DIY Organization: Cute Spice Jars

I recently decided I wanted to start crafting. I’m not the crafty sort, although when I modge podged together strange collages as a child, always searching through magazines for the elusive “z” so my name could be included amongst the bizarre assortment of funny animals, semi-fashionable outfits, and heads of ‘90s pop icons (J.C. Chasez, anyone? No? Just me?), I thought I was doing a great job. I wasn’t going to let this lack of craft-skills stop me from doing a little weekend creating, but I came to a realization as I began to explore craft blogs and craftgawker. I didn’t actually want to do crafts; I just wanted to find really amazing ways to organize rooms in my apartment.

And thanks to A Cozy Kitchen, I now have the most beautifully and wonderfully organized spices. Before last weekend, my spices sat in the corner of a counter on one of those aluminum two-tiered lazy Susans. It was such a horrible, messy confusion of the short plastic spice jars and the tall glass ones and there wasn’t enough space to display them all. Plus – and this drives me crazy – you can’t fit a tablespoon or, even a teaspoon, into most of these store bought spice containers.

With a little bit of Chalkboard paint, A Cozy Kitchen transforms Mason jars into reusable, airtight, tablespoon friendly, cut spice jars. Now all my spices are tucked away in alphabetical order in a drawer. If I add spices to my collection, I can just fill another jar! Or if I don’t want a spice anymore, I just wash the jar and erase the lid. If you don’t have the drawer space for this, think of other empty spots in your kitchen. Browsing online, I saw a couple of kitchens that took this idea and attached a magnetic strip to the underside of cabinets, so the spice jars hung; one site even glued magnets to the lids and kept the spices on the blank side of a fridge.

This was an inexpensive project, too – much more cost effective than buying a spice rack that runs out of room. A 12-pack of the standard Ball canning jars costs under $8.00, while a can of the paint is under $15. With these, I can also start buying bulk spices, which is many dollars more expensive than buying a packaged jar of a spice. All around total fulfillment of my crafting urge.