Spring Cleaning with Brother

This Spring cleaning project was LONG overdue! We have been working our way across the apartment. We started with the Otter Office, then we did a bedroom makeover, and now we're on to the kitchen! I couldn't be more excited to partner with Brother, the maker of the P-touch label maker, for today's post!!

I'm a P-touch addict. Like, I'm totally geeking out. When I worked in an office, I would label the crap out of my work area. Hand me a folder? Great-- I'm going to slap a label on it. And you best believe my stapler had a white label on the bottom that said "Aaron's stapler".

There's just something about staplers... they're the first thing to grow legs and walk across the office.

But outside of an office, there are a million different ways to use a P-touch that are incredibly useful and will make your home more beautiful. And not in like a mommy-blogger-craft kinda way. They're functional and classy solutions to everyday obstacles. I decided to makeover my pantry, streamline my organizational systems and amp the style for that small corner of my home.

Scroll through and read a few of my tips for how to improve your pantry with the P-touch!

p.s. there's before and after pics all the way at the bottom. ;P

^ First thing to know: the P-touch has 14 fonts, 10 styles, 95 frames and over 600 symbols to choose from. You can literally make millions of different labels from crafting to recycling, and clean to fancy. I was so impressed with the number of symbols! I ended up using 3 different colors of tape and probably 5 variations of style and frame.

^ I grouped items with a similar function together: baking supplies (flour, salt, baking soda, etc.), a basket for my quick party supplies (napkins, plastic plates), snack food, and dry goods in glass canisters.

I used gold tape on the glass jars. I just thought it looked so classy. It gives them a polished and elevated look.

^ I love using paper bags as a bowl or container. I use larger ones for my potted plants in my living room and smaller ones to hold fruit. This same idea works with canvas bags too. I re-purposed an AG Jeans canvas shopping bag to hold my roommates' chips on the bottom shelf. It sounds random, but it goes a long way to making a shelf look tidy. Just shove similar things in a basket or re-purposed a bag for grab-and-go organization.

Recycling is NY is no-joke. I had one large trash bin before, but glass and paper would get mixed together and it was an eye-sore. I found these grey bins at The Container Store. I can line them with a bag and they have hinged door so you don't have to stare at your bottles once you throw them in. I of course used the recycling symbols on the P-touch to make it clear how to separate everything.

^ See! The gold labels look super classy. I found that copper colander at a grocery store awhile back for $2.99. Couldn't pass it up and it's perfect for washing grapes and small stuff.

^ Coffee should be stored in an air tight jar to keep it fresh anyway, but storing protein powder in a glass jar looks a lot nicer than one of those plastic drums. Plus, you know exactly when you're running low.

^ I had to buy a denim apron. Making my dreams of having a HGTV makeover show a reality, one artisanal mixing bowl at a time.

^ One of the problems I faced were all the handful of random small gadgets we own. We had emersion blenders, waffle irons, turkey carving tools and food processors just laying around. They looked messy and we really only use them once a year. I found that steal basket with the burlap liner at JC Penny. It's perfect for storing all of those random things out of site and up high.

^ SPICES. OMG, SPICES. This was the biggest thing that needed to be purged. Did you know you're supposed to renew your spices every 6 months?? That's how quickly they lose flavor and go bad. We're guilty of buying a new spice every time we make a new recipe, but we never throw out the old one. There were a million random bottles in the pantry and we had no idea what is good and what's old. It's a little tedious to re-jar everything, but it looks awesome and you know exactly when you bought the spice and when it's time to switch it out.

Moral of the story: there are really easy ways to make your pantry more organized, look better and be more functional. Use containers to hold small objects, group like-items together and label everything for ease of use.