Organizing Your Pantry may not be as big of a project for you as it was for me! Boy Howdy was it a mess! (scroll down for the before shot) There is some pride though for having my Party Pantry for party supplies organized and ready! After you’ve tackled your pantry, you can organize a DIY organized spice drawer with labels. Or check out how I recently organized my kitchen linens!
Organizing Your Pantry
This past year I really let my pantry go. I think I last organized it about the time my mother was diagnosed with cancer back in April. Managing her care, traveling back and forth and of course managing Today’s Creative Life….. got …let’s say…. really creative. Organizing your pantry isn’t usually on your list of priorities when you’ve got a lot on your plate.
It doesn’t help when your husband, who is an over shopper when it comes to groceries and likes to sneak products in without me knowing. He and my son were able to sneak in a lot of junk food with my distraction. Then my 16 yr old son who lacks attention to detail… the pantry was one of the casualties. Not to mention that it’s a really small pantry. Most the homes in my area have large walk in pantries. Sigh….
Here’s the before. Just keeping it real, because I know many of you may be in the same boat. Life happens and it’s OK!
It’s not pretty. Food was piled on top of food. Some items were stale or expired. Many products should have NEVER even been allowed and have been on our banned list for a long time.
Because I’m part of the Better Homes and Gardens Live Better Blogging Network, we are given a monthly challenge. My past challenges were my guest room makeover and a fun S’Mores and Hot Cocoa Fire Pit Party. 
This month is all about organizing! January does that to a person, right?
Both my coat closet and my pantry were in serious need of a quick intervention and since I use the pantry more than my coat closet, the pantry won. (Remember when I organized my Linen Closet?)
I’ve also been dying to buy all the Better Homes and Gardens food storage containers from Walmart that I see every time I go shopping. 
My store only had a couple of the items, so I went online and bought them from the other Walmart in my area, and picked them up that evening. Couldn’t have been easier.
I picked up one 8 Piece Canister Set, 3 flip-tite cookie jars and 6 larger cereal containers, 5 medium flip-tite containers and two of the Better Homes and Garden’s Canvas lined Wire Baskets . I didn’t plan what I may need, I just bought a variety of small, medium and large containers to fit ALL my food into!
Wash Food Storage Containers
Once home, I filled my sink full of hot soapy water to wash all my new containers and lids. This is where I realized that water WILL get inside the lids, and after having a small fit, I realized it was easily remedied by removing the seal and draining.
Pull Everything Out
I have found that you must pull everything out when organizing your pantry. So while the containers were soaking, that’ what I did. I pulled everything out of the pantry and tried to organize by type.
It was like digging for treasure as I pulled out box after box of food items that have been there for months. And duplicates! Oh my gosh, how much money are we wasting on buying items we already had? Organizing your pantry can save you money in the long run.
I love Jaunita’s Tortilla Chips, but seriously…. I found 6 bags! My husband will buy them weekly if I don’t tell him to stop. In our defense, we did have a nacho bar for a bunch of teens.
And Graham Crackers! Holy S’mores! Most of these are expired even!
Again, in my defense, I had purchased several for the S’mores party we had for the teens.
I evaluated my inventory, threw away expired items, and created a pile of unopened food I could donate. Then the fun started. I started filling all my containers! Just look at the beauty!
One thing I notice when I get going on an organizing project….. I get hyper focused on alignment. Does it bother anyone else that the saltine box is crooked? I have since straightened it, just in case you’re wondering.
It just keeps getting better and better!
What a transformation! I was able to condense, organize and arrange in a way that makes my small little pantry more efficient. 
Once I placed everything inside my cupboards, I realized I needed cute labels. Since I was short on time, I headed to WorldLabel where he has a ton of free pantry labels. 
I also already had the pre-cut round sticker paper in the Kraft color, so I used those instead of white. The above photo is printed on white and I could have used my 2inch paper punch, but it was much more convenient to just use the pre-cut sheets.
The circle labels were to big for the cookie jars, so I cut them to fit. Nothing was slowing me down at this point.
The first thing my husband asked was “How long do you think it will stay like this?” If looks could kill……
More Organizing Ideas
- Create a Guest Bedroom with Simple Ideas
- Organized your Linen Closet for Every Day Use
- Craft Room Storage Ideas
- $110 Bathroom Makeover
- Organizing Your Pots and Pans
See my Fellow Better Home & Gardens Bloggers and their amazing ideas.
- Organizing all the Random Things – Not just a Housewife
- Functional & Chic Office Organization – Monica Wants
- How to Organize Legos and a Creative Space – Ask Anna Moseley
- Cute Utensil Organization – Design, Dining & Diapers
- Organizing your Laundry Room – Dukes & Duchesses
- Organizing your Closet – Refresh Restyle
- Free Alphabet Circles – I heart Naptime
- Organize your Closet with 10 things for under $100 – Foxwood Cottage
- Kitchen Produce Organizer – A Night Owl Blog
Hope says
Oh my pantry looked the same in your before pic. I organized them a few months ago, but like your husband, Mine always over buys! So my cabinets and pantry looks like a war zone. Thanks for the tips I think this was just the inspiration to get my butt in gear and finish mine!!
