Personal Organizer

I can't remember if I've mentioned this before, but I enjoy watching The Bachelor and The Bachelorette (a little guilty pleasure of mine), and I'm looking forward to a new season that starts in January.  Note to self: set DVR to record the season when I'm done writing this post.  Needless to say, I was a bit disappointed when I found out that I had missed Ashley and JP's wedding.  Lucky for me, the wedding was online, so I spent some time yesterday afternoon watching the events surrounding the big day.  Made me think back to my special day... can't believe it's almost been a year!

Anyway, I digress.  Back to The Bachelor.  After watching Ashley and JP's wedding, I went to the ABC website to check out the girls on Sean's season of The Bachelor, ya know, how old they are, what they do for a living.  There were a couple models, stylists, a yoga instructor, etc, but what caught my eye was the Personal Organizer.  Have you ever heard of such a thing?  Can you imagine a job where you help people get organized?  How fun would that be!  Maybe it wouldn't be that glamorous, but I'm just picturing the end result being lots of beautiful spaces, kind of like I blogged about a couple days ago.  Hmmm, something to consider :-)

Pantry Prep

I have been loving looking at pinterest and on the web for organization ideas and techniques.  Here are some of my favorites.  Don't be surprised if I steal some of these ideas for my new home.

Stationary Station - I Heart Organizing

Bathroom cabinet - I Heart Organizing

Drawer Organization - I Heart Organizing

Garage - The Family Handyman

Laundry Room Cubbies - Family Brings Joy

Linen Closet - Better Homes and Gardens

Beautiful Pantry - House of Smiths

So... seeing all of these beautiful spaces is making me anxious (as you may be able to tell from my recent post about my new spice rack).  So what did I do today?  I started organizing my future pantry, of course!  Using some money I got for Christmas, I bought some new dry food storage containers.  I read rave reviews about the Oxo Pop storage containers and decided to go with those (over my other option of heavy but beautiful glass jars).  I also bought some bins to store misc items such as cookie cutters, sprinkles, cupcake liners, etc.  I still want to add some cute labels, but that will have to come later.  Anyway, here's my start!  Now if only I had a pantry to put all of this in :-)

I've Conquered My Nemesis!

For years, the most painful part of of cooking has been getting spices in and out of my cupboard.  The cupboard that holds my spices is up high (middle shelf of the picture below), so I have to pull half the jars out of my cupboard to find the right spice.

I have (on more than one occasion) had a glass spice jar fall out of the cupboard onto the counter and shatter just because it is so stinkin' hard to find what I'm looking for.  I have HATED my spice storage!

Knowing that we are building a house, I've been searching and searching for the best spice storage solution.  And I found it at the Container Store - The Acrylic 20-Bottle Spice Rack.  When my in-laws took a trip to California in September (wish we had a Container Store here in Boise!), I had them pick me up a couple of these spice racks... which I've been storing in my garage ever since.  I knew they would be perfect sitting on a shelf in my beautiful, giant, walk-in pantry in our new home, and every time I cook, I have wished we were in our new home so my spices would be organized and easy to get to.  As I've started thinking about packing up our house (what a daunting task!) I decided that it didn't make sense to move a bunch of spice bottles when I was just going to get rid of them in our new home.  We decided we could just leave the new spice racks on our kitchen counter for a couple months until we move.  Hooray for me!  That meant I had a small project this afternoon, and I smiled the entire time :-)

• I first pulled all the spices out of the cupboard... over 30 jars!

• Using the handy dandy spice funnel (that I also got from the Container Store), I transferred spices from my old jars/containers to my new jars, and labeled them using the stickers that came with my new jars.

• I put them in alphabetical order to make them easy to find.  I even have a few empty bottles in case I want to add additional spices to my collection.  Any suggestions???

• Ahhh, what a thing of beauty.  These racks are awesome.  They have little rubber feet on the bottom so they won't skid on my shelf or counter, or you could choose to mount them to the wall (they have small holes in the back and came with hardware if you choose to do this).  I can picture these puppies in my new pantry as I type this, but for now, I will smile knowing I have conquered my kitchen nemesis!

Be Our Guest

A couple months ago I bought a Storage edition of the Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publication.  And I fell in love with this linen closet organization.  I know, that may sound lame, but I love it.  I have looked at every detail multiple times, and have looked up the websites of the retailers to purchase the different elements of this perfect closet.  I am convinced the linen closet in my new house will look something like this.

One of my favorite elements of this linen closet (besides how beautiful it is) is the tray of personal items for your guests.  I knew I wanted one of these from the minute I saw it, since I'm certain with a bigger house we'll have more people wanting to visit us :-)  I really liked the compartments in the example, but I am even more excited about my $7.99 Marshalls find.  I think my black and white fabric covered tray is beautiful.  And I even got a couple smaller matching ones for some of the other elements in the closet.

I still have more items I want to add, but not a bad start, especially considering I don't have a linen closet to store this in for three more months! :-)