While shopping at our new Ikea last Friday, I spied the Sloam line of glass jars. I purchased two that day-the tall 68 oz jar for spaghetti and a 61 oz jar to store oatmeal. I buy the old fashioned oatmeal at Costco and the open bag makes a mess in the cupboard. As I was washing the 61 oz jar, it dawned on me that it would make a great container to store flour and sugar.

I’ve stored my flour and sugar in Tupperware containers for many years. Before owning my label maker, I wrote the contents on the top of the container in black marker. This worked great at my old house where the cupboard I stored these in was at eye level. In our current house, I store them in the cupboard above the stove.  This means that when I need them, I have to take each container out to see the contents.

I tried to always put the container in the same spot so that I would just know…the container on the far left is flour and the one next to it is sugar.  This works great until the kids get the sugar out for Rice Krispies. Its one of those things in life that isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme but on the other hand its an irritation.

Anyway, back to the Ikea jars…I tested the jar to see if it would fit in the shelf. It does! This is another problem in my cabinets. The shelves are often too short to accommodate plastic and glass storage containers. I knew this was a sign, that more Sloam jars were in my future!

Yesterday after church, I went back to Ikea and purchased four more jars. Here’s what my cupboard looked like before

The four matching containers held flour, sugar, powdered sugar and bread flour. I don’t bake bread very often anymore so the bread flour container was empty and I didn’t replace it. The clear container with the blue lid held brown sugar. Also in this cupboard is matches (out of reach of children!) and toothpicks.

and here’s what it looks like now

From left to right-flour, sugar, brown sugar and powdered sugar. The matches and lighter are on the top shelf. The clear container with the black lid holds toothpicks. As you can see, I have available space next to the powdered sugar and most of the top shelf. I love seeing empty space!

The total cost of this project was $15.96 (not including tax).