Welcome to the party!  I’ve got some exciting news… You guys are so super awesome that we are going to do a giveaway!  Commence thunderous applause….  Okay, that’s good.  I’ll get back to that in just a few minutes.  First, I want to share from last week’s goodies with you:

Today, Julie from Our Thrive Life has come over for a visit!  She’s going to show us how to organize our pantries.  In my kitchen, we have cupboards galore… but no pantries.  I love that Julie’s post can still be applied to my pantry-less kitchen.  So, here’s Julie:

Hey there! I am Julie from Our Thrive Life where I blog about food storage, preparedness, family and foster care adoption. I have five beautiful children – four and under! Our family was formed through both birth and foster care adoption. I stay home with my little ones and fit in my work, blogging and general love of preparedness during nap times. I am so excited to have two of my kiddos off to preschool this month! I am so thankful to Krista for inviting me over to her blog for the day!

Confession: These “before” images were not staged. My pantry seriously looked that awful and cluttered. Being busy with my home and having five little “helpers” has taken its toll on my once fairly organized pantry.

Okay, maybe I am alone in this but because I can shut the door to my pantry it tends to be a “catch-all” when I am clearing off my counters for dinner guests and family parties. Stack of junk here and another half-filled box there. I always promise myself I would go through it someday. Well, the day of reckoning has come. On top of all the miscellaneous clutter I was also housing some craft supplies, birthday party decorations and kid craft projects in some bins. Each time I’d go fishing for a box of crayons or yellow crepe paper I’d haul it all out find what I needed and dump it back in the corner. Let’s not talk about all the duplicates I’ve bought because I didn’t think I had what I needed. I decided to re-home all of my and the kids craft supplies and decorations to our loft. I also moved some food storage buckets to a storage area under our stairs since I am not using them right now.

No one likes to waste money but the truth is this is one huge area that we do it – expired foods. I try to go through my pantry at least twice each year. Anything that is expired should go in the trash. Anything that is not expired but you know your family won’t use soon either donate to your local food bank or share with family and friends. I love to use coupons. I get crazy good deals! The only bad part about some of these foods I get for very little or free is that they have a short shelf life. Make the most of all your hard work deal hunting by rotating through your foods. I love my Cansolidator organizers I picked up from Thrive Life because they make rotating easy-peasy. They connect together and can stack, making them perfect for any project.

Take everything out of your pantry and give your shelves, the walls and your floors a good scrub. How often do you wash the walls in your pantry? Yep, not me either. Since you’re going through all this trouble making it an organizer’s dream might as well spend an extra 30 minutes where it counts.

If you’ve got the space consider adding in a couple extra shelves or purchasing a free standing shelf or organizing baskets. Hunt around your house for little totes and baskets that you can repurpose in your pantry. This project doesn’t need to mean a lot of money. Use your crafty skills and cover boxes with cute fabric or hit up your local dollar store for inexpensive options

Now that you have your space cleaned out and all your organizers set its time to load it all back in. Put those organizers to use and separate out your Seasoning Mixes, Pudding Mixes, Canning Supplies, and so on. Prepare a snack caddy so your kids can help themselves. Get some great clear air-tight organizers like these that I have for rice, oats and beans. You can make up ones for pasta, cereal and so on too. Make your own labels or check out Etsy for vinyl options. And last when you’re loading it up try keeping like items together – all your baking supplies in one spot, cereal in another, pasta, and so on.  It’ll make it so much easier when you go hunting for ingredients for your meals and when you are putting things away after shopping.

A lot of this has already been accomplished simply by organizing your foods, cleaning up your space and investing in a few simple organizer bins. My pantry also had this huge blank wall. I knew I wanted to take advantage of that space. I purchased a cute vinyl saying from a shop on Etsy that fit my space well. I also got a little crafty and actually did one of the projects I had pinned on Pinterest – a super cute cork board. {Tell, me I am not the only one guilty of pinning and forgetting?!} I spray painted a frame I already had and distressed it a bit. I popped in a cork board that I purchased at Michaels for around $6 on sale. Next up I wanted to post my grocery shopping list and our food storage inventory where I could see it. I am constantly working on building and rotating through our 3 month food supply which comes mainly from grocery stores as well as our long term food storage. This list helps me work on both and stay within our budget. Now when I know I am running low on an item I don’t have to try and remember it when I am at the store or hunt down my elusive grocery list on a back of some envelope. I just add it to my handy grocery list!

And here is the finished project! I am so excited to have this super organized space that makes me want to make homemade meals! BIG thank you for having me over and checking out my blog Our ThriveLife. I also have my grocery printable available for you to download in four colors: Coral, Grey, Straw and Turquoise. ENJOY!

(Disclosure: I am a Thrive Life Independent Consultant. I linked up to the Cansolidator which is one of the products we offer in addition to food storage, emergency preparedness items and shelving. If you purchase through my link I will receive commission. This is one way that I help support my busy family while I stay at home.)

The fabric for this project was provided by Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores.  This post may contain affiliate links.  All information is correct to the best of my knowledge and all opinions are 100% truthful and honest.

So, I will be upfront about this… I don’t have many, er…any?… process pictures.  I wasn’t sure how this was going to turn out and there was a point where I about gave up on it.  But, it worked out. And not only that, it turned out even better than I imagined.  At one point, my husband asked me if I was actually going to use it afterward and I admitted I wasn’t sure.  But that baby is still securely fastened to my machine and I don’t plan to take her down any time soon.  Also… sorry my seams and things aren’t very pretty… or in coordinating thread.  I was trying to hurry, I was frustrated, and my thread box was lost.  So, you still with me?  Awesome.  Let’s get started on this sewing caddy.

• pocket for scissors
• pocket for seam ripper
• pocket for chalk
• pocket for measuring tape
• pin cushion
• thread catcher basket ?

– I cut out my pockets: one for the scissors and one for my seam ripper, chalk and measuring tape.  I sewed seams on the second pocket to make the three pockets later on.  Then I cut a pocket for the pin cushion.  Hem the edges of all the pockets.

– Flip the caddy right side out and iron down all the seams.  Stitch the hole you flipped the caddy through closed.
– Stuff all the goodies and supplies you can manage into your caddy and get to sewing some more fun things!

I didn’t make the thread catcher on this because my initial though was to have it hang below the sewing machine over the edge of the table.  But I often end up sewing here:

Yes, just like that.  On the floor.  All hunched over… I’ll probably look like Quasimodo some day from such terrible posture.  And the thread catcher hanging over the edge of the table – uh… what table?! – wasn’t terribly plausible in my case.  I haven’t decided if I want to make a separate one all together or one that detaches from the caddy… any thoughts?

Jo-Ann and Waverly Fabrics are celebrating National Sewing Month and Waverly’s 90th anniversary with a fantastic Facebook contest.  Grand prize is $1000 in Waverly fabric and a $250 Jo-Ann gift card.  You can find more information HERE.  Click the image below or the first link in this paragraph to enter the contest.