Clutter-Bustin'

Hold onto your hats, cowgirls--you are about to have your mind blown by the sheer awesomeness of this information. I don't want to over-titillate anyone, but I have to tell you the story about how I began reorganizing my kitchen cabinets last night.

Right now you're thinking: "Oh honey, it's not too late. You can still carve out a nice little social life for yourself. Why don't you put on a little lipstick and go out for a while?"  I see your point, but I really do believe that a cluttered house leads to a cluttered mind, and right now my mind could use all the clarity it can get. So I swung open the doors, stood back and took a gander at the mess I have created.

{Before}

A sloppy hodge-podge of mismatched juice glasses, coffee mugs and plastic party cups. Also found: outdated baking products, 35 Dunkin' Donuts sugar packets, a bottle of Ibuprofen and a little ceramic turtle from Puerto Rico. I call him Slowpoke.

{After}

Everything's neat, tidy, and most importantly, visible.

TIPS:

1) Take everything out of the cabinet. Not only will this force you to visualize the area in a new way, it will also allow you the opportunity to really scrub down your shelves so you can finally remove the vanilla that dripped down the wall two months ago (okay, five). Just a random example.

2) Get rid of anything that you don't use. 

Stop clinging to every plastic tumbler just because they were free. Pitch 'em. Donate 'em. Just do it.

3) Move your shelves around to increase functionality. 

My glasses were getting a lot more vertical space than my baking products, which made no sense. By lowering the top shelf and moving the storage shelf up, I was finally able to see exactly what I have hiding up there. No more running to the store to get that 5th box of unnecessary brown sugar.

4. Put like next to like.

I mean, duh. It's more pleasing to the eye, and also to to the hand, which will no longer have to wade past things like sugar packets and ceramic turtles to find an appropriate glass for my chocolate milk Perrier.

5) Stow dry goods in cute containers.

Bugs love crawling in big bags of flour and sugar, so do yourself a solid and find some pretty glass jars to stow them in. These are from IKEA, and were less than $5 apiece.

{Next on deck: The Bathroom Closet}

What's the weirdest thing you've found stashed in your kitchen cabinets?