Cooking Baking Eating

After my initial time roaming around the bulk bins, I realized then I needed to do a reorganizing of my kitchen. Specifically, my spice rack/cupboard.

Don’t give me that look. I know its slightly crazy…

After buying my bulk spices and putting them in their pretty bottles, I became inspired. I started looking around online for the best way to store your spices to get the longest shelf life out of them. Especially with the amount of spices I have its important to get the most out of them.

While plastic is good, it’s not usually the best way to store things. Plastic can absorb the smells and not keep whatever is in them as fresh as possible.

So off I went to find my spice bottles. I got a great deal at IKEA on small glass jars and bought a whole bunch of them. Since they are only a few bucks for a set of 4, it cost me less than $15 for the lot of them.

There was only one problem, with all the spice jars the same size and height, it’s hard to find them in the cupboard.

So I built my own spice rack/shelf/thing out of some materials I had laying around. A small piece of wood, foam core and glue. I love glue. I also accidentally glued the foam core to the side of the cupboard, but it came off easily without causing any damage (thank you hot glue being pliable while still even slightly warm).

The shelf turned out pretty good, so while I waited for the glue to get nice and hard I moved on to the jars. I washed, dried, labeled… I made my own perfect system.

Now the spices are easily seen, and well preserved. No flip tops that could potentially not close, no plastic that can seep its flavor into my spices.

They hold quite a bit of spice, so that works out great when I accidently get too much from the bulk bins. Plus there is just something beautiful the way the light is filtering through the spices jars.

Its like my own little spice army!

There is one thing that you didn’t get to see. I had to redo the sides of the rack to make them just slightly taller. Not to mention the melt down I had when I realized it might not fit in there. Or when it stuck to the wall because the glue wasn’t dry…

But… The effect is something wonderful. Now my spices are all in order. Mostly. I’m still working on how I want them arranged. Alphabetical? By usage? Sweet? Spicy?

Too many options.

I somehow have the feeling that I’ll eventually move the spices to a drawer or something. I’ll obsess over this until its perfect. Then I bet I’ll change it again. But for only $15, its not really a bad deal.

Ah, neurotic tendencies, I love you.