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How many food containers did you find to get rid of last week? I saw some great pictures of decluttered cabinets! Great job, everyone. Are you feeling burnt out or picking up steam? I’m feeling ready to plow through and get so much done but I know for our family it’s smarter to go little by little. It feels great to be ridding our home of so many things we no longer need or want though!

If you are just joining us, here’s the deal:

I still had this mindset of decluttering being a big ol’ chore up until a few months ago when I read this fantastic post from Nony at A Slob Comes Clean. It was like a huge light went off in my brain! Decluttering is simply the act of getting rid of what doesn’t belong, isn’t needed, or belongs in the trash. It doesn’t mean buying a whole slew of new bins for your things to go in or coming up with some type of system that you hope will change your life – that’s organizing. It’s a whole different ball game. Right now, I’m in the game of decluttering. I just want things GONE.

When there’s less stuff, especially less of what has no purpose in your home anymore, organizing can often happen naturally. You won’t be cramming thirty towels into the closet because you only need ten and they fit nicely. You don’t need to dig through a tub of medicines to find what you need only to keep coming across bottles that are long since expired.

Here’s my challenge: Each week, take on ONE area of your home. I’ve already made the list for you so that part is done. Go to the area, throw away trash, put items that you no longer need but are still in good condition into a donation box, and put other items where they belong. Simple!

Week 9: Other Kitchen Drawers

Some people are fortunate enough to have more than one or two drawers in their kitchen. We are not those people. Well, technically our home was only built with two drawers in the kitchen. But with seven people that simply wasn’t enough! We added a rolling cart with drawers under the desk area of the kitchen. Again, seven people in a small kitchen, no need for a “desk” area. It’s more counter space but at a lower height.

Anyway, we have these four drawers where we store various items that don’t have a home elsewhere. My cake decorating supplies, food storage bags, baking mats, foil, and plastic wrap all call these drawers home.

I started at the bottom and worked my way up. Of course I didn’t take before pictures other than the one of all four drawers from the outside. Here’s the bottom drawer all cleaned out and organized. The dirty looking container is our cinnamon sugar tub for making monkey bread. The cinnamon has stained the plastic over the years!

Next drawer is food storage bags. I like to keep gallon freezer and storage, quart freezer, sandwich, and snack bags on hand. Depending on what I store in the bags I will sometimes rinse them out to use again for the same item (so I make sure to write on the bags). I tucked these in the front of the drawer. Occasionally bags get taken out of their boxes and then aren’t needed so there are random bags floating around the drawer. I put all those back where they belong and then I also tucked the plastic silverware in this drawer because they used to be in our regular dishes cupboard and that simply didn’t make sense.

Plastic wrap, foil, baking mats, and a pastry mat call this drawer home. I didn’t get rid of anything in this drawer but I did clean it out. How does a set of drawers that is under a counter where food rarely sits get food in it? Thank goodness for little portable vacuums so I can easily clean these out.

And finally, my decorating drawer. I’ve got my awesome decorating tips container, silicon and regular decorating bags, cupcake liners, awesome silicon cupcake liners (if you don’t have these you really should!), and a few other decorating tools. I found a few smooshed liners that weren’t going to work anymore, treat bags that I don’t think I’ve used and can’t see myself using, and moved a couple items to other areas in the kitchen.

Here’s everything I found to donate. Halloween cookie cutters that I tried to love but kept being disappointed by because of how cheap they are. Mini Easter cookie cutters that I really wanted to love but every time I thought about using them the idea of cutting dozens upon dozens of little cookies or crackers and then re-rolling the dough over and over. Needless to say they are still on the cardboard and are now in my donation bin. And finally are those treat bags that I got for some event and have been in my possession for years and I’m not sure I’ve ever used. Oh well.

And the trash pile. A bag that didn’t get labeled so I have no idea what used to be in it. I will not use that one again! Sprinkles that have clumped together and are probably quite old do not need to take up space in my drawer! I also took some items from Christmas presents out of the packaging to store them easier.

Woo! It feels so nice to clear out the junk from an area! I hope you found quite a few things to get rid of in your own kitchen drawers. Little by little we are taking control of the chaos in our homes and busting through the clutter!

What did you find to get rid of this week? Did you choose to tackle one drawer or several?

Share a picture in the comments or on social media with the hashtag #clutterbusterchallenge of what you found to declutter

Come back next week for week 10 of the Clutter Buster Challenge when we take on the pantry or other dry food goods! I did our pantry not too long ago but funny how going grocery shopping every week makes it harder to keep that area organized or under control. See you then!