Creating a Baking Drawer

I am excited to be participating in the Kitchen monthly organizing challenge with all of you!  Has anyone dug in and gotten started yet?

Awhile back I gave a full tour of our kitchen cabinets, and years later they are almost identical to the way they were then, and are functioning quite well for us.  And although we have intentions of doing a kitchen reno in the near future, I still have a few problem areas in the kitchen that I am looking forward to addressing this month.  Some bigger than others, but all things that will hopefully be helpful in the most commonly used area of the home.

One of the ways I looked at this monthly challenge, was to question how we are utilizing the space in our kitchen, and making sure that "like" or common items are stored together.  We are doing a pretty good job at this for the most part, but like I said, there are some areas for improvement.  One being my baking items.

Now I don't mean the flours, sugars and oils since those have been all stored together in our spice cabinet for years and are doing well there.  And our baking utensils are nicely divided in drawers near the stove, so high fives for that being another successful organizing project in the kitchen.

But everything else, like the cookie cutters, the frosting, the sprinkles and cupcake liners.... all those little "extras" that come with baking special treats every once in awhile.  Well, those items didn't have a designated space, and there were times when I was over-purchasing items I already had since I didn't always know what I had.  Frosting tubes were in the dry food cabinet, food coloring, candles and sprinkles were in the spice cabinet and the cookies cutters... you will never guess it.... in the storage ottomans in our living room where the craft bins live.... makes total sense right?! Ha!

So I gathered all the supplies and placed them on our kitchen table.

I knew exactly where all of these goodies should reside, happily together.  In a drawer that was acting oh so effectively holding one single set of candles...

The drawer is in our dining room buffet, which is directly across from our kitchen, and is where we store overflow items and small appliances.  The whole thing needs some organizing love, but I am taking this challenge one idea and drawer at a time.

Because I only bake special treats about once a month {and I shouldn't even be allowed to do that, my baking is less than awesome}, my thinking was that when baking day comes around, I could easily just grab the drawer out of the sideboard and take it over to the kitchen counter.

I started by removing the drawer, cleaning it out, lining it for easy cleaning, and popping in two bins I found at the dollar section at Target.

That dollar spot keeps saving the day with my drawer organizing!  These bins couldn't have fit any better, it was like they were meant to be!

The next step was to continue to create more drawer dividers, so I scoured our home for a box that would be the perfect size....

I cut down the edges and used my box wrapping technique to cover the box with wipe-able drawer lining paper.

I still had space to spare and I knew I had smaller items that needed some dividing, so back to the searching of the home I went...

Jell-o cups were the winning solution.  I transferred the contents of the Jell-o cups to a covered dish and cleaned them out.  I now had all of the dividers I needed and began placing items into the drawer.

The cookie cutters fit perfectly in the first box divider I found from Target...

And the sprinkles and some colored gels fit in the other.

The cake pop sticks and small plastic treat bags tucked nicely in-between the boxes.

And my newly covered box was the perfect solution for my cupcake liners!

My favorite part of the whole project are the Jell-o cups.  They worked so wonderfully for dividing the candles and food coloring.

And just when I was prematurely happy dancing about my newly created and organized baking drawer... I went to shut the drawer and fail.

The tubs of sprinkles didn't fit and allow the drawer to close all the way.  The angle of them was too tall and there just wasn't another great way to place them inside the drawer as is.  Boo.  Goes to show that organizing takes a little trial and error and doesn't always work out perfectly the first time around.

So, more searching around the house and a few small mason jars later...

And the drawer was now closing just fine and this project was called complete!

It feels good to have a designated place for all of my baking items, and inspired me to instantly start perusing Pinterest for some fabulous Valentine treats to create.

So what was your first kitchen project this month?  Anyone else have a baking drawer or basket?