Hi, I'm Paige Killian and I'm passionate about helping busy moms of littles organize and style their life in three simple steps. Living this mom life is incredible and sometimes completely overwhelming. Is stressing about overstuffed drawers, never ending male piles a mountain of Legos and our kids artwork, really what God intended.
No way. Getting organized has been a game changer for me and also my clients, but it has to be simple or it just won't get done. So let's simplify the process and clear the clutter to see the blessings God has for us. I know your time is valuable. So thanks for joining me each week for a healthy dose of organization and a whole lot of motivation.
Hey, welcome back to another episode. Today we're gonna talk about your spices. If you are in need of organization, for those in a cabinet, in a basket, in some sort of three tiered shelving situation, don't worry. We're gonna talk about all your options. So the first thing I wanna say is that I have been working for years with clients and spices have definitely been an area that I've worked on.
So I have lots of different ideas for things that you can do. If you have got spices and they're feeling a little outta control, a little messy, which they totally can sometimes don't worry about it. We're gonna talk about how. Organize those spices so that they are really easy for you whenever you are cooking or when you maybe have a little one in the kitchen with you helping cooking.
We're gonna talk about how we can do that today. So the first thing I wanna say is I always talk about my three East philosophy because it really can be applied to organizing or getting. Anything done when you've got sort of a beginning, middle, and end and you're trying to move that process along without feeling overwhelmed.
So the first thing I always say is, if you haven't done it yet, and this totally applies to spices as well, do a good purge. So you are your first E, your essential. If you haven't done this, You have got to make sure that you are purging any spices that have turned into clutter, Anything you're never using anything, Of course that's expired.
You know, spices can hang around for a little while, so check the expiration date, but also just know if you've had it for a long time, it's not looking so great in the container, whether it's one that. Came from how you bought it in the store or if it is a container that you maybe have decanted it into, keep an eye on those and make sure that they're being stored in a room temperature area that is not going to have any humidity, any moisture.
Get in there cuz I can certainly wreck it. You wanna make sure that it's not freezing cold or very hot. You want to make sure. Uh, those are being stored in an ideal place. So this could be a cabinet, this could be a pantry, this could be a drawer, this could be a basket. So I want you to just think about where your spices are located and go ahead and honestly take everything out.
If you could do that, it's the best way to do it. Take everything out and maybe you have spices all over the place, cuz maybe you have some larger ones and maybe you. Smaller ones and so you've sort of made them work in whatever areas that you've got. I totally understand that that can be a thing, and it's okay sometimes to have different locations for one thing.
If the reason for that is because you're maybe not using something so often. You don't have space for it right next to your stove top, for example. Or maybe you are like an amazing baker and so you have a huge amount. Of stuff that you're wanting to keep like baking related in a pantry area, but then you've got some other smaller slices that you're using just when you're doing cooking that you would like to have next to your oven or stove top or something of that nature.
So it's totally okay. If you need things to be located in different spots, but if you do have the space to consolidate and put it in one area, that's usually a little bit more beneficial so that way you're not kind of running around the kitchen all over the place, getting things as you need them instead, they're in one spot.
So that's something I recommend if you can keep all those items in one spot. But again, totally understand if you need to have them in separate area. For any of those reasons. So I wanna go back and mention that something that I actually named my business, everything with style, I named it that, uh, for is because I say we can't do everything perfectly, but we can do everything with style.
And today we're applying that to organizing your spices. So how do you organize your slices in style, ? Well, the first thing you do is you don't have too many that you're never using and you don't have ones that are expired. So that's gonna be. Sens first step, sort through, grab your kids and say, Hey, we're gonna have a spicy party
Grab your girlfriend and say, Hey, come on over and grab a glass of champagne or a glass of wine, or a cup of coffee, or whatever it is you wanna do, and let's sort through my spices. All right? That, I mean, listen. That can turn into a party, that can turn into a good time. Don't be afraid to ask your girlfriends to come over and help or ask your kids to get involved if there's something that you're needing to organize that just makes it more fun to not have to do it by yourself.
So the first thing we're doing in those three E's is our essential purge. Once you have tossed any of those items that you just do not need, Or that have expired, then you're gonna think, what is the enhancement to this? Now, usually when I talk about the enhancement for getting organized, I might say, Oh, your enhancement is going to be, take whatever it is you've just purged and donate it or sell it.
