Kitchen Organizing

I am participating in the 14 week challenge at A Bowl Full Of Lemons, one of my favorite blogs.  Each week, I will focus on a different area of the house to clean, simplify and organize.  This challenge is just what I need to get ready for Christmas. 

The first week is the Kitchen.  Our kitchen is small and in need of a couple improvements.   It is on our 2012 list of things to do.  However that will not stop me from doing some little things to make my kitchen better.  My kitchen is small.

 I have already cleaned and simplified the kitchen.    I do my big cleaning for the year in the summer when I am not teaching.  

We do not have a lot of cabinet space so I only keep in the kitchen the things we use.   My dishes are white with a couple bowls with pops of color.

My bakeware is clear.  That way I do not have a lot of clutter with color in the kitchen.

The only thing I did not complete this summer was  labeling the containers and baskets in some of the cabinets.  So that was what I focused on for this week’s challenge.  

I labeled all the baskets in the food cabinet.   

I finally labelled the pasta,  no more guessing when I am cooking pasta.  

I went to my other food closet where I keep my extra spices, oils and dressings.  I labeled all the baskets.  

Finally I went into the baking cabinet and labeled my jars and baskets.   

Several of my favorite organizing projects from last year that I added in the kitchen:

•  soap basket
•  utensil tray 

• jars for collecting things
• family weekly calendar
• recipe books

The jars are on top of the refrigerator and the weekly calendar in on the refrigerator.

 This year I organized several new areas:

• cookie decorating supplies
• coupons

I spray painted two items from Target:

This double basket that I use for bananas and lemons.

I use this little basket for my  jars.  I keep garlic in one jar and stevia packs in a  jar and my daughter likes her sugar packs for her coffee.  

My biggest organization tip is to group things together in baskets.  Thanks for stopping by and reading. :)