It seems like all we’ve been talking about lately is the pantry. And if you want me to be honest, that’s why the blogging hasn’t been as regular, because I’m tired of talking about it and you’re probably tired on listening.

But, in the process of moving into the pantry, I realized we have way too many herbs and spices for one household. So, the pantry got a little break as I tackled another little project I’d been needing to do for a long time.

I’d already placed our little wheel of spices on the shelf by the stove. It was fine, but we barely used any of the spices on there. I mean, who ever really uses sage in everyday cooking? I think it’s only used in sausage, and goodness knows I’m not going to make my own sausage anytime soon. Or ever.

So, I decided to dump out all the ones we never used. Seriously, we’ve had this little spice rack since we got married, and some of the spices weren’t even open. Oops.

At first, I saved them in case we could use them for something. I hate wasting anything. But really, what am I going to do with a bowl of spices? Make little sachets and put them in our drawers so our socks can smell like sausage. Ick. I’m pretty sure the entire bowl is going to get dumped out on trash day…

I then refilled the jars I dumped out and put in some of the regular spices we actually use on a weekly basis. Then, I used my label maker to print off new labels.

Am I a nerd for having this bad boy? Well, too bad.

Ta-da!

I wish the labels were black instead of white so they didn’t stand out as much, but at least they are labeled, and way neater than I could have done by hand. I can always switch it out later if I want to drop the money for a roll of specialty tape for my label maker, which we all know I won’t.

For the bigger bottles (Lawry’s, taco mix, etc.,) I used glass mason jars, or washed-out salsa jars with either a ranch dressing seasoning bottle lid or a Parmesan cheese lid.

Did you know those fit on mason jars? So handy!

For the few spices we don’t use very often but I still wanted to keep, I made room in one of the upper cabinets on the nook. For instance, I don’t use pumpkin pie spice , cumin, or chicken bouillon cubes very often but I still want to have them on hand.

It’s close enough the stove/cooking area but it works a lot better than all those individual little jars in the giant pantry drawer where they were going to tip over and get lost behind bigger items. Plus, everything looks nice now that it isn’t in the original store packaging. Glass jars for the win, #amiright?

 

The only spices I have left to put in the pantry are the extras. (Extra bottles of basil and parsley and other items I have on hand for when the original bottles run out.) I am going to group those with the spare condiments and they’ll go in a bin on the top shelf of the pantry since we won’t have to use them very much and I have to get on a stool to reach the top shelf anyway.

How do you organize your spices? I also looked at those magnetic jars but since we had this system on hand, figured I’d try this first. Tell me…what should I do with a bowl full of old spices? Throw them away?