Julie Sanders says
Are your cabinets pull out? I just cleaned out and re-organized ours two weeks ago. I can relate to duplicates (our cabinets are deep and don’t roll out) and sadly I had to toss a lot of high quality ingredients. We lost cabinet space a few years ago when taking a wall down to open up into the den. Since then, the spices have all been in a laundry basket. It had not been fun! I got to that the next day and hate to admit I didn’t really need it there all those years…many were expired. They now fit in my husband’s grandmother’s bread box! I also had a box full of tea. It was also stored in two other areas. It all fits in two small bin drawers now.
I bought glass jars at 50% off from Hobby Lobby and labeled them using vinyl chalk stickers and wrote on them with a chalk pen. If I wasn’t thrilled with my first “go”, it wiped off with a wet paper towel.
FYI-orange essential oil works beautifully to remove sticker residue…much better than Goo-Gone and non-toxic (another reason for choosing glass jars although heavier). Great work! I’m clearing out toxic candles next!!
Kim says
Yes, my cabinets have a sliding shelf. My spices are my next project!
Jamie says
Oh my gosh! I found a link to your blog on facebook and gasped because I just did the same thing on my blog…but only the first half, the before. This inspired me a lot to go and get that pantry clean so that I can have an “after”
Kim says
Yay!!!
Lisa Honeycutt says
timely I found this! My pantry is actually pretty large but out of control. I think I use it too much for storing items that shouldn’t be there. I have a question though, what are all the food items you put in the Walmart containers? I don’t bake a lot so not sure I really need that many. My problem is all of the cans, jars and bottles in mine. You have motivated me to get to it, so thanks.
Kim says
I placed anything from boxes in my containers, things like wheat thins, cereal, etc.. I have all my canned items in another cupboard and we also have a large cabinet in your garage for canned goods. I have one of those wire racks that you place the cans in that allows them to roll forward. I’ve seen those type of products in any organizing area of a home store. Even Lowes and Home Depot have them. Good luck!
Cynthia Quiroga says
This is great. I have been reading blogs and checking out Pinterest. In other homes we lived in I believed “if only we had storage” our kitchen would be organized. We live in a house with PLENTY of storage, but I am at a loss as to how to organize. Our pantry shelves are VERY deep. We have to really reach to get to the back of the shelf. I purchased one set of containers before Christmas (that sounds like a good time to pull everything from pantry, right when you are baking for church, work, and school? ha!) But the containers I bought were not big enough for flour. I like the container you chose for your baking supplies. 🙂
What are your suggestions for really, really deep shelves?
Thanks!
Cindy
Kim says
Thanks for your comment Cindy. I would look at creating a sliding shelf like I have or they have those sliding shelf organizers like I used for my pots and pans. http://todayscreativelife.com/organizing-your-pots-pans/
Julie Sanders says
I also have very deep shelves that do not roll out. Next project! Anyway, my sister gifted me with a brown, metal riser. It looks like a miniature set of stairs. I use it for cans. It helps to see them better and I can still double stack them.
Also, a new thing I’m trying and it seems to be working well (only at it two weeks). Home Depot had school box sixed bins on sake for $1. I put my toddler daughters snacks in a bin. Another one was used for bagged items that tend to fall all over the place and get tossed around….craisins, nuts for salads, etcetera. I stood these up in the bin and did not use the lid. Lids are sealed on other bins…opened bags of rice, quinoa, beans, etc.
Hope this helps. They don’t seem to take up too much space as I was concerned about that. And I don’t mind pulling out and taking the lid off to get to what I need since I labeled them with a label maker and they are tidy now. Also helps with bugs since these items are not in jars like my flours.
I used vinyl chalk stickers and a chalk pen on glass jars from Hobby Lobby for these items as mentioned on another post.
Kim says
Thank you for the suggestions!
Billie R says
What’s a pantry? 😉 We have a PVC pipe garage type shelf unit for our food. It could use some organization like this though!
Kim says
I hear ya! We also have a cabinet in the garage for a pantry. I’ve toyed with the idea of turning our main floor coat closet into one, but then…. where would we put our coats?
Terri Scheriff Thompson says
Kim, I absolutely love this and would love to be able to do this. I do not have any storage space but I do have very small pantry and it looks like your “before” picture. Thank you.
Kim says
Thank you! It takes getting creative for sure!
Wendy Hammond says
Doesn’t it feel great to get things organized? I’ve been on an organizing and cleaning kick and just last night I replaced the shelf paper in my spice cabinet. Ick! I also found THREE bottles of cinnamon LOL.
Kim says
Yes, it always feels wonderful. You better busy baking some cinnamon rolls!