This will be the first post of many on my constant battle to organize our kitchen.  Our old apartment had a super tiny “hallway” kitchen. You know the type were you can’t open the oven and the fridge at the same time.  So moving into our new house it was night and day difference with our new kitchen space but I could always use more space.  The biggest problem I have with our new kitchen is there is no pantry so our dry foods take up a lot of the cabinet space.  I will hit more on this issue in a later post.  Oh the plans I have brewing in my head (insert evil laugh).

The first organization issues I tackled was our spice jars. This is an issue that I have always had going all the way back to living in my parent’s house and had followed me to my adult life. You know, the problem were you have to pull out half the spices to find the one we were looking for then pile them back in the cabinet. We attempted to solve this problem by use a stepped spice rack I found at The Container Store but the spice canisters didn’t fit that well and there was still overflow. 

After shopping around, I ended up buying these great oval spice jars from Crate and Barrel in attempt to at least make them all uniform.  When they arrived at my house I noticed that they were the perfect size to fit into the top cabinet drawer. We were currently using this as a junk drawer and we decided that we could live without it.  

I found a recipe for homemade chalkboard paint on pinterest and decided to give it a try for labeling the tops of the jars. 

Instructions:
Here is the process I went through to make this...

I started by washing all of the jars. After they were dry I removed the rubber seals and set them to the side to avoid getting paint on them. 

Using the recipe I found on Attempting Aloha, I mixed the chalkboard paint. The ratio is about 2 ounces (1/4 cup) Acrylic paint to 1.5 teaspoons of non-sanded grout. Be careful because the grout is very dusty! The paint does come out really thick. You can add a little more acrylic paint to the mix if needed but it does smooth out when applied to the jars. 

I applied two coats of paint to the lids of each jar, waiting for them to dry in between coats. 

After the second coat was dry, I wrote the spice names on the tops of the jars with the wet erase chalk marker. I also wrote the expiration date on the bottom of the jars using a sharpie. 

I put the rubber seal back on the jar and poured the spices in. Then they were ready for there new home next to all the Nuun! 

I was really excited to have space freed up in the cabinet. Don’t worry it didn’t take me long to fill it up with something else.