DIY Spice Jars

If you are anything like me you start a million and one (OK maybe I am exaggerating a little....a million) projects at one time only to leave most of them half done and alone on a shelf somewhere wondering when you will ever return. Well this project my friends started down that road.

One day, several months ago, I was chatting with some other folks online about how my spice drawer was a huge mess. I had thought that when I moved into my old house I would avoid the spices in the cabinet shuffle (you know, shuffle two out, three to the side, Aha the one you were looking for) by laying them out flat in a drawer. I had a huge drawer just begging for them so that is where they went. It was a fantastic idea, until I became a food blogger and decided I needed every spice known to mankind in my kitchen! Then it became a jigsaw puzzle to fit them all in to the drawer, and what I like to refer to as "a religious experience" to find them (You know "Seek and ye shall find"?)! But I was clueless as to how to fix the issue. I would see all of those adorable glass spice jars when I went to the spice shop in Seattle, but DANG those suckers are expensive!! With around 50 different types of spices in my arsenal, it would have cost me a small fortune to buy and I would STILL have the issue of how to store them. That was when I found this fabulous idea.

I bought my baby food jars on eBay for about a buck each because I don't have, or know anyone that has, a baby to steal jars from (I of course would have waited for the baby to eat the food. I would never steal food from a baby!). But since then I have heard from a few people that you might be able to check into local Mom groups, or maybe Craigslist. I was fine with eBay though. I bought my spray paint, Goof Off, and paint pen so I had everything I needed. Except the motivation evidently because that is as far as the project went, until we moved to a new house that didn't have a big drawer.

Just a little of the mess at my new house that didn't have the big drawer to hide my spice mess in. It seemed that the spices were multiplying behind my stove to the point that even Kevin made some comments about me opening my own spice store. That finally lit the fire under my rear and away I went.

The labels had already been removed by the time I got them, so all I had to do was remove the stickies left from the labels (God bless Goof Off) and then give them a good washing.

See sticky free and crystal clear.

Spray paint the tops with chalk board paint. Yes we now have a Christmas tote with polka dots on top since I didn't have any newspaper to lay out.

At this point you can use chalk if you don't want permanent labels on your jars, or a white paint pen like I used because well, I will always have a million and one spices (Wow I seem to like that number don't I?). The jars fit perfectly in any silverware depth drawer so you have all of your spice names just staring you in the face when you need to find them