Our cabinets are definitely cluttered and disorganized but the two worst ones would have to be the storage containers and Abby’s cabinet. Those two cabinet shelves have been a complete disaster probably since we moved in and are a constant pain in the rear for me, I dread having to put away dishes that belong on those shelves. While I was in my cleaning/organizing/throw everything away mood, I decided to tackle these two problem areas. The biggest problem with Abby’s cabinet was it was full of things we no longer used, no longer needed and was just really a mess. The top shelf is where we keep her medicines, the bottom was her cups, etc and for some reason her plates and bowls were being tossed in with ours.
I started with the top shelf, the medicine. Oh my what a mess. Some of my medicine had been tossed up there, out dated stuff was up there, extra sippy cups had been shoved in the extra space, even the fish food was up there! Can you tell we never really used that shelf? This was all the “extra” stuff that she never really used and it was obvious. There was even some baby food jars up there! I took everything down, tossed everything with an expired date, tossed old sippy cups, took all of my medicine to my bathroom (no wonder I was having such a hard time finding things!), found a new place for the fish food, and finally put everything back up there nice and neat. Her vitamins and allergy medicine, the box for her epi pens so I have the prescription number, the shelf if pretty bare but it’s neat now! On to the bottom shelf…
The bottom was the biggest mess…more sippy cups that were no longer used, baby spoons, a few more baby food jars, spare bottle parts, stuff was just tossed in there randomly. Again I just took everything out and tossed what we no longer needed. All those extra random bottle parts and old sippy cups went in the trash but I kept some of the spoons for Abby to use in her play kitchen. Once everything was out I went to work moving all her plates, bowls and cups to her shelf but keeping them organized. Not too hard with the cups and bowls but those plates, oh I hate those plates! Then I remembered an idea I came across on Pinterest. Suddenly I had I new use for all those cereal boxes I had just emptied!!
A few cereal boxes later and I had a great way to keep her plates organized:
best of all… it was free! When these get worn out I can just replace them since we always have new boxes of cereal coming in the house. Hubby was even impressed 🙂 When I’m feeling a little better I plan to take some scrapbook or wrapping paper and making them look a little prettier 🙂
Once Abby’s cabinet was finished I turned my attention to the mess of storage containers. An easy solution was to use the same cereal box organization with the lids that I used with Abby’s plates:
It went quickly from a cluttered, disorganized mess to all the lids being in one place, easy to find and easy to put away! So far it’s been working out well, we put the lids on some of the containers while others we stick in the cereal boxes so we can stack the containers to save space. It’s helped out quite a bit and my cabinet definitely looks neater!
I love being able to reuse items I already have at the house, saves me money and reusing items helps eliminate so much trash.
Sorry I don’t have any more pictures of my cleaning and organizing… I keep forgetting to pick up my camera 🙂 but I just had to share these great uses for organizing with cereal boxes!
Great idea for storing those plastic plates! They never stack right!
This is a smart way to organize. It’s almost free and it’s recycling. I am going to have to try it.
What a creative idea!