Okay, this one falls into the crafting for the craftily challenged category.  Seriously, it requires no specific craft knowledge and, minus shopping time, can be completed in less than five minutes.  How awesome is that?

The whole magnetic spice rack thing started when I moved into my current apartment.  The kitchen is kind of lacking counter space, so I didn’t want to use a spice rack, but it seemed silly to dedicate an entire drawer to storing spices (I cook a lot).  I figured that, if I could store them on the side of the fridge, they would be at hand when I was cooking and would be pretty much out of the way.

I could get those fancy magnetic spice containers, but they’re like $2 each, so no.  And I tried gluing magnets directly to my spice bottles (as you can see in the picture) but the bottles didn’t stay and that sucks anyway because you have to glue a new magnet every time you get a new spice bottle.  Last week when I was shopping for supplies to organize my desk, I came upon the solution: a DIY magnetic spice rack.

What you need:

- Heavy duty round magnets (you can get them at the craft store or the hardware store)
-A hot glue gun and glue sticks…or maybe super glue would work
-Metal office supply holders that are deep enough for a spice bottle to fit.  Mine are 2″ deep and they fit perfectly.  That seems to be a pretty standard depth, but check the dimensions just in case.

Now put it together:

I’m sort of stating the obvious, but glue a few (4 is a good number if yours are as wide as mine are) heavy duty magnets to the back.  The more the better as far as sticking to the fridge goes.  Make sure they’re fastened securely.

Put your newly magnetized bins on the side of your fridge, insert spices, and you’re all set!

If you get mesh organizers like I did, you will be able to see the spice bottle labels, but you could also use pieces of tape or address labels to label the lids of the bottles so you can know what’s in each of them more easily.  Also, be sure that you arrange your magnetic spice rack so that the shelves on the bottom have enough clearance to get the bottles out.  Again, stating the obvious.  Sorry.

If you’re not a big cook, you could use these for pretty much anything that’ll fit.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 24th, 2010 at 11:04 pm and is filed under Craftiness, crafts, diy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.