Saturday, August 29, 2009

A Pantry Re-do

I love my pantry. It was one of the things I was really excited about when we first bought this house. It's not large, but you can walk into it, there's shelves all around and a cute little window.


I painted the shelves when we first moved in, put up a few more, and have slowly been building my glass jar collection by buying bits here and there when I find them cheap. No plastic containers are allowed in my pantry. Since I'm lucky enough to have one, I want it to look beautiful too!


Now I do my grocery shopping once a month (I plan a month's worth of meals and work out exactly what I need to make them) and before I do it, and when the shelves are kinda empty, I like to give them a wipe down. Now this month, we were running out of EVERYTHING, so not just the shelves were empty but my jars too.

(No teabags left...I don't know how I survived the week.)

So what started out as a shelf wiping, turned into a let's empty the scraps out, wash the dust and gunk off the jars and hey, while we're at it, let's give them new labels too. I printed some labels with a cute border onto a sticker sheet and wrote the names on them.


While I was at it, I got this old basket,


and this old tin (that were alright when I was into primitive decorating,)


and gave them a blast of my new favourite powder-blue spraypaint.


The results really brightened up the darkness of the pantry.
(The colour is a bit intense in these photos.)


So it may not be much, but my pantry is now sparkling clean, and super-dooper organised and I love stepping into it and seeing all my jars filled up.


I love baking so I've got everything you could possibly need.

It makes me feel so rich and lucky, that come-what-may, we have enough food to last the month. Also, thanks to my new extra little freezer, I've been really, really organized and bought all my month's worth of meat (that we could NEVER have fit in our normal tiny freezer), cut it up, packed it and labelled it with the meal it's for. Couple that with the week's worth of bread that I bought cheap 'cos it was close to closing time, the well of abundance feels like it's overflowing.
And speaking of painting and brightening up, I have two of these flour sieves (from the primitive phase) that I was considering tossing as now they just look dingy.

But I dry brushed one with red for a bit of colour and I quite like the results. I think it'll look great at Christmas time with a green wreath. I might paint the other one white.


P.S. Stay tuned tomorrow for I plan to do my first give-away.

6 comments:

  1. OH! WHAT A FEELING ...! How beautiful; You must be VERY proud of yourself. I so enjoy reading your emails and sometimes drool with envy.
    Love you
    Mum

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  2. OMG Esther, I almost hyperventilated abit when I saw such lovely jars with matching labels and sooooo organised.... hmmmm I am very jealous Esther :) Your pantry is just lovely :)

    I might manage such organisaton one day!!!???? I am hoping for a walk in pantry and dream that maybe if I am starting fresh in a new house I just MIGHT be able to start organised.... hmmm we'll see...

    Well done on ur monthly shop also - I can't begin to imagine how to manage that.. We'd run out of everything because we'd just eat all the yummy stuff twice as fast... very sporatic, emotional eaters... I am good at lists but not at following thru... You are often my inspiration Esther when I try to be more organised and live simpler...

    Cheers, Look forward to catching up 2moro :)

    Love Mary :)

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  3. That is amazing! Its a work of art...totally organized and beautiful!


    terrific

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  4. Your pantry is just envy worthy!!! Oh my gosh, those cute jars with the perfect lables...it just looks like a magazine. This is my inspiration, going forward!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am unbelievably envious of your pantry. The space and the organization!

    ReplyDelete

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Get to know me

  • I love the smell of cinnamon and vanilla.
  • My favourite flowers are daisies.
  • My favourite trees are pine trees.
  • I always like to have the bickie jar full and a cake on the cake stand. I know...not that healthy, but so good to look at.
  • Autumn is my favourite month, although I do wish we had more of a change of colours up here in Queensland.
  • I love Anne of Green Gables and Laura Ingalls Wilder. They started my love affair with "old-fashioned" stuff.
  • I'm a boots and jeans kind of girl, but also love vintage skirts and dresses.
  • I like sewing and am in love with quilts at the moment.
  • I love reading. (I have a weakness for archeological thrillers and historical romances, but not Mills and Boon-type ones.)
  • I love old houses with character. No new estate houses for me. (Sorry Rosie.)
  • I love vintage/cottage/farmhouse decorating and pretty pinks and blues, with a splash of red for colour.
  • Polka dots can make me sigh with delight.
  • I have 4 chooks. They are MY pets. Another tick on my dream-come-true chart.
  • I don't eat dessert much any more. I'm not dieting, I just don't want it. (Does that mean I'm growing up if I say no to an icecream cone?)
  • I'll still always say yes to chocolate though!
  • I like to sit on the front stairs in the sun, to drink my morning cup of tea, while I contemplate what to do in the garden.
  • I've got the gardening bug again recently. It comes and goes with the weather. I'm envisioning cottage flowers in pink, blue and white to go with my green picket fence.