I received a sample of the chalk markers to help facilitate the writing of a honest review. This post may contain affiliate links.
Over the years, I have tried a variety of different items to label and organize my food pantry and food storage. For many years, I used Tupperware Modular Mates for all of my food storage needs and just applied small labels to the containers. (Here is a picture of my gluten free pantry while using modular mates.) This worked great as it made for easy moves and kept our food bug-free, but as I learned more about some of the concerns with plastic and food, I decided that I no longer wanted to use plastic with food whenever possible.
I gradually transitioned to using glass jars for my pantry storage. Our food actually tasted better when stored in glass. It was a bit of a pain to move, but everything made it without an issue. (The military movers would move our food if it was in Tupperware, but they wouldn’t move the glass jars of food as they weren’t sealed. We ended up moving them ourselves.) For my other bulk food storage, I transitioned to using 2, 3, and 5 gallon buckets with mylar bags and gamma lids.
One of the issues that I have had with using glass jars and buckets is labeling. I’ve tried a variety of different products, but I couldn’t find one that allowed for flexibility in what was stored in the jars. While there are some things that are consistent in my pantry, there are other things that are in constant flux. I loved the look of paper labels, but they didn’t allow for changing of jar contents nor washing of the jars.
When I found the chalkboard labels, I knew that I had found my solution for the jars. My only issue was writing on them with regular chalk. It looked bad, and it was hard to read. When I saw the Colore Chalk Markers, I thought it might be the answer to the issue. They came in a variety of colors and worked on different non-porous surfaces. Each marker has the option of two different tips – chisel and bullet. You just flip the tip to use whichever style you want.
I found the chisel tip to be a bit of a pain to use, but the bullet tip worked well for me. Now, I don’t have fancy handwriting, so it may not look as pretty as something that is printed out. Even so, they work for me. I can easily wipe off the label when I want to put something new in the jar. I can even write directly on the jar if I want which is nice for those times that I’ve run out of labels.
Since I’m still in the process of switching my labels to the chalkboard labels, the jars in my pantry don’t look quite as pretty as they do when they all have the same labels, but I’m liking the new chalkboard labels especially now that I’m using the chalk markers. I look forward to when all of the jars have the new labels as it looks much nicer when they all match, but for now, I’ll just switch out the labels a little at a time.
For my buckets, I’ve started using self-adhesive poly pockets. I just stick them on the buckets and then insert the business sized cards that I have printed on cardstock. It allows me to change out the labels easily when needed. I can even change the style/design/color of the labels if needed/wanted.
These two labeling techniques have allowed me to get my pantry and food storage organized in a way that works for my eat-what-you-store, store-what-you-eat method of food storage. My food storage is basically just bulk storage for the items that are in my regular pantry stores.
