From Allspice to Zest

BEFORE--Spice Cabinet

 Yes, I am an alphabetizer when it comes to my spices.  That way I know exactly where to look and can find it quickly or figure out if it is something I need to go buy.  I LOVE my lazy susan for this purpose.  I knew I needed to give it a good cleaning out, so this was a great opportunity to do that.  This house was really filthy when we bought it....I didn't realize how filthy until we were moved in...but at one point I noticed THIS:

BEFORE--Way before me, does that make it better or grosser that it is someone else's grossness?!?  Regardless, Ewww!

Looks pretty noticeable, but when you spin it, you go by this part so quickly, unless you are looking for it, it really is hard to see.  Plus it is usually so dark down there, the camera flash really highlights it.  Anyway, I have been wanting to clean this up since I noticed it, but needed everything out of the cabinet to really accomplish it.  So, perfect challenge!  Now it is fresh and clean.  I took a lot of pictures of the process, so bear with me. 

BEFORE--Top shelf of Spice Cabinet

DURING--Cleaning the spices, previously top-shelf stuff

DURING--Cleaning top shelf.  Got the annoying warning sticker off and disinfected everything.

DURING--Spice cabinet

DURING--working on bottom shelf which had my alphabetized spices and baking chocolates

DURING--Spice cabinet

AFTER--Containerized my food coloring, icing tips, icing, sprinkles, flavor extracts, cupcake papers, birthday candles, etc.

AFTER--Top shelf, Spice Cabinet

 Had room to add some things in here that I wasn't happy with where they were currently living.  Love my home-made teas and cappuchinos here and butter melter and popcorn cheese.
I had room to add some things because I was able to get rid of some expired spices and crusty bullion, etc....See my oldest find here...from August 1907.  I put it on Ebay as an antique!  It says on the back that it can be used to flavor poultry or ward off the Plague.

"Best By Aug 1907"  Yikes!

AFTER--Spice Cabinet

Got the metal tub at Target Dollar Spot (was $2.50 though) but have all of my baking chocolates together in there, which I like.  I also had room to spread out my spices, so I can see all of them.  Previously I had my Arrowroot behind my Allspice, now I can see both in the front.  I have Onion powder, onion salt and onion flakes all together with the "O's" sitting one behind each other so if I need some kind of onion, I've got the options all there together, but not taking up valuable "front window" space.  This was my favorite feature in my kitchen and now I <3 it even more! 

AFTER--Spice Cabinet

During this challenge and reading some people's comments about how much they are liking this and what are we going to do when the 21 days are over....I decided on Groundhog Day I am going to re-visit all 21 challenges.  I have already tweaked some areas and want to document those changes, what's working, what's not working, etc.  Won't you join me back here on February 2nd, 2011?  It's Humpday, Groundhog Day, 21 Day Challenge Recap/Update.  I'm thinking I will post the AFTER pix along side the current state of affairs on the 2nd.  I think this will give us some accountability for keeping it up as well as allow us to share any improvements and ideas.  Also, this will help document where something is or how it looks or if we need to refer back to something that we liked or want to change to something else, etc.  I'm all about the tweak!  Who knows, maybe my laundry will be caught up by then, too!  I've just started thinking about this, so if you have any ideas of what we should do, what we should call it, etc.  I'm totally open!  I'm also still new to all of this blogging stuff, so don't really know what a linky party is or blog hop (am I making these things up in my head?)  I haven't pitched this to Toni at www.abowlfulloflemons.blogspot.com yet, but maybe we can link our posts there, as well.  I'd love you to post them on my page, too.  I'm sure more details will follow.  Maybe it makes sense to post 7 together at a time and do it over 3 days, I don't know for sure yet.  Thanks for coming along so far on this journey with me!  You guys all ROCK!