Some time ago (2005 I think) I came across a homemaking blog (title of which is lost to time). The article that caught my attention was about making the spice rack pretty. I jumped right into the project wholeheartedly. I ordered empty spice jars and labels. Choose a label design that I liked and got to work switching the spices into the new matching bottles with matching labels. They looked great!
Upon using them for the first time a problem was discovered. The measuring spoons didn’t fit through the neck of the bottles. This wasn’t an insurmountable problem, but definitely annoying. It has bothered me ever since and I have been looking (off & on) for jars that I liked the look of, that had wide enough openings, and that weren’t huge.
I really like the Ikea Rajtan spice jars, but they are too big. Spices don’t last forever and need to be used up or rotated out. I didn’t want to have to toss out large amounts of spices all the time.
I stumbled across 4oz Ball canning jar type spice jars (ok, 4oz isn’t all that much smaller than the 5oz Ikea ones).
They even come with two lids! One metal screw on lid and one plastic flip-top shaker lid. To access the spices with a measuring spoon the lid still needs to be completely screwed off. I am good with that because the lids have a place for the labels to go. The dispenser type caps would not allow for the labels to go on the lids. Sadly I didn’t have any labels small enough. To make sure that I ordered a size that would work, I matched a 1.5″ label that I already had. It was too big, so I must need the next size down. Again, I jumped right in and ordered jars and labels. 1″ craft brown labels from http://www.HotColorProducts.com and the small Ball jars from Amazon, along with 2 sets of stacking spice racks.
The labels arrive first, followed quickly by the jars. Being that I was super excited to do this project I hurried into the computer to print out the labels only to find that I was OUT OF INK! 🙁 Boo! I ordered replacement ink cartridges. One to replace the empty ones and one to have on hand for later. Ink is expensive. To keep the price down, I ordered it online and had to wait for it to be delivered. Not being a patient person, and having LOTS of labels, I decided to do the thing and hand write the labels. Then came the transferring of spices to the new jars. I was surprised to find that there were several spices that I had multiples of. :-/
- Ground Nutmeg
- Ground Allspice
- Orange Peel
- Ground Cumin
- Chili Powder
- Paprika
It was good to combine all the duplicates. DW was sweet enough to install the racks for me. That way he’d know that they had been installed correctly. 😉
Having placed the spices in the rack, it became pretty obvious that the labels only on the lids weren’t very practical. Thankfully, the ink had arrived and 2 pages of labels were printed. On the lids and on the front of the jars, placed so that they could be read while the spices were in the racks.
They make me so very happy! 😀
What did you hang them on?
On the wall between the fridge and the pantry. Screwed into the studs to support the weight