Pantry Organization for FREE

Yup, you read that title correctly!

I did not pay anything to get one of the shelves in my pantry organized. But it absolutely had to happen. At least, I had to get the process started.

Granted, it doesn't all look beautiful, but it's good enough for now! I was just using what I had on hand to make my life easier - AKA, not struggling with my 12 Winco Large bags from the bulk foods section!

Yeah, I can't even make this up. It was bad!

 Here are some essential tools I used for this process:

Canning funnel, label maker

You do not have to have either one of these items for pantry organization! It sure makes life easier, though. And I can't remember what I did without my label maker. But I digress....

Anyway, I pretty much just eye-balled everything I had to work with. I knew I had a bunch of odd-sized jars in the garage that I would eventually like to re-purpose for things like tealight holders and various other things, but for now, they served a greater purpose - holding the random contents of my pantry. I pulled all that stuff together in the kitchen as I needed it, and it seemed to work just fine for me. Others might have preferred to bring it all inside at once and set it all out. I also had our black canisters that we got for our wedding that were needing to be cleaned out and re-used for other foods, and that helped tremendously.

Essentially, I would look at a bag of whatever I had - flour, powdered sugar (seriously, who needs 3 random bags of that stuff?!), chocolate chips, cocoa mix, etc. - and then tried to estimate how much space I'd need in a container for it.

Victory #1! Powdered Sugar in a
re-purposed baby oatmeal
container!

Next, I tried to be logical about the type of container I was using. If I had a container with a pour spout, I'd put something finely ground in there if I could. If not, I tried to put things that come in small sizes in (like oats). Some items didn't require labels at all!

See that? I didn't even care to waste
a label on it! A Sharpie worked
just fine!

I may have committed chocolate blasphemy here:
I combined the 1/2 bag of Winco brand chocolate
drink mix (leftover from Christmas gifts) and the
1/2 container of Nesquik.

Again, I didn't have to label
everything. These are oats. Duh.

Yes, I had to resort to one plastic baggie, sigh!
But at least the chocolate chips are sorted, and
easy to measure/ pour!

Next, I started labeling stuff!

I ended up with something that looks like this

I haven't decided yet where everything is going in the pantry. But it's a lot better than it was before! And I eliminated 14 bags! If I can do it, ANYONE can!

So, to summarize, this is what I did:

1) Bring out contents of pantry to be organized
2) Decide which containers will be filled with various items
* Optional - measure by pouring into measuring cups before deciding on containers. 
3) Start filling things up! (Don't be discouraged if you have to pour out and re-pour. Keep a couple bags on hand for this. Ziploc gallon-sized works great, or your bulk bags will work, unless you're using a product like sugar, which takes on the flavor properties of anything it's exposed to). 
4) Label everything. A Sharpie, white paper and tape will work just fine. You could also get super fancy and print labels from your computer, laminate them, cut them out, and hang them off your containers with baker's twine.
5) Decide how you'll organize your pantry with your newly sorted and combined foods!

One thing I will note: I did this at a time that I wasn't cooking or baking, and therefore already frustrated by not being able to find anything.

My next steps of this project will be using my small canning jars for items such as my bulk spices, baking soda and baking powder (took a page from Ree Drummond's book for that one!)