It’s the new year — that lovely time when many of us are motivated to get organized. It’s even a bigger deal now that we are all at home more during the pandemic. We have just replaced our kitchen appliances and floor, so to go with all the new loveliness I wanted to get my cabinets organized. I went through everything, tossed stuff I didn’t really need and grouped the rest in containers. Creating some simple vinyl labels really helped and I am loving it so far.
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Let me show you some tips on how you can organize and make your own labels. All you need for labels is some vinyl and a nice, readable font. It’s even a great way to use up scraps of vinyl. I’ll give you tips on what containers I used, but you’ll need to find what works best for your cabinets and what’s in them. Not everything in my kitchen needed a label, but I’ve included pics of everything just in case you’d like to see.
The Before
Pantry
I am fortunate enough to have a nice, large pantry cabinet in my kitchen. The downside of that is that it’s REALLY deep, so things tend to get lost in there. Here are 2 pics of how deep it is.
It’s hard to get perspective. But if you imagine how many of those chicken stock cartons I could fit you get the idea.
Unfortunately, I didn’t remember to get a “before” pic of the filled pantry, but just imagine 20 open bags of chips, boxes and boxes of stale crackers, and plenty of expired canned goods. The big challenge was to be able to use the full depth without losing things in the back.
Trash and recycling
We have 3 different cans for trash and recycling — trash, plastics and paper, and glass. We don’t have a hard time keeping that straight, but when we have guests over it can be confusing. So I’m making labels for all 3 cans.
Under the sink
As I said, we have just gotten new appliances and I’m determined to keep them looking great. I bought some microfiber cleaning cloths, but needed a way to keep them handy and to keep the one for the glass cooktop separate from the one for the stainless steel. On the rag’s tag, I wrote C for cooktop and SS for stainless steel, but you still had to pick up the rag to identify it. I need a good way for anyone helping with the cleaning in our home to know the difference easily. (Read, “Don’t you dare use the stainless steel cleaning rag on my induction cooktop!”).
Once again, I didn’t get a before pic of the whole under sink area, but the cleaning supplies were a complete jumble. (I was subconsciously probably too embarrassed to get my camera out).
Canisters
I have quite a few canisters with different types of flours and sweeteners. I can usually tell by looking which is which, but sometimes I have to taste them to tell. Plus, when my kids are home they love to cook and bake. So, I need labels. (We are famous in our house for accidentally putting baking soda into scones instead of baking power. GROSS! We finally drew a little can on the recipe!).
By reorganizing the kitchen, I ended up with more cabinet space and was able to put these in the cabinet instead of on the counter.
HINT: Keeping less clutter on the countertops is a very easy way to immediately make the kitchen look cleaner and even larger.
Coat closet
Just off the kitchen is our coat closet. The shelf had several crates for gloves, hats, rain ponchos, hiking water packs and more. These needed better organization. I didn’t get a “before” pic of these either, so just imagine crates overflowing with single gloves, hats too small for anyone in our home and a jumble of water packs.
The organizing
Pantry Containers
Armed with my pantry measurements, my first stop was Ikea. I got several types of hard plastic bins for my pantry from the Kuggis and Pluggis series. Trust me, these containers are way easier to clean and replace than your shelves.
HINT: Shelf liner (even leftover vinyl) is much easier to clean than a painted shelf. For especially dirty areas like under a sink or trash can, grab some tile on clearance or second-hand and use that to line the bottom.
Technically, the former were in the area for paper/office storage and the latter for recycling. Sometimes you need to think outside the box for the right pieces. I like that the boxes are white, but not see-through. (Well, most are white. I didn’t get enough on my first trip and couldn’t find white ones on my second). Since my husband has some dietary restrictions, it helps if he can’t actually see the things he’s not supposed to eat :). It looks less cluttered visually, too.
The Kuggis ones have lids. I put those on if there’s not much in them so things look even more streamlined. I keep the lids I’m not using stacked under one of the bins.
Other containers
As you saw in the photo above, I already had some awesome glass canisters (paid Amazon link) for my flours and sugars. You can also find these at Walmart and Hobby Lobby. Mine are Anchor Hocking, so made in the U.S.A. Woo hoo!
For the coat closet, I got some clear containers from Ikea’s Samla collection. They were the best size to fit the shelf. Plus because they have lids they stack, unlike the crates I had before.
I did my under-sink area last, so my budget was dwindling at that point. I picked up a few things from Dollar Tree — a basket with handle and some clear plastic bowls.
In the red basket I put sponges and an extra microfiber rag.
The smaller bowls hold plant food and hummingbird food packets. They live under my sink because you dump them in water, which is obviously from the faucet.
My dishwasher tablets are in the larger bowl — SO much easier to grab and it looks nicer, too.
