Favorite Things Friday + VOTW

Welcome to Favorite Things Friday.  I like to take Fridays to look around my house and appreciate the things I have.  I seem to spend a lot of time in I-wish-I-had and so Fridays I take a step back and go to I'm-so-glad-I-have.  AND I'm linking up to Amy over at Design-Aholic for her Victory of the Week McLinky.

Today I'm going to make good on my promise to organize my kitchen cabinets and drawers. 

Monday I showed you this:

 The truth is, I don't think this picture looks too bad.  What you can't see, though, are the knives hiding underneath everything else and the way that the drawer doesn't shut unless you shake everything around to make it fit.  You also can't see the junk drawer to the left and the equally messy drawer to the right.  You CAN see my yellow measuring spoons, though.  I love those little guys!  You should get some yellow measuring spoons.  I promise you will love them!

Now the drawers look like this:

 

I got a couple drawer dividers at Bed, Bath, and Beyond.  I found these in the closet organization section.  They have a ton with their kitchen stuff, but none that were the right size for me.  I took everything out of the drawers and decided what stuff I needed to keep (actually, I think I kept it all).  I moved all the junk drawer stuff to a smaller drawer on the other side of the kitchen.

Then I got to working on the lower cabinets.  What once looked like this (notice the potholders on the door):

Turned into this:

And finally this:

This really requires no explanation.  I just emptied everything out onto the kitchen table, got rid of the lids that didn't have matching bowls anymore and such, put down some pretty green contact paper from Target, and put everything back in.  Easy-peasy.  Turns out I don't have too much stuff, I just had a lot of stuff thrown in there haphazardly. 

Remember this picture from Tuesday's post (from Real Simple)?

Here's what I did with the cooking utensils I use most often:

I didn't have a cute orange spatula, but I do have a pink rubber spatula from Williams Sonoma.  The summer my cousin, my brother, and I all got married my aunt brought all the girls in our family rubber spatulas in different colors.  I picked pink because it made me smile.  Still does.  I just love that little guy.  And see that white milk jug?  I picked him up at Goodwill a few weeks back.  I didn't know what to do with him and turns out he is perfect for holding my wooden spoons!

Earlier I told you to notice the potholders on the door of the lower cabinets.  Putting them there always seemed like a great idea.  It's right by the stove and the pans, after all.  It just never felt right to me.  I always wanted to keep them on the counter.  Then I saw a picture somewhere of potholders hung up along the backsplash.  Duh.  That makes so much more sense.  And since my mom got me some pretty green striped pot holders for Christmas, I like looking at them!

So there you have it.  A BIG thanks to Amy for hosting Victory of the Week.  It was a great motivator for me this week!  And thanks for letting me point out a few of my favorite things, too!