Organizing tips for the kitchen.

I LOVE the summer schedule! I can not express this enough. I'm caught up on sleep. My house is orderly. The kids are getting special attention and I've been PLAYING with them! Ms. Thang is still at her dads for a bit longer (she's doing 2 weeks at a time, her choice) and aside from missing her and wishing she was here too (She'd also appreciate this "new me" the most and praise me for it cause she's an awesome friend as well as daughter) I'm really living the high life and enjoying every second. Sun, sleep, and zero schedule looks really good on me lol

So, enough bragging, today the Scientist is at my ILs and Cutecumber took a long nap so I had some free time (since everything is caught up) to organize one particularly troublesome shelf in my kitchen.

The "ziplock" area.

What it holds- ziplocks, foil, wax paper, trash bags, steamer bags (for veggies), crockpot liners.

Problem- over stuffed with items falling out when I opened the door. I had to take out at least 2 items to get anything out of there.

What I did to fix this problem:

1. I am a major ziplock user. I like to keep one box of every size on hand because I use them for ev-er-y-thing. I had all these different boxes (with the cardboard flap open on each but still attached) just thrown in. If I set one on top of the other, I had to move it each time to get to the box below it. So I looked at the box and realized (duh) that I could rip off the cardboard flap and set each one on top of the other with the exposed bags to the side. Like this...

Now I've made better use of the vertical space but I don't have to move each one to get a bag from the one below it. They were obviously designed to work this way, I've just never really noticed or utilized their shape. I still have a loose box that didn't fit into my stack, but with all the newly freed space, it slides out of the way without an issue.

2. The second thing I did was put my box of crockpot liners inside of the crock pot. Now they are right where I need them and one less box piled in my cabinet. Why didn't I think of this sooner?


And lastly..
3. I put the long and awkward foil in the drawer beneath the oven which houses all my cookie sheets and other long pans that I use 90% of the foil on anyway.

I know these tips are small, but I hope they shave off a few extra minutes in the kitchen that you were using to dig for the right sized bag, clean up the avalanche that escaped your cabinet, and then trying to balance it all back inside for the next poor soul lol.