cute little tins that I bought at Michael's on sale (tin wedding favors) and some magnetic tape. Viola!!

I know it's not as tidy as something you'd find on pinterest... but that is exactly where I got the idea from. Should I have measured out my lines first? Yeah, probably... but it's not like I won't ever be able to move things around should I wish. And that new label maker I just bought? I think it just earned it's keep. :) Everything is labeled so nicely!!

***EDIT***
Ok, the lack of uniformity was pissing me off. And my husband managed to take one off and spill cajun seasoning all over the world, apparently... So I reapplied the magnetic tape and tacked it into place with brad nails. That puppy isn't going ANYWHERE. And it looks amazingly neater:

OMG, MUCH better!!