Organize Your Shelves And Supplies

There is something about New Years that makes people want to change their lives for the better and get organized. I am no exception to this. My home is all torn up in an attempt to get better organized. 

One of my favorite methods of trying to get better organized is to put like items or items for the same activity into a container together. I also like to label it all so I don't have to look through a lot of containers to find something.

I especially like Olde English Text Labels. Yeah. Yeah. I know they can slow you down reading them a little. But they look so incredibly beautiful on little labels on things. I just can't resist them. I especially like them in the kitchen.

They seem to be a standard font in Microsoft Office. 

Here is a fairly painless way to organize your spices:

You need a bigger container that the spice bottles will fit into. I use old plastic ice cream buckets. They have a nice little handle to carry them with. 

1) Pick out spices that you use for the same kind of cooking. I put all of my main dish spices together, all of the side dish spices, and dessert spices together in the same bucket. 

2) Make labels for each bucket. I like to use a large font in bold for the side of the spice buckets. 

3) Get some clear tape, wide tape is easier. Cut off the tape so the piece is longer than the label. I like enough over lap so the tape will stick easily to the bucket beyond the edges of the label.

4) Stick the tape over the label so that the label is covered. Leave some tape exposed around the edges of the label.

5) Stick the label with the tape over it onto the bucket. 

6) Admire your new wipe off somewhat waterproof label on your spice bucket.

I also like to put herbal teas together in a bucket. You can also make a bucket tea kit with whatever you need to make yourself tea, in it.

It is also helpful to put a list of what is on each shelf on the cabinet door across from the shelf. You can mark off things as you use them. This makes it much easier to restock as needed, so you don't get caught short on something important during an emergency. It is easy to make a shopping list by looking at your cabinet doors.

If you want to get even more organized, you can input your supplies into a spreadsheet and use that to generate shopping lists and keep track of how fast you use different items.