Everything Under the Moon

We have altar photos but what about herb and oil storage? I am always looking for ideas on how to store some items and I bet there are others out there that are too or even others out there that love the way they store things and want to show it off.

My storage is dictated by the limited space I have. I work in my kitchen & have a rack for jars of herbs & a small one for oils & tinctures. I picked up a half dozen purple Ball canning jars & lids from the grocery store. Who could resist purple canning jars ? & label with a Sharpie marker pen. I store magical & mundane all jumbled together: bay leaves & soup bouillon right next to black salt & black peppercorns. One interesting container is a WW1-era, heavy duty green canning jar with a lead lid lined with milk-glass (dumpster dive salvage.) it bleached clean & holds non-edible rosebuds.

I don't use oils so that right there saves me on storage for those. I like glass jars, bottles for herb storage, and I pick these up at the dollar store and the local goodwill.

I also use a lot of incense and tea light candles along with my work and these I store in glass jars or glass candy dishes. I came upon a couple of my candy dishes there in an apartment I moved to, and if I need more the dollar store has some very cheap and goodwill has some nice ones which can be cheaper.

My current issue is I am going a little nuts wanting glass items and chalices. I find myself lately attracted to glass table dinner ware, just for my altar, candle holders, center piece decoration, glasses and more beverage glasses, I even bought a couple small sundae/ icecream cups. Yeah I can see I may have to re-work storage as soon as I get into a new place....

EveningWithAstaroth wrote:I don't use oils so that right there saves me on storage for those. I like glass jars, bottles for herb storage, and I pick these up at the dollar store and the local goodwill.

I also use a lot of incense and tea light candles along with my work and these I store in glass jars or glass candy dishes. I came upon a couple of my candy dishes there in an apartment I moved to, and if I need more the dollar store has some very cheap and goodwill has some nice ones which can be cheaper.

My current issue is I am going a little nuts wanting glass items and chalices. I find myself lately attracted to glass table dinner ware, just for my altar, candle holders, center piece decoration, glasses and more beverage glasses, I even bought a couple small sundae/ icecream cups. Yeah I can see I may have to re-work storage as soon as I get into a new place....

Have you went to an antique shop yet? I love getting bottles and jars at them. They are not bad priced and they are so pretty.

This has become a issue for me. Herbs get old and even in jars can loose much of their volitile oils over time. Yet I presume the energy and spirit of the plant to still be intact. So I do save a lot. Jars take up space when your inventory grows. I have many herbs still in the packages the ccompany's sold them in and that helps the space issue but not the easy to find issue.
I also store herbs on racks to dry, and many of these I'll put in ziplock bags to store (and label) Labeling is really important, because I guarantee you will forget what stuff is. Dates too, then you know how really old it is. If it was wildcrafted, the location of the collection is good to note.
I keep my essential oils seperate from my fragrance oils (and the essential oils are in alphabetical order)...it's good to know the difference, just because a bottle says lavender, doesn't mean it has any lavender in it. (We have a section on this)
This is my apothecary corner, (recently cleaned ), you cannot see most of the herbs because they are in two large cabinets below.

Mm-mm! Love that 1/2 circle table down front. Girl, you are organized!

My altar is a bookcase on top of an old night stand so i store my oils and tinctures in the book case away from the sun, and my working altar is on top!

I use this little cabinet I bought online:

Oh yes, those little cabinets look like fun. I’m a box addict. I’ve repurposed a thrift store find - a wine box (that once held a bottle of bubbly). It just fits my book shelf altar & holds a few oils, my handy-dandy herb mix, salt, incense, a few candles & odds & ends. My cats snitch anything not nailed down.

Our herbs, woods and other incense stuff for immediate use are in little wooden boxes colored in 1 or two colors, labelled according to the elements we associate them with (which is not always what others see them at of course). The larger part of them is in glass jars or the plastic bags they came in.

Our bought oils stay in the flasks they came in. My own are in little jars we bought at a thrift store.

Small amounts of dried herbs I keep in envelopes folded from baking paper/parchment in a shoebox, incense packets are stacked in a box where they fit together. I usually keep small glass bottles as I prefer making fresh supplies regularly, like candle dressing oil is every 7 or 8 months a fresh small jar.

Do you keep the herbs far from the incense? I have had trouble in the past with the incense leaching fragrance onto the herbs. It's especially a problem with strong sweet stick incense rather than resins but still I put the smelly ones in a plastic tub with a lid.
bb, FF

My incense is too strong so I keep it separate in the hallway. So house it is always scented.
The very mild scented Japanese incense I kept separate in a other area of house but I finished it all and the UK shop I used to buy it from closed.

Oils and essential oils that I do not use often are stored in a 1 bottle winebox with lid. And between the bottles very small gemstones from one of those mixed stones boxes bought at a rock/minerals show long ago.
Gemstones are small enough to fit into the 10 ml dark brown glass bottles to ad into oil blends.

Heatwave now in EU only made a very small bottle of Dream oil. All herbs are harvested, dried and in upcycled glass jars in my separate bookcase with the herbalism books, herbs reference books, and a few stones/ rocks/minerals books, a trees book, one potpourri book, gardening books.