Spice Drawer Organization

The first time we went house-hunting, I fell in love with a house that had a spice drawer in the kitchen. Just a shallow drawer with all the spice jars laying down, gorgeously organised – functional and pretty. We didn’t buy that house but I still remember that wonderful drawer!

When we moved into our house in Brisbane, there were lots of drawers in the kitchen and I bought a spice organiser drawer insert. Unfortunately, with our deep drawers, it wasn’t an efficient use of space and quickly had more jars than organiser space:

That photo is not staged – my spices were a disaster and it was impossible to find the one I needed.

A change of plan was needed, and with the help of some Avery round labels (Product number J5624 – seem to be hard to find these days…) and my printer, I turned my spice drawer into this:

So much tidier and so much easier to find my herbs and spices!

I plan to either refill the jars or swap the lids over as I buy new jars.

And to help you, I created a printable:

Click on the image to go to download the pdf file. I’ve added all the usual herbs (with green labels) and spices (with brown labels), and with a few blank labels if your spice of choice isn’t there. If you’d prefer, click here for blank herb labels or here for blank spice labels.

Since moving house, I don’t have the drawer space for my spices, but I’ve just put all the jars into a plastic container and store it in the pantry.

This is working really well for me too. So let’s have another look at the before and after:

So much better! How do you organise your herbs and spices?

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Make Progress, Not Perfection

Following on from my post about nurturing myself, in a recent webinar by Problogger book authors Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett, Chris used a phrase that really resonated with me:

Just like when I had Perfection-Induced Craft Paralysis, I realised I’m not making progress in a few areas of my life because of perfectionism.

I thought it would make a great printable to display in my craft room (not that I have a craft room at the moment, but the countdown to the big move is on – less than 2 weeks to go!).

I made it in a few different colours (since I don’t know what the colour scheme is going to be in the new house!).

Actually, why keep it in just the craft room – I might put it on the fridge, the back of the toilet door, on the bathroom mirror… Anywhere I could use a bit of focus and motivation!

Such a simple phrase has got me taking action: going for jogs (even though I know it’s going to hurt and I can’t run as far as I used to), getting back into blogging, and having a go at pattern designing (even though I have no idea where it’s going to take me).

Click on any of the images to be taken to the full size (A4) image that you can print.

Are you making progress with your goals or are you hamstrung by perfection?

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Free Printable: 2012 Monthly Planner

This may be a little late, but I’ve put together a monthly planner.

I’m using this planner as my blog editorial calendar and as a place to jot down goals, ideas and tasks. I’m using it primarily to keep my blogging on track, but you could use it for menu planning, as an ordinary calendar.

It’s set up to print double-sided and then fold all the pages in half to make a booklet. Download your free copy from here.

Please let me know if you use the planner and if you have any suggestions for it.

Edited to add: If you'd prefer not to make a booklet, you can download this version to just have a page for each month.

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