To a friend or sell it to somebody to get some more money and some roi. So you could do your third step, which I'm getting to in a second, but in this case, you have to ask yourself, Uh, am I going to be sharing these expired goods? No, . No, you're not. But I will say if you do have some things that you find that you're just not using and it is food related, you can do a couple different things with that.
You can either give it to a friend, Maybe you know someone who is using those things all the time and you say, Hey, do you need this finding chance, especially when I'm recording this right now, it's in the fall, it's before the holiday season. You might find that you got something a little bit ago that you just needed a pinch of, and now you're not using it all the time, but you have a friend who's like an amazing cook or you know that the holidays are coming up.
So they're probably going to be using some of those things more than they do during the regular part of the year. So, Consider that. Yeah. If you want that to be your enhancement to that good purge, if you do have some left over, share it with a friend. So do think about how you can repurpose that. Also, if you have some stuff that's unopened that you are just not using and the expiration date is still great, you can obviously donate that to any local food banks.
That's always something to feel great about, that it's not going to waste, but it's gonna help someone else. So do consider that as well. Now we're on to the third E, and this is the extra. This is literally adding the cherry on top or the spice on top. In this case, what we're gonna do is we are going to talk.
Organizing your spices in the proper containers. So not only just the little containers that they're gonna actually be put into if you're decanting things or if you have them bought from the store. Uh, not just those containers, but also where these spices are going to live. I mentioned they might be in a couple of different areas of your kitchen, for example, and that's okay.
Uh, but let's talk about some different options. So this is the fun. This is where you no longer have things you're not using or that are expired, and this is after you have given anyone that you're just not gonna be using those items to after you've done that, this is where the fun begins, as far as I'm concerned.
So I ended up investing in several different size of funnels because I tend to do spices a lot. I organize spices a lot. Not for me as much because I'm not much of a cook. I'm not much of a ba Well, I'm a terrible baker. It's not terrible in the sense that I can't follow a recipe. I can't terrible, just in the sense that I would rather go to people who are really good or locations that are really good where I can just buy them versus me cook it because I don't get excited about baking.
Now, I have some friends who are amazing at this, so if you're one of them, First of all, let me give you my home address because feel free to drop off anything that you'd like. What I am really good at is eating food , so I'm always open for that. So the other thing though is even if you are not the best chef, even if you are not constantly baking, chances are you do still have.
Some spices in your cabinet. And so I want to talk about, uh, these really cool glass jars that I use often from the Container store. Shocker, I'm talking about the Container Store. Again, if you've listened before, you know, it's my favorite place on earth. It's like my Disneyland. In fact, I'd rather be at the Container Store or organizing than be at Disneyland.
I know. How can anybody be friends with. Well here we are. So I love this one particular type of way that you can organize that I get from the Container Store, but there are still so many different options. So the one I love are these glass jars that have white screw on tops. I like them for a couple of reasons.
Number one, we're not talking about plastic. So it's nice to be able to have a glass jar. You can see through, it's a little healthier than using plastic. And also that has a screw on top. There are some that have the little layer that goes on top that has holes in it, so you can sprinkle it in as needed if you don't wanna dump the whole thing out.
Or you can take that off and do have a con, a container that's completely open. So like for example, bay leaves, your bay leaves, you're not going to have. Little circle openings to sprinkle those in, you're gonna need those to be fully open so you can pop it off and you can pull out the bay leaf that you need.
So do consider when you are purchasing containers for your spices to go in. Something like that would be super helpful. Making sure that you've got something that's got some sort of mesh or some sort of. Holes on the top to sprinkle if you need that. And also having the option to just completely unscrew or pop the top off if you just need to get, you know, cinnamon sticks or something like that out.
All right. Another thing that I love about those particular jars, Is that they come with round circle adhesive labels. Some of them have actually already been prepped. They have already been written in, so it makes my job as an organizer or my job if I'm doing this for myself so much easier because the labels are already written and then I just take a black sharp.
And they give you some circles that don't have any labels on them. Although I will tell you, it has been rare that I've needed to write a label on there because they do such a good job of covering not only the basics, but I'm talking. They have like, Poultry seasoning, and they have like all these other different types of seasonings that are a little outside the box, so they're not just, you know, time, basil, oregano, not just those, you know what I mean?
