Saturday, January 22, 2011

The power of a good label

There is something about the beginning of the year that often causes me to want to organize something.

This is my 'baking needs' cupboard. Recently I went through it and made sure that everything had a label-sadly my housekeeping had got a bit rushed some time ago, and I had dumped a few things into various containers without putting labels on them. Of course I forgot what was what. I had to throw some things out because I could not be sure what they were! I really hate that, it seems such a waste.

The yellow labels come with Decor containers and are OK as far as they go. You can rub out the label and write it again. The only problem is that they have a habit of falling off and then you are back where you started.

The white labels are made by a Dymo labeller, which I got for Christmas a few years ago. My whole family thought it was a great joke when I went around putting labels on everything. The picture below caused some merriment, because I had gone to the laundry cupboard and labeled the hooks so we knew which implement hung on which one.

The fact of the matter is, however, that everything always has a place and people do put things back where they should be.

My case rests, your honour.

Last week I decided it was time to go through the spices in the pantry. I bought some tiny container and sorted them all out. I threw out some that I suspected were rather old. Then I put them in alphabetical order! Makes it much easier to see what is there, and quicker to get them when a cooking project is in full flight.


The power of a good label for me is that I can see immediately what I have and I can avoid buying more of something just because I can't find it when it is lurking somewhere in the kitchen cupboards. We have two other cooks in this house -my DH and my DD so labeling these things just makes it easier for everyone to feel as though they have the tools to do the job properly. We can all have a kitchen that we can use efficiently and we can put things away so that the next person can find them.

It saves us money, time and energy.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello, thanks for leaving a comment on my blog, wasn't sure where to reply - never sure with that. Yes it is very hot, at the moment at 6pm it is still a sweltering 41Cdegrees. Have just looked on the B.O.M site and there is warnings galore out for our state. Lots of thunderstorms, wind and the cyclone is moving down the coast. Apparently no end to the hot weather for tomorrow, another sweltering day in store. Could certainly do without that.
Hope you find some way of staying cool.
Sharon

Anonymous said...

P.S. Forgot to add i love all your labels, have been thinking about getting a labelling machine for awhile now. Seeing how organised you are has inspired me to buy one so i can get (hopefully) organised.
Sharon