Organizing Drink Mixes

I just thought I'd post up here some things I did recently to reduce clutter and reuse empty containers around my kitchen.

May you be inspired.

First of all, I bought some Hot cocoa mix in bulk almost 2 years ago for a big movie project my husband and I were doing, and hardly any of it got used for that. We have since brought it to multiple parties in the hopes of using it up, but the fact remains that I've been frustrated by these little individual serving packets for a long time now. They don't stack neatly, and they fall all over the cupboard. (And we're finding it hard to want to use them much when we seem to get at least two Stephens canisters every holiday season as gifts . . . I tend to favor the flavored cocoas!) Anyway, a while ago my husband just put all these packets into a grocery bag and put them on a shelf.

Lovely.

Needless to say, this has been an ongoing issue with how neat my kitchen feels for me.

On the other hand, I recently went through a big jar of peanut butter and felt the need to wash out the container rather than throwing it away. My mom used to reuse these jars all the time when I was a kid, and I was pretty determined to find a good use for it. (I bet you can see where this is going, huh?)

This is what I came up with . . . I filled the jar with as many cocoa packets as I possibly could; taking care to measure exactly how much one packet contains. Then I typed up a label and directions on my computer and printed it then I simply cut it out taped it on to the jar.

Tada!
Now all that cocoa fits nicely in my cupboard. Surprisingly, I still had a few packets left after this, but they were manageable. I rubber banded them together and tucked them in the back of the cupboard behind the big jar.

My husband is a big fan of drinks. Especially drink mixes. I guess it's just how he was raised. My mom always rather discouraged too much drinking of "Sugar Water" as she so deftly called it. But Jake's parents have had Kool Aid and the like pretty much at every meal even to this day.

Anyway, to appease him, we have a few of these colorful packets laying around the house, along with some fruit flavored teas. These latter ones did have a box at one point, but my toddler destroyed it. Thus, I also had these drink packets cluttering up my cupboard, but as they are of different flavors, brands and quantities I obviously couldn't do here what I'd just done for the cocoa. So I did this.
This was one of those mayonnaise containers with a flip top. All the packets fit nicely into it and it fits nicely onto a shelf.

Yay for organization!