Pantry reveal!

So a couple days back, I posted a photo of my oh-so-packed pantry. It was in shambles. Everything was everywhere, I had to waste time digging around for things that should have been in plain sight, and the shelves were so overloaded that they were breaking. Here's a little reminder shot.

Cue scary music!

Fast forward to today, and ta-da! My new and improved pantry!

That's an empty shelf on the bottom!

View behind the door -- appliances, cans, baggies, etc

Solid now

I intended to paint some sort of stencil on the back walls, but it's just not a priority right now. Until I have more free time, I'll settle for organized. I purchased the glass jars (two sizes, the little ones on sale) at Walmart and used them for dry goods. I had the cereal containers in the pantry before, but now they're on a lower shelf and accessible to the kids. We'll see if that lasts. The only other purchase I made was a set of four dollar store bins. I used one for infrequently used baking items (candied ginger, carob powder, and so on) , one for frequently used baking items (vanilla, baking powder, cupcake liners, toffee bits, etc), one for extra or half-full pasta/grain bags, and one for 'drinkables' (tea bags, instant coffee, Crystal Light, Koolaid). I thought four would be enough, but I really could have used another one or two, and may pick up more later.

This re-org came in the nick of time, as the shelves were on the verge of collapse. Seriously, the previous owner had the shelves attached to the supports by finishing nails, and the angled support at the bottom wasn't even attached to the wall. I had loaded the shelves assuming they were secure, but if these things had collapsed when one of my kids was in there rooting for crackers, it could have resulted in serious injuries. Hubby ripped out the angled supports and hand cut niches in 2x4s (I'll be painting these eventually) to create solid vertical supports. Thanks, Love!

Speaking of my dearest, he broke into my newly acquired stash of wine corks and, along with our boys, created these little guys:

Two corks down, only a bajillion to go!

I'm off to do my hour of sewing for the Kids Clothing Week Challenge!

Kids clothes week challenge -- the fall edition!

It's back! The Kids Clothes Week Challenge is on again at Elsie Marley. I semi-participated in the spring event, and it was a good kick in the pants, even if I didn't get much done.



The idea behind the challenge is to spend one hour a day sewing (or knitting/crocheting) kids clothing pieces. The challenge starts tomorrow, so I better get planning. Oh who am I kidding; my kids need pants or they'll be wearing floods all fall/winter.

Pantry update: I've removed about 1/3 of the items in my pantry. HUGE job. The challenge now is to keep my kids from pillaging/breaking the stuff that's now sitting in my dining room, waiting for its new home, while the rest of it comes out and the shelf repaired. The shelf break I mentioned is more serious that I thought, so this re-org project comes in the nick of time!

Spice drawer re-do

Blogland is full of amazing pantry projects lately. I drool over each make-over, but realistically, they're way out of my league, organization-wise. However, I am inspired and decided tonight to take the plunge and upgrade...my spice drawer. Baby steps!

So, three-and-a-half boxes of canning jars and a ridiculous number of sneezes later, my spice drawer has gone from this:

(for shame!)

to this:

(love!)

This was the easiest project ever. Buy several boxes of 250 ml jars, fill them with the mess of spices already in my drawer, and label them with marker on top. Oh, and I alphabetized them and added a drawer liner! How positively Martha Stewart of me! I may go all out and make cute printed labels, but for now, the marker works just fine.

Now that I'm feeling brave and victorious, here's the big disaster I call a pantry:

Notice the top shelf is breaking away from its supports under the tremendous weight of all the flour and other junk essentials I have stashed up there, and the odds and ends that have been squeezed off the shelves ad onto the floor. I'm not sure when I'm going to have time to attack this, but now that I've posted this photo, I feel mortified enough honour-bound to make sure it happens.

Simple & practical project for the kitchen

As some of you know, I have two young, rambunctious boys. They are amazing and fun and lovable, but boy, do they take a toll on my house. My youngest loves dragging around furniture, including the kitchen table and chairs, so today we put together a quick (less than 30-seconds kind of quick!) project to cut down on the noise if not the chaos.

We picked up a couple packs of dollar store tennis balls, slit an X into each of them, and voila! Easy, kid-friendly and practical.




I've been busy with projects for pay lately, and more to come tomorrow...good news for my mad-money crafting fund, but not terribly inspiring. The exception was some cushion covers for a woman whose husband brought back fabric from the Congo while he was posted there...I thought it was A) awesome of him to choose fabric as a souvenir; B) clever of her to actually put the fabric to good use; and C) the fabric was a dream to sew. Will post photos another time.

I've linked up to Somewhat Simple's Strut-Your-Stuff Thursday and Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts.