getting organized

Last weekend I finally got around to organizing my spice jars. Ever since Paul and I started cooking regularly, we've been slowly accumulating all those lovely herbs and spices that most kitchens already have - things like baking powder, mustard powder, marjarom, etc. Some have come conveniently in plastic containers, but others have been cheaper to get at our local bulk store - and we're all about saving money these days!

The only problem with buying our herbs and spices in bulk is that we've ended up with dozens of little plastic bags with tags identifying what's inside. Which is fine...except that it's really not.

Luckily, we spied these adorable little jars in a dollar store (and yes - they were $1.00 each!) so we grabbed a dozen and I went to work trying to bring a little order to our chaos!

These Avery labels from the Martha Stewart Collection were absolutely PERFECT for the lids (and the labels are freezer proof, if you need them to be!). Plus blue is my favourite colour, so that was just a bonus (they also come in red).

Easy peasy.

And voila! All organized and sitting pretty. I love the way these look and am going to grab a few more, plus some larger sizes for the things we use more often (ie. cocoa powder, shredded coconut, kosher salt, etc).

Actually, to be completely honest, right now I have more of the small jars than I have spices, so I'm actually going through my pantry and cookbooks to find more spices that I *need* to add to our collection! Such is the life of an aspiring home cook.