A Spicy Afternoon (baby food jars turned into spice containers)

Every fall when I make pumpkin roll I get so annoyed that my teaspoon doesn't fit into the McCormick's Cinnamon seasoning container. I also hate pouring my morton salt into a teaspoon over the sink. I got looking at my spices and realized it really is a mixed bowl. Big and round, tall and skinny, short and stumpy, glass, plastic, red, blue, black....Tones, McCormick, Jewel, Great Value, Archer Farms.

 Y'all get together for a group picture. Act like you love eachother. Even you, Morton umbrella girl.

First, I counted my spices and wrote them down and separated them into 2 different lists: Large and small (like, the 5 oz ones and the 2 oz ones). Then I wrote down the names of all the spices on each list. Next, I counted how many large and small containers I had. 14 large and 12 small. 

At the grocery store I picked up 14 large jars of Gerber brand baby food (step 3 bananas) and 12 small jars of generic brand (Hy Vee) applesauce. I picked up a few extra just in case. The brand is important with all of this, and I wish I had purchased all Gerber.  Since I don't have a baby who eats baby food, and since I, of course, did not save baby food jars from a year ago, I just had to do this. When I got home I got out our large, used, and washed Del Monte Mango jars (I don't have any Mason) and emptied all of the baby food into those. I was able to fill up 5. Then I soaked the baby food jars in a sink of hot water for a couple hours to loosen the label. The good news is I was able to donate all the baby food to a mother who has a baby-food-eating baby. I could have baked with it, yeah, but....oh well. Too much work. A couple hours later I got the baby food jars out of the sink and noticed a huge difference between GERBER and GENERIC. The Gerber brand labels came off easy as pie. Some were even floating in the sink, separated from the jar. The others I was able to peel off without any paper residue. However, on the generic brand jars the labels did not come off as easily and some left a little bit of paper residue behind. I washed all the lids and jars in the dishwasher. Next I googled the whole idea just to see what kind of decoration ideas were out there. A lot of the ideas used magnets, cookie trays bolted to the inside of the cabinet door, chalkboard paint, spray paint, modge podge, and scrapbook paper. It is just spice jars. No one's getting married here. I need simplicity, people.

After measuring the lids I determined that I would need a sticker that was anywhere from 1-1/4" to 1-1/2" diameter. Off to Staples we went (the next day. Let's be realistic. With kids you can't get stuff done like this in one afternoon. In my case, it took 2).  After looking around on the Internet and Microsoft Word I determined that Number One--The Avery Microsoft Word template that you download off their website does not work on a Mac computer. Number Two--My little Avery Template number was not listed in the templates provided in my Microsoft Word. 

After finally googling the Avery Template number I found a word document all ready to go.  All I had to do was select my font, size, and color, type my spices in (again, this is where your list comes in handy) and center align all of the different labels. Not pictured--fuss with your printer for 15 minutes until it prints these off.  I am not sure how to upload a document to blogger that you can download, but if you are interested in obtaining this I can email it to you. Then you can open it up in Word and customize it to your liking.

No, you do not need Pam to complete this project. I just haven't cleaned off my kitchen countertops. Don't judge me!

While I was dumping the small ones out I was a little nervous that maybe I should have purchased all small jars. But once I started unloading my larger ones I was really glad that I had purchased 2 different sizes. 

 All the labels, so pretty and ready to go. No spraypaint or modge podge needed! Extra lids and extra jars proved to be a great idea. I had enough leftover to create jars of baking powder and baking soda. I also discovered that the different brand lids could fit on large or small jars the same.

 I very carefully (like not messing the labels up with the coordinating seasonings) unloaded my seasonings into the jars. I was able to dump them right in since the openings on all of them were smaller than the openings on the baby food jars. While I was doing this I was struck at how much a smell can prompt a memory. My nutmeg reminded me of Thanksgiving. Cumin reminded me of tacos. Cinnamon reminded me of eating cinnamon toast as a child.

All ready to go in the lazy Suze...and now my kids have 26 empty, plastic seasoning containers to play with later. It would also be nice to give the empty ones to your kids if you have a play kitchen.