Hey, it’s Abby, and today I’m going to be organizing a trouble spot that has been
bugging me for a while-- our medications and first aid supplies!
This is going to be a quick and easy project, but I'm excited about it because I know it will make a big impact on our
home.
In this house, we’ve always kept our meds in this skinny cabinet in our kitchen, but
I’ve never loved this solution.
The space is limited, the items on the top shelves are hard to get to, and we’re outgrowing
it-- items have started spilling over into the corner cabinet, which I really don’t
like at all.
Also, this may be odd, but our family tends to gravitate toward the upstairs level of
our home.
My office is upstairs, so I spend a lot of time working in there.
So ideally, I would like to relocate our meds and first aid supplies to our upstairs level
for easier access.
Today I’m going to take stock of what I have and come up with a new organizing system
for our medical supplies that I hope will work much better for our family.
The first step I knew I needed to take was to take inventory of all of the supplies I
wanted to store to figure out how much space I would need and what kind of containers would
be best to hold everything.
As tempting as it was just to start buying pretty bins, I knew I would have a much more
successful organizing system if I determined exactly what I was working with first.
I took all of the bottles and boxes and supplies out of the cabinets and separated them by
type.
I pulled out anything that was expired or no longer usable and set it aside so I could
properly dispose of it.
I then put my remaining items into categories.
All of the pain relievers went together, all of the cold medicines went together, all of
the wound care items went together, all of my kids’ medications went together, etc.
Once I had an idea of exactly what I was working with and how much space I’d need, I started
looking around the upper level of our house for possible storage spaces.
We don’t have medicine cabinets in our bathrooms, and even if we did, the humidity in those
rooms actually makes them not ideal for storing medication.
I did have some empty shelves in my closet that were free and were a good size, so I
decided to use that as the new spot for our meds and first aid supplies.
Since I now knew the amount of stuff I had and where I wanted to store it, I took some
measurements and ended up finding these cute bins that would fit my space and were the
perfect size to hold all of our meds in an organized way.
I will link to my blog post in the description of this video, which has links to these and
all of the other supplies I’m using for this project.
I figured out which supplies I was going to store in which bin, and then I used my Cricut
Explore cutting machine to make some labels, so I could easily tell what was in each one.
The font I used for these labels is a Cricut font called High Tide.
I also have a video and a blog post on how I do my adhesive vinyl labels, so I will link to
those in the description as well.
I love this method of labeling because I can get the exact design, colors, and size of
labels I want for every project.
Once everything was labeled, it was time to fill up my containers!
I ended up keeping all of my kids’ medicines together in one of the big bins.
One of the other big bins holds different types of pain relievers.
And the third one has cold and flu supplies and digestive medications.
Many times when I do an organizing project, I like to get rid of the original packaging
and put items in matching containers instead, but medications are one area where I do NOT
do that.
I may get rid of the extra outer box but I always keep medications in their original packages so there is no confusion as to what
different pills and syrups are, and I always have access to accurate instructions and warnings
that are included on the packaging.
After I had the medicines organized the way I wanted them, it was time to move on to the
first aid type supplies.
The shorter bins are storing the bandages and wound care supplies.
Since many of these supplies are smaller, I decided to use little divided bins within the larger
containers to keep everything neat and tidy.
While I didn’t take any of the medications out of their original packaging, I did take
the band-aids out of their boxes and used the little bins to separate them out by type.
I didn’t end up needing to put anything in the extras bin yet, but it’s always good
to have room to grow for when we inevitably get more items!
Once all of my bins were organized and ready to go, it was time to take them up to their
spot in the closet and put them in place.
I love that our kitchen cabinets are no longer overflowing with our medications and first aid supplies,
and that they are now so much more organized and in a convenient location.
And let’s be honest, I like that the bins look pretty too!
Though the huge before and after transformations usually get a lot of the glory, little projects
like this one can also make a big difference in overall organization, so I’m glad that
I finally took the time to get it done!
Thank you so much for watching this video-- please be sure to give it a like
and subscribe if you’d like to continue to see more organizing videos from us in the
future!
Happy organizing!