apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I'm with your husband.

I'm with you.

not rediculous... i face the same issue with choc milk mix. its almost always out. it would be nice if it were pretty to look at.

I suppose one benefit of dumping it all in a new container would be that you can easily have access to the scoop which always appears to be buried in the middle.

However, I do think that with formula (as opposed to soap) there are some benefits to keeping the original package. Expiration date is printed on original package and (God forbid) if there is ever a recall on specific cannisters, you'd need to be able to check all of the numbers on your can and see if your child's formula was affected.

I don't like looking at the formula can either-we use a clear glass cookie jar for ours. I don't mind it being out on the counter so much that way....

In that formula containers are lined by BPA it is probably a wise idea to recontainer the contents.

Any thoughts for vitamins? My husband insists on keeping his bulk-sized bottles on the counter so he'll remember to take them, but I hate how they look.

I just did this last week. I got a glass cracker jar (the same that my flour, etc is stored in) and the formula now sits with the baking staples on the counter. The only downside is that the mouth is smaller than the jar, so it's harder for my husband to put his hand in. We've done fine so far, though. He did make fun of me, but I like it.

I would find a mason jar or something like that for vitamins. I think they would look kinda cool in a see-through jar.

Is there any detriment to the vitamins being exposed to light? It seems like all the manufacturers' translucent vitamin bottles are very dark brown plastic.

I put vitamins in vintage sugar jars.(like the ones found in diners)..the kids' are in one with a red lid and mine are in the one with the green lid.

My husband thought I was crazy for buying cracker jars in different sizes for laundry detergent, oxiclean, borax, and washing soda. But it looks so pretttttty on my laundry shelves. :)

That is very, very clever. There can't be much worse than formula on the counter. Funny how such a simple solution could do so much for the counters. Looks fabulous!

What about rewrapping the container in scrapbooking paper (small cans) or wrapping paper for the larger ones. Heck, can you even peel the label off and leave the brown cardboard exposed? (Not sure if the label is glued on or just wrapped, jsut a thought!)

I have kept lots and lots of the container because they seem like a great storage solution for soething.... Just can't work out what to do with it! Right now, I have a dozen under my craft table! I'm also the nut that has kept tons of baby food jars, and can't work out what to do with those either!

I would watch exposure to light with most drugs, like vitamins. A few years ago, I up-cycled some glass amber bottles that held pills at our clinic. I etched the name of the drugs that were going into each bottle. But I only did this for the stuff that we literally took every day, like Benadryl, fish oil, or vitamins.

To make the tops more interesting, I like to cover them in fimo then stamp, paint, etc.

Baby food jars make good spice containers--assuming you don't have tons of empty spice jars lying about, as well.

You can also use them to store beads by color, or poster paint, or any of the myriad art supplies that children collect as they age.

About the vitamins in a jar thing: it's true about not exposing them to light. Minerals and fat-soluble vitamins can put up with a certain amount of light because they're pretty stable, but water-solubles (which is most vitamins!) are very fragile. Taking old vitamin pills is bad enough, and taking light-exposed ones is even worse. I would also be concerned about any repackaging of vitamins or medicines that would cause you to discard the original packaging with its ingredient and dosage information and expiration date. You might need that info at some point.

So the way I see it the options are thus: (1) Find a pretty box to keep the original bottles in, or (2) Be very anal-retentive about marking the bottles in some way, then retain the label information in a notebook that is stored with the vitamin/drug containers. Make sure the pages with the label info match up with the bottles in some way. I'm thinking maybe number stickers in pretty fonts?

I would personally go with the box (maybe a pretty countertop cabinet? Some kind of spice cabinet thing maybe?) and keeping the pills in their original bottles, simply because I know I have a habit of cycling through several different brands depending on what's available and/or on sale, so a notebook would occasionally become outdated/obsolete. And of course once in a while, if you do more than pop a daily Centrum, you run into something new that looks promising and might want to try it. But it all depends on the individual situation, of course.

Using pretty containers for everyday things is a good idea, though. I didn't grow up looking at branded stuff all the time because my stepmom was a Tupperware addict. I like the Modular Mates because they utilize space efficiently, but I'd like them better pretty. (Come to think of it, they can be decorated with contact paper and that kind of thing too.) She used to decant cotton swabs and put those in nice jars, and that kind of thing, too.

Does the original canister fit inside of the newly acquired canister...or did you just dump the contents into the new canister?

It'd be great if it was large enough just to slide the formula can into the decorative canister...now what about the oatmeal and rice cereal boxes sitting on top of my fridge? Any suggestions on how to stylishly disguise those?

First of all I thought this is a stupid idea. But me and my wife decided to try it at least to see how it works. The result is been unexpected and precisely great. So we took one of this canister to keep our herbal smoke