Week 4 - Kitchen Organization

This week Toni has challenged us with getting our kitchens organized.  So for this challenge I focused on one cabinet in particular... the spice cabinet. Its wasn't bad, just not great. You see, I love to cook and try new dishes so I have a lot of spices, 45 to be exact. I need to be able to find and see them all along with all the other "stuff" I have going on in there.

I must say that this is quite a task because my kitchen does have much storage at all. Not much counter space for that matter either... take a look.  This is our kitchen before we moved in. 

What you see is all of the cabinetry in the kitchen... well other than the "pantry", which in 1922 was the original built-in icebox. I made the wide cabinet over the beadboard my spice cabinet, there is now a Monarch stove where the black thing is on the wall. 

On the top shelf we have a basket for baking, brown sugar, bagged tea, and Keurig hot cocoa. There is all a jar of tooth picks for baking and coffee grinds. On the middle shelf are my jars of flour and sugar, baskets for Keurig Tea and Keurig coffee. On the bottom shelf is the plethora of spices, vinegars and sauces.  

I used an expandable 3-tier shelf from Target to display the spices.

I made the labels for the jars and the baskets with scrapbook paper and clear address labels. At the time my Dymo labeler was broken and my P-Touch labeler was out of tape... figures!

This is a 8" square bake pan it holds my everyday items, pepper grinder, salt, long toothpicks, olive oil, etc... 

Hope you were inspired to tackle one of your own cabinets... Check out some other ideas at A Bowl Full of Lemons.

Week 3 - Recipe Binder

This week Toni has challenged us to create a Recipe Binder. Good challenge for those that like to cook. Personally, I love to experiment in the kitchen. For instance today, while in the grocery shopping I looked for a new recipe to try on my Droid... found one. How does Beef and Cheese Manicotti sound??? It looked like it would taste good. Got home and tried it out (I made Ground Turkey and Cheese Manicotti)...DELISH! Is there anything better than pasta, cheese and more cheese? Anywho... I digress... back to the issue at hand.

I have a lot of odd-ball recipes that I need to corral. Some that I have ripped out of magazines, some that I have printed from the internet and some that were given to me. Previously there were just sitting in a pile on top of my cookbooks, so whenever I moved my cookbooks they would fall all over the place. To rectify that problem this is what I did.

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Week 2 - The Launch/Landing Pad

This week the challenge is to create/update the family's launching pad. Well, for us it will be creating. Right now we walk right into the kitchen and everything lands on the island and then slooooooowly migrates elsewhere in the house. To begin, this is what we are working with.... 

Its a very blank slate. The potential is there, with a beadboard ceiling and lots of lights, the end result will be darling. The plan is to put up a high shelf, 4 hooks, antique mirror and add some baskets to catch stuff. Stay tuned for updates.

My only dilemma is, where to put a place to sit? A bench would block the pathway. Any suggestions? 

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Week 1 - Home Management Here I Come!

I have been wanting to create a Home Management Binder for... hmm... at least a year, but never had (made) the time. So when I saw this challenge I knew that I was going to participate. Also, this binder will come in handy for my husband if I'm not around, since I'm the self-proclaimed "COO" of the family. It took all week to get everything together, thats why I'm posting this on Saturday and its still a work in progress. But I'll get there. Anyway... on to the binder.

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