Those are obviously in there as well, so that's really nice. It's like a one stop shop. I love that they have all of these items and things that make decanting your spices into these awesome jars. Really easy and e. And quick. So I mentioned that I've invested in having some funnels of different sizes because I've used these so often.
But I do wanna say before I got those funnels, and even still today, I will occasionally do it if I'm at someone's house and I didn't bring my little funnels, my decanting funnels, I will actually just use, uh, firm piece of paper and twist that up so it makes a cone shape and then, Sprinkle in the spice and decant it into the glass jar.
A friendly reminder that my book is now available on Kindle and paper bat over on Amazon. So if you haven't gotten it yet or you have and you'd like to get more, head over to Amazon and search for, I've Got You Girlfriend. Why Getting organized and living this mom life is not a solo mission. You can also find a direct link over on my [email protected].
Thanks so much for making it a best seller. And back to the show.
One of the cool things that I really like about that particular one as well, and I'll link it in show notes by the way, so that way you can see which one I really love so much. What I really like about it is it also comes with this clear acrylic organizer that you can do one of two things. I suppose one of three things now that I think about it.
You can put it in a drawer. That's the third one I just thought of. And it's basically just these cut out circles in an acrylic container, and you just drop the glass jars down in them to keep them from rolling all around in the drawer. Okay? So that's one way you can use it. Another way you can use it.
Is, you can stand it up in a cabinet so you can actually have it vertically standing. And for a couple of my clients, I'll have a couple of these because I wish I could think off the top of my head how many are in there, but it's quite a bit. I'm gonna say at least 20 jars come in this container. But some of my clients have really a lot of herbs and spices and things, and so we actually have.
Two of them that we put back to back. Cause that way you can just reach in your cabinet, lift the top one and set it down, get to the back one if you need it. But then certainly the most used spices we have right up front for them. Another cool feature that this particular one has is it's got a couple of holes at the top and the bottom so you can nail or.
And mount this in to a cabinet door. So if you open the cabinet and you have a little bit of space between shelves, you can actually mount this. Now be very careful if you are mounting it into a door that the screw that you have or the nail that you're using to mount it is not too long and will. Go right through and then you see it on the front of your door.
Ah, you've been warned. Be careful about that. Uh, they do come with really small ones though, so chances are that's not gonna happen. But definitely take a look at it just to make sure. You can also use some adhesive sticky type things like from. Command, for example, that brand, and you can adhere this up against a cabinet door or somewhere that you want to mount this.
Perhaps it's in your pantry and you wanna mount it on the wall and you wanna do that with some adhesive strips. Just be really mindful that if you're using the glass jars, And once they are filled and you've got quite a bit of them, it is going to add some weight. So you wanna make sure that if you're doing that, you're putting plenty of adhesive strips on there to make sure that you're not hearing, you know, a loud crash in the middle of the night and all of your spices in glass drawers have dropped down in your pantry.
We do not want that to happen. That would be. Alarming. Quite jarring. , no pun intended. Okay. Oh boy. Do we keep that in or edit it right on out. , I don't know how great that joke was. I feel like that was the dad joke, but his sometimes are better than that one. So here's the deal. If you are looking at your space and you're like, I don't really have room for that page, or I don't want to decant mine, I want them to just be in the containers that they come in when they're stored bought.
No problem. So let's talk about other options. I have this really cool, long, skinny, tall drawer that rolls out that is right next to my oven. So don't worry if you don't have a place in your pantry, if you've got something like that next to your oven, that's super helpful, and you can just line them up whether they've been decanted or you're still using them in the containers that they come in from the store.
No problem. You can. Pop them in there. It is a nice idea, even if you keep them in those drawers where they arrived, if you put a little sticker, or you can even just take a Sharpie and write on top of those jars what they are if they don't have some type of label on top, so that way you're not having to sort through and pull out so many different things to see what they.
So do consider a good, helpful label right on the top of the jar if you're looking down into your spice organization situation. Also, if you maybe don't have one of those, but you do have a little gap somewhere in your kitchen, perhaps beside an island or beside. Your stove top, they make really long, skinny rolling carts that you can actually set them on and slide them back in there.
You might also be able to keep like your oils and vinegars and spray, things like that, that you might want to put in that same area as your spices. Now, don't worry if you don't have that space, you can absolutely keep these items in a pullout drawer nearby. I'm gonna mention the same thing. It's always a good idea to have them properly labeled, whether you're decanting them separately or using the way using them the way that they came.
