Organize with me! It's getting SPICY🌶️ around here! | #decluttering #spices #organization

Foreign. Okay, Today we're going to spice things up in the kitchen a bit. We're going to focus on decluttering and organizing spices. This is such a fun project. If you've never done it before, you will find it so rewarding. When you are able to go through declutter them, find out what type of storage solution you want to have, and you implement it. You're going to love the result. And the best thing about it is it just makes cooking all the better. Let's get started with the decluttering. Okay. What you want to do first is you want to grab all your spices. What I like to do is I like to alphabetize them. That way I can catch if I have any duplicates or triplicates. If you only have 10 or 15, it's probably fine. You don't have to alphabetize them, but if you have something like 30 or 40, you'll want to alphabetize them. Once you've laid them out, you want to look for any damaged bottles. Get rid of those missing lids. Get rid of those. If you have any that have expired dates. You'd be so surprised if you saw some of the dates on the spices. I've seen working with clients, they are just shocked. They're utterly shocked. And they're like, I can't believe I've had that for 10 years, 12 years or more. So you want to look at all the dates. Have your phone handy so that you can zoom in, because some of the dates are really hard to see or they could be faint. So go ahead and do that. When in doubt, toss it. If you know you've had had the a particular spice a long time and you can't find the date. So one, once you've done that, you've laid them all out, you know what spices you want to keep. Don't keep any. If you bought one for some random recipe and you don't think you're ever going to use it again, get rid of it or give it away. There's no sense in putting a storage solution together for something you're never going to use and you don't care about. I know that seems kind of harsh, but that's the best thing to do. And you have to make these decisions when you're decluttering. Once you have your final set of spices that you want to keep, now we can start talking about storage solutions. So before you start thinking about storage solutions, there's a couple things you should do first to make sure you have the most optimal solution in the end make sure you understand the space where you're going to store your spices. Make sure it's cleaned out. Measure that. You get the height, you get the depth, and you get the width of your cabinet. Assuming it's going in a cabinet or a drawer, wherever you're going to put it. And when you're doing that, make sure you're thinking about how much space you have, because you want to be able to grab one and lift it out. So you don't want to go too high. So really pay attention to how you want to use your spices and have access to them. The second thing is, is think about how you want it to function for you. I kind of had a few requirements. So my first requirement was it had to be easy and accessible for all of my family. So that was really important because otherwise, whatever solution I put in place, they'll undo. It needed to be easy, it can't be too fussy. The other thing is I wanted to be able to see all my spices at once. I didn't want to have to go back and fish for some and some will get pushed back and I don't know that they're there because then we end up just buying duplicates and triplicates. I wanted to make sure that I can easily see the name of all my spices. And the last thing that I wanted was I wanted them to all have consistent labeling. So that was really important to me. So those three things were my requirements. When I went back and redid mine in February, I looked at three different options that I could use to store my spices with those requirements. So the first thing I did was I looked at a turntable. I grabbed it, I put it in the cabinet, started filling in my spices. And I like that you could spin it. It made it easy so that I can easily be able to see all the spices. But it wasn't large enough to hold the number of spices I had, so there would be some in the middle that I wouldn't be able to see. And then it kind of went against the requirement where I wanted to be able to easily see all my spices at once. That solution didn't really work for me. The next thing that I tried was a pull out drawer, a drawer that attaches to the bottom of the cabinet. You can pull it out and it had one tier, you can even put a second tier. And it was a really cool solution. And what it had was it had labels and you could put it on the front that said, you know, the first one is paprika, then pepper and then nutmeg. And it had set labels. But the problem is, is I know my family and they're going to end up mixing everything up. So when I'm looking for nutmeg, it's not going to be in the row that says nutmeg. So that wasn't going to work for me. That just seemed too much maintenance and I don't want to have to go through and constantly be making sure the labels matched up. So that wasn't easy. So the third option that I went with is what I call stadium style spices, where I've got a rack that fit within my cabinet and I was able to put all my jars in there. And I really liked it. It was easy to access them. It fit the number that I had at the time perfect. The rack itself came with these labels that were round and I could stick them on the top of all my jars. It worked perfect. I loved it. So that was the option that I went with back in February. Okay, so here's where the twist comes in for me. I got really into cooking and meal prepping and I started buy so many spices that I quickly outgrew my solution. And I was bummed because I really liked it. It was working really well for the family, and I like the way the labels looked, everything. But we outgrew it. So I had to go back to the drawing board and relook at everything. I pulled out all the spices, made sure I understood where my duplicates and triplicates, and I did end up having a couple duplicates. Again, I went through the dates were all good because I had just done that. I originally gone through and decluttered them