This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Newell Rubbermaid®. The opinions and texts are all mine.
I was recently asked by DYMO® to create some unique tips and I wanted to share with you some awesome ways you can use their products to organize your fridge and kitchen at home!
Do you have a kitchen and fridge that’s just driving you nuts?
For the past little while, I’ve been visiting my sister and family in New Brunswick, Canada – it’s been a great visit and staying at my
sister’s place has been so wonderful. Unfortunately, though, I’ve contributed to quite the significant mess in my sister’s fridge.
Typically, my sister’s fridge only holds enough food for herself and her partner, but since there’s now four people staying in the house (my son and myself added) there is a lot more food going into the fridge than usual. With that, it’s been little difficult to keep track of all the ingredients and their hiding spots. Something always seems to get shifted around or forgotten about for a few days.
“Whoops! I’m soooo sorry I forgot about you, you delicious cucumber! Now unfortunately we must part ways…”
It's no fun finding something that's waaaaay past it's expiry date and I guarantee I’m not the only one this happens to! 😉 lol
The fridge is one of the most common areas of the home to quickly go into disarray. Kids will go in searching for a snack in the fridge and move everything around or maybe someone in your family has “innocently” hidden some leftovers in there somewhere. Containers, bags, loose food and who knows what get stacked on top of each other and forgotten about until you have a large (and possibly yucky) mess of things piled up.
Does the inside of your fridge look something like this?
Chances are, it does – am I right? 😉
In this post I’m going to share with you how I helped organize my sister’s fridge so it’s manageable, prevents waste and saves valuable time! I’m also going to share with you some other great tips on how you can get your kitchen organized at home too!
With the disorganized mess of the fridge in mind, I headed to our local Staples here in Canada to pick up the new DYMO® LabelManager™ 160P Label Maker, and also picked up some inexpensive plastic bins which would fit nicely inside the fridge.
As soon as I got home I pulled everything out of the fridge and placed it on the counters so I could see what we had to work with. We then purged and tossed out all the old expired items from the fridge that needed to go.
I then categorized all the items and products which were “keepers” and placed them into their own bins. I designated a “home” bin for each category and quickly and easily created labels for each using my new DYMO® LabelManager™ 160P Label Maker.
You can see in the pictures that I labeled a bin for snacks, cheese (we have a whole lot of cheese!), yogurt/dairy, veggies, and one for deli meats/lunch stuff. I even added a shallow basket on the top shelf for odds and ends such as jars of salsa and “yummy leftovers.” – And yes – leftovers are yummy – this needs to be emphasized. 😉
Here's why labeling bins for your fridge are a must:
- Quickly and easily grab what you need when you need it
- Put away groceries quickly and easily
- Keep track of leftovers – less waste (aka: prevent someone from “accidentally” losing leftovers – lol)
- Save time when putting together kids school lunches or snacks
- Better yet, tell them to grab one thing out of each basket to prep their lunch on their own!
- Make cleaning easier – if something leaks into a bin, clean it and not the whole fridge.
Using this system for just a couple weeks has already been very helpful in keeping the fridge neat, tidy and well organized! We love it!
I’ve really enjoyed using the label maker so far and have found it super easy to create label after label for whatever pops into my mind. The DYMO® LabelManager™ 160P Label Maker has some excellent features such as the qwerty keyboard, auto shut off to extend battery life, easy one-touch formatting to create bold, underlined, italic, boxed or even vertical labels!
…oh and don’t even get me started on the clip art you can add to the labels! There’s over 200 symbols to choose from – smiley faces, animals, and more!
10 Ways to Organize Your Kitchen with the DYMO® LabelManager™ 160P Label Maker:
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Magnetic spice jars labeled and attached to the side of the kitchen fridge. Label bins according to category and place them in your fridge like I did in this post. 🙂
- Label your spices and jars
- Organize under the sink by using baskets/bins and labeling the contents
- Label food containers with the date the contents were made – this is great for items in the freezer and for leftovers in the fridge!
- Print off labels to point out important dates on the calendar
- Re-use old jars to store dry goods like pasta, lentils, beans, etc. Label them!
- Put labels on your pantry shelves so the kids know where to put commonly purchased items – kids can help with putting away the groceries without having to ask over and over “Mom, where do I put this?” 😀
- Baking powder and baking soda will lose its effectiveness once opened – Print out a label with the date you opened it and stick it on the container.
- Use your fridge as a white board! Create labels for the days of the week and under each, write your week's meal plan or even important events to keep in mind.
- If you have something special in the fridge that you're saving to use in a recipe make a label saying “Do not eat!!” – This would be especially useful for food bloggers who have family who try to sample things before photos are taken! haha
Here's how to Get Your Own DYMO® LabelManager™ 160P Label Maker!
You can quickly and easily order your very own DYMO® LabelManager™ 160P Label Maker by visiting your local Staples store in Canada or by ordering online at staples.ca! If you take a look at my picture above, you can see that you can have the label maker delivered to your nearest store. I love this option since it saves the time – just order, and usually in about 1 business day it will arrive at your selected store, pick it up and you can get busy labeling to your hearts content! 😀
For those of you who may have a small business at home or would just like the level up with your label making, I’d recommend ordering the DYMO® LabelWriter™ 450 bundle. Can you believe this thing is capable of printing up to 71 labels per minute?! This one is next on my wish list!
Visit Staples.ca or Staples Business Advantage today for great savings on DYMO® products!
How would you use the DYMO® LabelManager™ 160P label maker to organize your kitchen?
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