A couple times a year I sort through my spice cabinet, discarding almost empty bottles and old spices. The shelf life of spices is typically about 6 months, I buy Penzeys spices – they are fresh whole and ground, so I find that they have at least a year for the shelf life. Penzeys recommends that if your spices smell strong and spicy or herby, use it. If not, toss it. 
If you haven’t looked at Penzeys, you should join their mailing list and request a catalog – they feature great recipes. My three favorite Penzeys products? Double Strength Vanilla, Penzeys Cinnamon Blend, and Shallot Pepper.
My spice cabinet is set up in a way that really works for my cooking and baking style, so today’s task isn’t about organizing the spices, but rather just re-sorting what I have in place.
Here’s the spice cabinet:
Oh, did you want to look inside?
I took everything out – the best way (in my opinion) to organize anything.
I took out any empty and almost empty jars – I’ll remove the labels and wash these and reuse for bulk spices and for homemade spice mixtures.
Then I was ready to put everything away in its place.
On the bottom shelf I put the two-tiered turntable with cooking spices. To be able to easily access spices, I alphabetize them.
The next shelf is for baking spices and extracts.
The top two shelves are for baking soda, powder, empty canning and spice jars and any other stragglers.
Much better. Another item DONE! on my list.
How do you organize your spices?