This Brilliant Etsy Find Helped Me Wrangle My Plastic Baggies Once and for All
Most of my waking hours are spent in the kitchen, developing recipes for this website and feeding my family (which includes two adorably ravenous elementary-aged kids). I have honed strategies and put systems in place to streamline almost every kitchen task and tool, but despite my best efforts, one nagging issue remains: I have crumpled boxes of plastic baggies, in every size, piled in a heap among the pots and pans in my lower kitchen cabinet! I’ve tried just about every storage tip and trick I’ve come across, and nothing has stuck — until now.
Of course the ideal solution could be found on Etsy: Turns out, woodworker Holly Sip, the brilliant seller behind the Etsy storefront Basically Birch, builds and sells pre-assembled boxes to organize plastic bags.
Her standard wooden box comes with four handy compartments for gallon-, quart-, sandwich-, and snack-sized baggies. There is also a three-compartment option, which doesn’t have the slot for snack-sized bags. And because vintage (read: dated) kitchen drawers, like the ones I have, might not be as deep as those in modern cabinets, she also offers slender boxes!
I ordered one as fast as I could and committed to clearing out a drawer to make this work. I’m happy to report that it fits perfectly in my shallow drawer and even leaves room on the side for easy access to my roll of parchment paper. Filling the compartments takes patience, because you can’t shove an entire box of bags into the slot all at once. Instead, I gathered a handful of folded bags and wedged them carefully through the opening, stacking sets of folded bags until the compartment was full. It took a little bit of time, but it was worth It.
I’m still in the honeymoon phase of using this wooden organizer, gazing at the neatly labeled sections and admiring the tidy drawer organization. Reusable storage containers are my go-to for packing lunches and storing leftovers, but I use disposable plastic bags to freeze homemade broth, bulk and leftover meat, soups, sauces, fruit, and frozen cookie dough balls. As I return to braising and baking this season, having gallon-sized bags neatly organized and easily accessible is already making me more efficient in the kitchen. The labels make grabbing the appropriate size easy, plus I can see when my inventory is running low.
One note: The box shifts when I pull out the bags, especially when the slots are filled to the brim. Easy fix! I added stick-on Velcro strips to the back to hold the box in place in the drawer — and now it’s just about perfect!
Do you have a brilliant trick for organizing disposable plastic bags? Tell us in the comments below.