My name is Alina and I like to hoard stuff. There’s always something I can think of doing with things later. Maybe I even like to hoard ideas. When I recently got all the clutter out of my kitchen drawer it dawned on me, that I need a way to store my ingredients. Since I couldn’t figure out what the optimal permanent solution for my problem would be, I thought of an interim.

And that’s when my hoarding finally made some sense. I had lots of containers saved for an unspecified diy project. Yay! Containers! They were all not matching my kitchen colors and I knew that a hybrid make-over would let them shine. I will guide you through my thought and action process for this project.

 

 

First I looked through my ingredients. How big should the containers be and how many of them would I need? How many of them would fit into the space I found for them? I figured that I had 11 bulky ingredients needing a big container. The other ingredients would need a smaller container and they would fit into the drawer, so they wouldn’t need a make-over. If I had additional time and energy, I could still upcycle them later.

I cleaned the containers cautiously and let them dry before I did anything else with them.

Then I thought of the colors I wanted to use. Our house is full on romantic in dusty/grayed colors and the kitchen is blue/purple/taupe/gray with a wooden countertop. I knew Anita Designs would be my go to for the style of the kitchen. I found lots of kits in these colors and the style that I needed. I was specifically looking for the patterned papers and left out the colors that wouldn’t match what I had in mind (green and red in this case).

 

 

The kits I used (linked) Belvedere, This Week, A Day At The Park, Frame It In Vol. 10

I measured the containers. They are all cylindric and have the same measurements. The size of the cover would have been larger than A4 but only a small strip would remain uncovered. Since it’s just an interim solution, I am okay with a small portion on the back of the container peeking through. I have A4 sticker paper and used it for this project.

I created a template in photoshop with the measurements of the cover. It’s simply a background paper, a big frame and a large font in capital letters. I created all the covers and printed them on the sticker paper.

 

 

Now I got serious. After cutting the excess paper off, I tried the cover on with the backside of the sticker paper still attached. I could see some of the high contrast original cover through the new cover. On those containers I used a plain paper before I covered it up with the printed paper.

The sticking onto the container was tricky. I had to be very carefully finding the parallel lines to be able to stick the paper without creases and bubbles. Since I’m lazy, I didn’t want to draw a line on every container as a guide. So I only got the small backside off and tapped it lightly onto the container, making sure it would be fitting on the edges. Then I peeled off the rest of the backside and brushed the paper from the middle of the already sticking part to the edges and around the whole container.

 

 

Et voilá, after several repeats, I had them done. All in all this took me about 2 hours, printing not included.

 

 

They fit perfectly into my kitchen and I’m happy when I look at them. If I wanted them to last longer, I had them coated, because the ink might come off when in touch with water.

 

 

That’s how my hoarding became something beautiful. Now I can even ease “the hubster” into the thought of keeping things a little bit more. Who knows which idea I will diy next?

 

About the Author: Alina enjoys sitting in front of her large computer screens too much. Apart from that she loves walking her dog and watching sunsets while being amazed of life in general. She is married to her best friend. Tries to manage the needs of her two cats and her dog and badly fails when they all want their cuddle time at once. Everything else is scrapping, taking photos and currently crafting. Having said that, she needs a bigger craft room.