Spice Spice Baby

When our oldest child was a toddler, we lived in a small town just south of the Wisconsin border.  The town didn't really offer much in the way of amenities, but it was on the train line to Chicago where my husband worked.  In fact, it was the very last stop on the line.  That's how far out we had to go to get a house we liked that we could afford.  The town had a small Wal-Mart and two small grocery stores, nowhere to buy  organic or other "exotic" foods.  So when a couple of other young mothers decided to start a food buying group, I was in.  We ordered through a supplier in Wisconsin who delivered our goods to one member's house where we unloaded the truck and split up the bounty.  We bought bulk brown rice and dried beans and shared.  Juices and sauces, cheese, you name it.  It was a great social activity -- the kids played as we worked -- and a way to learn from each other about new foods.

After three years in the little town, we moved to a somewhat larger college town.  It had a wonderful natural foods co-op market, which we immediately joined.  Initially, I volunteered there.  My job was to slice the bulk blocks and wheels of cheese into smaller portions which were tightly wrapped for sale.  Sadly, they no longer do that.  The cheese all comes prepackaged in shrink-wrapped pouches.  The co-op has lost much of its buying group feel, but it remains, hands down, the best place in town to buy spices.  The spices and dried herbs are light years fresher than what one finds in the grocery store.  They sell the spices in little plastic envelopes.

The envelopes keep the spices and herbs fresh, and they don't take up much space.  For many years I have stored my spice envelopes inside Rubbermaid containers -- one for baking or sweet spices and one for cooking or savory spices. Recently, however, I began craving a new way to store my spices.  Something cuter, something more charming. Maybe it's because of Pinterest or reading blogs written by women whose homes are filled with creativity and charm.  Who knows?  But gosh darn it, I wanted something new.  And I wanted it to involve chalkboard paint.  Little glass jars with chalkboard lids.

I looked all over the web and at the craft stores for suitable glass jars.  I couldn't find anything I really liked at a price I was willing to pay.  There is no end-of-the-train-line stop for spice jars, but there is recycling.  Baby food jars seemed like the ticket.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, I looked into buying empty jars on Etsy, but the price with shipping seemed too high.  So I bought baby food applesauce for fifty cents each and emptied the jars.  I made brownies with some of the sauce and froze the rest.

vinegar soak                                                                                         peanut butter

quick and easy

Removing the glue from the labels proved to be the toughest part of the whole process. I tried several earth-friendly methods.  I soaked the jars in white vinegar.  No dice.  I tried heating water-filled jars in the microwave.  The glue just spread around.  I tried the old tried and true peanut butter method.  Not very successful.  I finally gave in and tried mineral spirits.  Easy and effective.  Ran the jars back through the dishwasher and they were good to go.

I used spray chalkboard paint on the lids, two light coats.  Then I used a white charcoal pencil to write the labels.  It is not perfect.  The writing does not erase completely, but I don't really plan to erase them, so it is fine for my purposes.  I still have to figure out how to put them in the cabinet for best use of space, but I am very pleased with the way the jars turned out.  It was thyme for a change.  Spice spice baby.  Yo.