How to Organize Your Kitchen Spices

There's something about a well-organized kitchen that gives me a sense of accomplishment. It amazes me that after all I put my little kitchen through, sometimes using what seems like every pot and cooking utensil I own, it manages to all come back together in the end. After my shelving and backsplash projects, I thought it was pretty much a done deal on kitchen projects until I caught a glimpse of my built-in spice wall.I'm not sure how I never noticed before, but after being away for the holidays I came home, walked in the kitchen and suddenly felt my OCD kick in. Now faced with a collection of mismatch spice jars and hot sauce bottles that had accumulated after many trips down the spice aisle, I was forced to channel my inner visual merchandiser and restore order in my, once organized kitchen.

The goal was to keep it clean and simple, so the first step was finding a new home for all of my spices. After a visit to, what seemed like every home store in La, I found these cute oval-shaped spice jars with clamp closure at Crate and Barrel.

The next and obvious step was to find a way to label the jars. Can you imagine mistaking curry powder, for mustard powder?! No bueno. Being the domestic,DIY everything, type of girl, of course I wanted to put some chalkboard paint on the jars and write the name of each spice out in chalk ( as seen on Pinterest) , but then I remembered my handwriting isn't all that great.. So I opted for the next best thing, a label maker! By the way, if you don't have a label maker, get one! Don't be surprised if you find yourself fighting the urge to make a label for everything though. After transferring all the spices into the new jars and printing out the new labels I just couldn't leave my mismatch hot sauce bottles sitting on the same shelves as my new color coded and uniform spice wall...I then found myself in storage heaven, aka the Container Store, trying to stay focused on what I came for, but super distracted by rows and rows of home organizing solutions. That store will really make you feel like you need a container for everything from your shoes to an individual avocado. Wanting to stick with a similar look, I was able to find some mini sauce bottles with white stoppers and silver clamps to compliment my spice jars. The bonus was getting up to the cashier and finding out that they were on sale for .87 cents! ( orig $3.48 )

I must admit putting the spices in order, by color, may have been a little overkill, but there's something about it that calms my soul. ( yes I can be a bit dramatic)

This project also made me realize that I needed to diversify my collection of spices, which led me to the spice bazaar at the LA Original Farmer's Market, called Dragunara. It was a bit overwhelming at first, but I was lucky enough to be the only customer, at the time, so the sales lady gave me a guided tasting tour and convinced me that I would never want to cook and poultry or fish again without their black garlic seasoning. I'm one to be easily persuaded by sales people but if it tasted as good as it did on my finger, I knew it would be 10 times better on real food.

So for now, I'll say that my kitchen is complete, but who knows ... that could change next week lol.