weekend crafting project: magnetic spice jars for the side of the fridge. i’d seen these in IKEA and other, fancier kitchen stores, selling for something like $24 for a set of four or six. we have a lot of spices. a LOT of spices.* since we moved, the spices had been living in a big, jumbled cardboard box. when i needed something, it required 5 minutes of digging around a collection of identical red caps looking for the right one. given that we cook probably five nights a week, that actually starts to add up. but at six dollars per jar, and fifty spices, buying those nifty magnetic jars would have cost upwards of $300. what? i can make these!

i found the food-grade tins at www.specialtybottle.com. little round magnets at a craft store. sticky-note style labels (so they can be removed/replaced) at office max. the whole projected ended up running under $1.50 per jar. ben was pressed into service for the lettering, as my handwriting is atrocious, and not in the good way. so we plopped down at the coffee table, watched about four episodes of Arrested Development back-to-back, and created an assembly line: glue magnet to the jar (gorilla glue was perhaps overkill, but i couldn’t find my hot glue gun), write out the label, decant spice into the tin, slap on label, stick to fridge. et voila!

*moving in together will do that. suddenly we have one too many cats, vacuums, coffee tables, hammers…and about six jars of garlic powder.