I may not be a gourmet chef, but I do like to add spices to food I'm cooking every once in a while, and since the renovation of the kitchen the spices have been stored on the top shelf of our pantry which happens to be very much out of my reach. We have this perfect space on the wall next to our stove that I've been day dreaming about putting floating spice shelves on. Yesterday, Matt was home sick (not homesick) so he lovingly built me a spice shelf.
This is the wall we planned to put the spices on. It's in perfect reach of the oven and prep spice below. 
I searched high and low for spice bottles that were absolutely perfect, and in my price range (couldn't be more than a dollar each). There were some at IKEA online that have brushed nickel tops and frosted bands around them that I guess you could write the names of the spices on. Those bottles could have been great, except the $1.50 price tag, and the fact the closest IKEA is about 5 hours away. Then I came across these glass bottles with white tops at Bed Bath and Beyond for .99 cents each. Add in my $10-off-a-purchase-of-$30 coupon and we had a deal.
I had bought this chalkboard paint at Walmart for another project that never fully developed. I tried taping off with painter's tape the area I wanted to paint, but the round bottles kept making the lines malfunction. I decided to just free hand it. It took two coats on each, but really didn't take that long to paint them. If one was particularly off, I would use my finger to smooth out the shape then as you can see, just wiped it on the paper. 
This is what one coat looked like, very blotchy but the second coat really evened it out.
These are the finished spice jars, with their two coats of paint. I tried using a stick of chalk to write the names, but the hard chalk would scratch the paint from the glass and it was difficult to write neatly. I had seen online that there are such things as chalk pens, so I found this Bistro Chalk Marker at Hobby Lobby. I had to get a pack of four (white, blue, red, and yellow) because that was my only option. It took me a while to bite the bullet and get the pack since all I needed was the white and the pack was $9.99. I did use my 40% coupon so it wasn't too horrible, I just don't like to pay for something I don't need.
Here is the spice shelf Matt built for me. It has a lip so the jars don't fall out and is just wide enough to hold 8 jars on each shelf. 
View of the back. I caulked it last night, need to sand it today, then caulk it again where the nail gun made little indentions. Then I'll do one more final sanding and paint it all white.
See the indentions? Also how I need to sand it smooth and paint it.
