I still love the organic texture and colour provides by this set of wicker baskets on top of the kitchen cupboards. However, continually having to answer The Man’s queries about ‘Which basket has the pie weights again?’ was getting old… especially since half the time I couldn’t remember myself.

So I said to myself: ‘Self, get some labels already.’

And get some labels I did.

But before we get to the label close-up, we need to back up a bit.

The lack of labels were not the only the wrong with this scenario. Neat as they may have looked, there was a whoole lotta mess goin’ on within those woven sides.

Eek! This is supposed to be our storage for picnic and party gear, mostly disposable stuff. We sort of just threw everything in there (sometimes, quite literally, we would throw a pack of napkins up there instead of taking the basket down) with no real regard to organisation.

What do you do if everything is in a complete jumble? Take everything out and start again.

I sorted everything out and grouped them with similar items. A few things found other homes, like the Thermos set (in the black bag) I moved to a lower cupboard and some of the cheaper serviettes I donated to The Man’s class party box for school. Given that we have had KFC maybe twice in five years I figured the refresher towellettes were probably past their prime.

Here’s what they look like now:

The first box now contains nothing but disposable gear for picnics.

The second box contains items for parties, such as cocktail napkins and reusable plastic wine glasses (we actually have a huge stash of wine glasses so we only need to resort to plastic for the really big parties).

The other two boxes held various baking equipment and supplies, as well as an ice bucket (boxed, at left).

Why did I have half of the cupcake wrappers in one box and the rest in another? And why did I have two lonely food colourings in the lower pantry while the rest of the stash was in an overhead basket?

Who knows! But it was time to sort out once and for all.

I brought the almost-empty second clear box up and used that to organise the packets of sprinkles, while the larger one now contains (from top) gel piping tubes, food colouring and food flavouring. Oh, and the ice bucket now lives in a cupboard with the cocktail shaker and spirits. Here it is all back in the boxes:

Now, back to those labels!

I had these cute chalkboard pegs from Emerald & Ella on hand from a recent photo shoot (used as place cards) and knew they would be perfect for labelling baskets too. They work a treat! If I ever change up my storage (which, let’s face it, is only a matter of time) I can just wipe off and write on the new label.

Every room needs a bit of black, don’t you agree? And I know you agree that every room could use a bit more organisation too!

Does anyone else use the top of cupboards for storage or do you prefer to keep everything behind closed doors?