So when you lay them, Flat. You want to just make sure if they're rolling all around, you can get a nice little grippy mat that you can put on the bottom of your drawer so they won't roll around. They're made specifically for spices and perhaps jars that you might have in there as well. Like I mentioned, like oil and vinegar, and you know, spray Pam or you know, whatever your avocado oil, whatever it is that.
Want to have in that area, you can actually put that, lay it on the grippy thing on your drawer, and that way I won't be rolling all around, all over the place. And when you open it up, you will be able to see that label front and center and be able to grab everything that you need quickly at a glance.
The other thing that you might consider doing is, uh, in that drawer having, it kind of looks like a little stair step. There's usually like three or four different levels that you can put in there. So you are actually raising them, tilting them up slightly when they're in the drawer. They're not just laying flat, but they're tilted up slightly, and then you've got different rows of them.
So if you have a bit of a deeper drawer, it doesn't have to be very deep, but it just can't be really shallow because you've got the different. Levels the one piece of perhaps like an expandable drawer organizer, and you can lay those in one beside the other and then have rows of them so that you've got something on top and on top and on top, if that makes sense.
Again, I'll make sure I put in some of my. Favorite spice organizers in the show notes, so that way you guys will have access to those and you don't have to go down the rabbit hole of looking for things that work. I'll just make sure I pop in. You know, this is something for drawers, this is something for cabinets.
This is something for spices to decant. One of the other things that I love doing, if you're putting it in a cabinet or in a pantry on a shelf, is to have a two tiered. Organizer that is a lazy Susan. It could be a divided turntable, it could just be a regular turntable. I really do like the two tiered ones because a lot of times you'll have spices that are really short and small and those fit really well on top.
And then some of the taller ones sit right underneath. So the home edit has a great one. And I also really like, uh, this other brand that container store cells, so I'll pop both of those in there as well. I believe that one's eye. So those are fantastic. And also, by the way, I'm gonna tell you these that are from the Container store, cuz it's my fave.
But you can get some of these at Target, Amazon, Walmart, uh, any places like that that you might already shop. I'm certain that there are going to be these options there. The nice thing about it, Also, you can pick your style Again, remember everything with style, we're gonna be organizing our spices with style.
How do we do that? Well, we can take a look at what area works for us to keep our spices in, and then it can be a reflection of the rest of our home. So I really like to have. Bright whites in my kitchen, and so I have spices that are on a two tiered rounder where I keep spices on the air and that matches my cabinetry because it's white.
I also have some that are clear that you can see through. I also have some that are multi-tiered as like a sort of. Sits in a cabinet on a shelf or in your pantry on a shelf, and it's again the the little stair step look. So you can definitely put those in place as well. And that way you've got your spices elevated up a row, elevated up another row, so that way you're not missing them when you open a cabinet or open your pantry and you're looking straight on you, otherwise wouldn't be able to see what was sitting back behind them.
So having them at different levels. Super helpful, so I definitely recommend that as well. And again, as I said, what's your style? Maybe you wanna have those in a bamboo type material. Maybe you wanna have those in a clear oral white or a wood situation. Maybe you wanna have them, A container store has got lots that are metallic, and so maybe a platinum looking one that's like the shiny silver that they have.
Maybe it's the white mesh that you. Lots of different options that you can have to make your spices easily accessible so you can see them at a glance. So don't forget that any of these things that I mentioned are going to be in show notes. You decide what works best for your style. Are they going to belong in a drawer?
Are they going to be on a rolling cart in your pantry in a cabinet mounted sitting on. Two-tiered lazy Susan, or perhaps up on, uh, risers that make it super easy to see at a glance. But definitely don't forget those first steps of making sure you're purging anything that is not serving you anymore, that you are not reaching for.
The second step, the enhancement to that, sharing that with someone else if they've not expired and you feel like someone else can use them. And finally, That third step of making sure that you are putting in the proper organization and storing those items at room temperature. Thank you so much for listening, and I will talk to you next week for some more organization motivation.
Thanks for listening to another episode of the Mom's Organization Motivation Podcast. For more resources to organize and style your busy life, head over to everything with style.com and connect with me on Instagram at everything with Style Mom. If this episode was helpful for you, please share it with your friends rate and review it on iTunes.
That's Apple Podcast now and let me know what you'd like to hear about next. Thanks again for listening and happy organizing.