{five minute friday} Creating an Organized Baking Drawer

Happy Friday, friends! I am so excited to bring you the first official installment of Five Minute Friday!!

If you missed last week's introduction to Five Minute Friday, you can read all about it here {and see a collection of 16 awesome five minute projects}.

I've told you before about my case of Organizing A.D.D. - where I start one organizing project and then suddenly find myself clearing out a drawer that I didn't even know need reorganizing. We'll it happened again! I started organizing under the kitchen sink and suddenly found myself cleaning out a drawer by the oven.  But my Organizing A.D.D. always leads to something good, and this time, in about five minutes flat, I had myself a brand spanking new baking drawer. Just looking at it makes me smile!

Before I jump in to the details, let me give you the back story... In the late 1970's my mom and grandma took a couple of cake decorating classes. Like most things artistic, they both had a knack for it! They really got into it for a while {my mom even ended up teaching cake decorating classes and both spent time working for a bakery}, and they made some amazing cakes for us kids when we were growing up. After my boys were born, I became interested in learning some basic techniques so I could make fun cakes for my kids as well. {To see my first two attempts, check out my easy Elmo cake and my ombre frosted cupcakes.}

I mentioned this interest to my grandma, and before I knew it she had given me her entire collection of supplies, including two full cases of cake decorating tips, a big collection of icing bags, cake toppers, flower nails, decorating books... the works!

I was so thrilled to have her pass all of these goodies along to me, but I needed to find a place to store all of it! For a long while, it just sat stacked on the kitchen counter. Then one day, in the middle of another project, I found myself wondering if the two cases of cake decorating tips would fit in one of my shallow kitchen drawers. I had to stop what I was doing to find out. Sure enough, they did! And there I went...off on a new organizing quest.

There are three drawers near my stove and oven that have always held a random combination of cooking utensils, scoops, birthday candles, whisks, potato peelers, apple slicers, pizza cutters, spatulas... you know the drill. I've always intended to get them better organized, and the need to fit in the cases of cake decorating tips finally gave me the motivation I needed.

I quickly picked through the drawers, pulled out all of the baking related items, and combined the remaining items into two drawers, leaving one drawer empty and ready for all of my baking and cake decorating supplies.

I started by stacking the two cases of cake decorating tips in the back corner of the drawer. I had a few of my favorite Viola Drawer Organizers left over from my bathroom drawer organization project, so I put them to work here. I filled one plastic bin with all the icing bags and placed it in front of the decorating tips. 

I'm a sucker for the dollar bins at Michael's - so over time I've built up quite a collection of pretty cupcake liners. Fortunately, these fit perfectly in another of a plastic bins, with room to the side for a plastic bag of cake pop sticks.

At the front of the drawer, I used three ceramic ramekins {also from the Michael's dollar section} to contain all of our extra birthday candles. 

I originally tried recycling a few small plastic baby food containers to hold the candles, but I quickly discovered that the plastic containers were just too light weight, and the candles kept tipping them over. The heavier ceramic ramekins are perfect for the job!

On the other side of the drawer, I used a third Viola Drawer Organizer to hold all of my measuring cups and spoons.

The drawer is just long enough for my rolling pin, and I tucked my spatulas and icing knife in between the rolling pin and the bin of measuring spoons.

The open space in the front corner of the drawer now holds my cookie scoop, my set of mini funnels, and the flower nails from my grandma {which can be used for creating icing flowers for cake decorating, or for helping the center of your cakes bake more evenly}.

Boom! Just like that I have a baking and cake decorating drawer! Commence happy dance!

It only took me a few minutes to fill up the drawer, and now everything has a place!

Of course, I do have other baking supplies that don't easily fit in a shallow kitchen drawer - like cookie cutters and food items. When I reorganized our pantry a while back, I placed all of our cookie cutters in a bin that I keep on the top shelf {since they don't get used as often}.

Our baking staples, like flour and sugar, are stored in plastic jars in the pantry, alongside two stacking bins that hold items like chocolate chips and chopped nuts, jars of sprinkles, and food coloring.

And those awesome cake decorating books from the 70's that my grandma passed down to me... they also have a new home on the cookbook shelves in our kitchen "mudroom."

Grouping like items together is one of the basics of organizing. By simply taking a few minutes to dedicate one drawer to all of my baking supplies, it makes it so much easier for me to find what I need! Does anyone else have a baking drawer? I'd love to see it!

P.S. Thanks to those of you who have submitted ideas for Five Minute Friday! I am looking forward to featuring some awesome reader projects in the near future. If you have a quick project that you'd like to share, please shoot me an email {using the button in the top right corner of the sidebar}. I'd love to see your five minute decorating, organizing, DIY, and entertaining ideas!