Pantry Organization Refresh – The Silhouette Creators Refresh Challenge
Don’t spend another minute searching through your kitchen pantry. Organize the space with appropriately sized containers and DIY Silhouette labels using this 5-step process!
I’m slowly recovering from my-so-far-Powder-room fail, both mentally and figuratively. One day I’ll learn to trust my first instincts.. it would save so much time! In any case, it seemed like a superb time to focus on something else.. like my kitchen pantry. It’s perfect timing, too – January’s Silhouette Creators Monthly Challenge theme is refresh! Many thanks to Cat of Pocketful of Posies for hosting.
Follow this 5-step process to organize your kitchen pantry
Believe it or not, just a few short years ago our kitchen pantry was neat and well-ordered. But, over time, and as our needs have changed, it’s become very unorganized indeed!
Sometimes it can be overwhelming to know where to begin when things get a bit out of control – it happens to all of us! I have a 5 step process for most any kind of storage organization. It goes something like this:
1. Evaluate what you need to store.
2. Sort Stage 1: Determine whether to keep, relocate or dispose of each item.
3. Sort stage 2: Sort into categories for storage.
4. Organize! This is the part where you find containers, and find those containers homes.
5. Maintain. If you’ve found the right home for everything, this will be simple!
Evaluate
In the case of our pantry, our shelves are very deep, but the shelves come out far enough that storage on the door isn’t possible. Still, if organized correctly, we have plenty of room for everything we need to store. So, what was our biggest problem? The containers we were using were either not properly sized for what we needed, taking up too much room, or not large enough to store what it needed to. Things had gotten out of control!
So much so that we’ve started moving into other cabinets to hold the overflow.
Determine whether to keep, relocate or dispose of each item
Sorting made me realize how many duplicates I had and also that I had a few things that were a wee bit out of date. Like, ahem, one that had a best by date of 2012.. how?
Sort into categories for storage
After purging any expired foods, sort whatever is left into categories. From that, you can determine what storage you need.
Ready, Set, Organize!
We moved some foods to smaller containers, while some remained in larger containers.
For some categories, such as pasta, rice, and bagged snacks, baskets from the Target dollar aisle were a perfect home. To make the baskets easy to use, I added rope handles. This allowed me to maximize the number of shelves as I could make them just the required height for the basket to slide underneath, as we don’t need to be able to reach the top to slide the basket out.
Drawers were a great alternative for lunch snacks, making it simple to see what is available and what is needed when making up the shopping list.
To complete the organization, I added vinyl labels for each container made on my Silhouette machine. I used the Harlow Solid Italic font in the Silhouette Studio and applied the vinyl to each container using transfer paper.
I can’t tell you how nice it is to be able to find everything again! Such a simple project that has made such a big difference in my every day!
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How about you? How do you organize your storage areas?
Thanks so much for stopping by and please be sure to check out the other refresh projects for this month’s Silhouette Challenge!
What a difference! I need to do this myself. Food ends up getting hidden and then never gets eaten.
You've reminded me that our pantry is due for another clean-up! I already use a bin system, but I need to sort through them for expired items. I love the labels you made!
Wow, what a nice organized space. I did my pantry last January and it already needs an update. Things do get out of place fast. I love the labels. You did a fantastic job.
Wow, what a nice organized space. I did my pantry last January and it already needs an update. Things do get out of place fast. I love the labels. You did a fantastic job.
What a big job! It looks so nice and organized now. Great job!
Looks wonderful! I just organized my spices. Who knew that alone would take me forever 😀
I need to hit up target for some bins. My pantry makes me cringe on a daily basis!
Love this pantry space! need to check out those Silhouette labels, im building a new home and we are tackeling how to do the pantry closets.