in February. So by July, it was pretty much still fine. So I went through that process and then I looked at my requirements. So my requirements were again, I wanted consistent labeling, I wanted it easy, accessible, and I wanted to be able to see all the spices. But I had a fourth one. Because I was cooking so much, I didn't like having to take off the lid and pop off that plastic insert on all of the jars. It was driving me crazy. So my fourth requirement is I want to be able to have it open the lid and have it be open and easily accessible without the little plastic insert. So that was a new requirement. So when I started looking at storage solutions, I needed to keep that in mind. So I did some local shopping. Didn't really find any solutions that I wanted. So I went online and I found some great solutions. So what I did was I was able to find some stands that were similar to my stadium spice racks, but basically they were just shelves and they had different widths and they had different number of shelves, so that worked out great. So I figured out how many shelves I could have. So I bought two racks, and then I found these jars that were perfect. It's a glass jar with a lid, and it has suction, so it helps keep everything fresh. But there's no insert. I can easily take my spices, put in a measuring spoon, grab what I want, put the lid on, and be done. I was so excited about that option. I bought the product and then I started to assemble everything. And the beauty of it was I was going to even make custom labels, but I didn't even have to make them. The jars came with these labels, and they're beautiful. I went through the process of filling all the jars, and it was just so fun and relaxing. It took me an hour or two max, and then I loaded everything up. What do you think? Comment below and let me know what you think of this option compared to my prior option. Okay. As with any solution, you have to maintain it. So I'm going to do some maintenance on the solution today. I need to refill some of the more often used solution spices, and then I want to look at my backstock. I think I need a better solution for my backstock of items where they're extra spices that we have, where they're duplicates or triplicates or things we just don't use very often. Let's go get that started. Okay, here is my back stock. So with all of the holiday cooking and baking, we had some extra stuff. I have some things that I need to refill, which is what this is for. Some things we're just not using. I had some original duplicates, even triplicates, but we don't use some of these. Like, I don't use rosemary that much or basil, and they're still good. So I'll continue to store them and refill the main bottles when I can. But, like, there's this mystery stuff. I have no idea what this is. I'm just going to toss it. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to pull all this stuff out like I suggested you do originally, kind of see what I have and go, okay, so here's what I have. I have a few that, again, they're probably not empty enough in my main spice area, so they'll probably just remain back stock. I have some that I just bought because we ran out and they need to be refilled These are the ones we use the most. So I have some of those to do some refills. And then this stuff is going in the garbage. This is some rosemary and already have some. This is the mystery stuff. This is some stuff that's only good for a little while. And basil. We have already a ton of it. That's probably going to be tossed or I'll give it to my mom. Okay, here's my cabinet as it stands today. As you can tell, the stuff we use the most. This is almost empty. This is almost empty. This is getting there. This is getting there. I think the pepper is getting a little bit empty, so I'll go through and refill those. I keep these little spots spoons here, so it's nice and easy to grab a tablespoon if we need it. Or if we're using a smaller measuring spoon, that's fine, too. Sometimes you want a tablespoon, and we have plenty there. So we don't mix the spices. If we get a tablespoon of one thing, we can use a different one, and we don't mix the spices in the jars. Okay. That's pretty much all I had to do was just refill some of the ones that we use the most often. And, I mean, this is something I have to do maybe once or twice a year. It's so easy to maintain, and I just love it. Isn't it beautiful? Now let's take a peek at the back stock. Okay, so now I just need to clean up the garbage and then my backstock area. Let's just see how it fits. I think it's fine. I think this will work. And if I have another storage bin that's a little bit larger, maybe I'll put it in there. But honestly, this is easy. It has handles. I can easily put this in a cupboard and tuck it away so that next time we need spices, we know where to go to find them. Okay. So besides throwing out the garbage that I need to do, I've got to put my almond extracts. I have, like, a baking area. I'm going to put those where the those belong. The toothpicks do not belong there. And I want your opinion. I have these. They're so cute, but I've never used it. And they're super cute, and I like the idea of them, but is it really practical? Let me know in the comments if you think I should just get rid of it if I haven't used it. That's what I'm kind of leaning towards. Maybe I just need to get rid of it. I can give it away or donate it. Definitely comment below and let me know what you think. Should I make use of it or get rid of it? Okay. I hope you're inspired to work on your spices. It's such a fun project. I know I've already said that but it is. It's a fun project. It's easy and you can just go through it in a couple hours. You'll enjoy it all year long. Let me know in the comments below if you need any help. I'll definitely link all the different solutions I showed you in this video so that you can check those out if you want. And if none of those solutions work, comment below and I'll see if I can help you find another solution and I look forward to seeing in the next video. Please hit the subscribe button and notification bell if you haven't already. See you next time. Bye.