Organizing: in the pantry

When I was at Leslie's house recently, I noticed that many of her pantry goods were in airtight Rubbermaid containers. She had about 15 of them. I was trying to figure out what could have been in there, because I only have three things in mine: flour, sugar and brown sugar. She's an organic type, so I'm sure she had stone-ground oatmeal, flax something-or-another, wheat germ and a bunch of other stuff that will never see my kitchen. Hellllooo, Healthy.

Anyway, HER containers were wide and flat, and they were labeled. LABELED! I fell in love. See my [old] containers below.



When we got home from Leslie's house, I whipped out my label maker.



I looked through my pantry to see what I could label and Rubbermaid to within an inch of its life. I still only came up with three things. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap, I typed in my text. Whirr-whirr-whirr-whirr-whirr, the pretty little labels spat out.



I don't know where Leslie got HER Rubbermaids, but I got mine at Wal-Mart. Hers are better. And I would like to say that it is my personal belief that THE TOPS SHOULD STILL FIT THE BOTTOMS AFTER THEY'RE WASHED. Because how can you NOT wash them before you use them? I didn't want Wal-Mart cooties in my sugar. Nonetheless, one of the containers I bought ended up being unusable because the top shrunk. And the others are now extra-tight, which detracts from the overall convenience a wee bit.



My life has improved by 4 percent since I did this. Know why? Because it is so much easier and less messy to do THIS:



Than it was to do THIS ...


... which I used to have to do without the benefit of the Rubbermaid underneath to catch all the errant granules as I poured sugar or flour from the bag to the cup.

And now my pantry has this cute little Labelicious Stack right in the middle.