Other organizers
My next brainstorm was the Snudda Lazy Susan from Ikea. (I got the idea from some corner cabinets in the kitchen where I have spinning racks).
By putting things like oils and sauces on these in the pantry, I can spin them to see everything more easily. This made much better use of the depth of the pantry and was probably THE most helpful organizational thing I did. I was able to put 2 on each shelf and there’s still room for some large items in the center.
For under the sink, I put some command adhesive hooks (paid Amazon link) on the inside of one cabinet door to hang my microfiber rags on.
On the other side, I put another hook and used it to hang my latex gloves with a binder clip (paid Amazon link).
You can see in my photo of my Dollar Tree items above that I grabbed some plastic-coated wire shelves. They are pretty rickety (what do you expect for a buck?), so I zip-tied (paid Amazon link) a couple together for added stability.
HINT: Anytime you can use vertical space, you’ll fit much more in any area. Although the little wire shelves aren’t super tall, I was able to slide things under them. I didn’t want them high because the bottom side of the sink takes up lots of real estate.
I picked up some can organizers (paid Amazon link) as well. Ones that I could load easily from the back to rotate the canned goods would have been my preference, but I couldn’t find one the day I was looking and they are a bit pricy. So I’m careful to rotate the cans when I put new ones in.
Like items together
For the pantry reorganization, I removed EVERYTHING grouped them by similarity. I tossed what was expired or what I thought we’d never actually use. Do you do that? Buy something and then never use it? Not like crafts supplies at all (she said sarcastically). Then I grouped the like items together in my bins. For example, I used one for nuts, another chips and crackers, another for baking items, etc. For things I had a lot of, I used the larger bins. It’s much easier to grab the whole bin and take it out than to rummage around on the shelf.
HINT: If you have small cabinet space, sometimes things like canisters for flour or sugar — although cute — take up more room that the original bag. Figure out what works best for your space.
In the coat closet, I put gloves in one bin, hats in another, ponchos in a third, and a fourth has the hiking water packs.
Under the sink, I put similar cleaning products together. For example, the liquid dish soap and rinse aid bottles are right above the dishwasher tablets. It seems like a small thing, but it can make a big difference.
What’s front and center?
Things I don’t use often, like the fire extinguisher or grill cleaner, I put toward the back under my sink. My big brother taught me when I was very little to keep the things you use the most in easiest reach. That lesson has stuck!
Once I had everything organized, there was actually MORE room in my cabinets. I was able to bring back in some things that had been relegated to the basement like paper towels, ice packs and extra cleaning wipes.
The labels
The amazingly great thing about a Silhouette machine is that you can use any font and type anything your heart desires. Such awesome flexibility! I looked for a casual, easily readable font that fit my farmhouse style and ended up with Riverhead.
Start by typing out all the label phrases. Figure out which one is the longest and has the most lines and base your sizing on that.
Nest, but with caution
I used Nesting (available in Designer Edition and up) to automatically make the best use of my material. This can be tricky when you’re working with text. The software doesn’t always keep words and phrases together, which is really annoying.
To get around this, select each labels text box, right click and choose Make Compound Path. HOWEVER — be aware that this will change the text to a regular image, so you can no longer edit the text or figure out the font. Before you do it, make a copy of each of your labels and pull them off to the side of the page. Then nest only what’s on the page area. Much better!
Notice I added padding between my different labels. It makes them easier to cut apart and weed.
More hints
- For my coat closet bins, I made my labels vertical. You can find out how to do that here.
- Think about the color of your organizers and what’s in them to decide which color of vinyl to use.
- Put labels on 2 sides of each bin. That way, you can turn it 90° as needed.
- Honestly, the hardest part of the whole project was getting everything lined up straight! I wanted all my labels to be the same distance from the edges of my bins and jars so it would look neat when I open the cabinets. To make that easier, I ended up making a template.
I put one label (the one with the most wording) on where I wanted it. Then, I measured the distance from the side and bottom of the bin, and cut out an L-shaped piece of cardstock to match. Each time I put on a new label, I aligned the outer edges to the side and bottom of the bin, and the side and bottom of the words to the inside edges.
- If you use paper transfer tape, not plastic, you can draw level lines on it. The gridded transfer media only works if you — unlike myself — can get it onto the vinyl straight.
My finished kitchen with labels
Here are the pictures of my labels in my newly organized kitchen. I’m no Marie Kondo, but this is SO SO SO much better! (Ignore the fact that the entire bottom shelf is alcohol. My husband works at a label-printing company and we end up with way more sample bottles than we’ll ever need).
I’ve had my labels finished for several months now and they are holding up very well. It’s made it much easier to find things and avoid wasting food. The best part is that I can change them whenever I need to.
I hope I’ve inspired you a bit. Happy organizing!
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