I have an aversion to getting rid of glass jars. As a result, a full upper cabinet in our kitchen is devoted to jars of all shapes and sizes. We use them as drinking glasses, flower vases, salad dressing mixers, and more. While I love my empty jar collection, I'm swayed by some of these creative uses for recycled glass jars as more permanent fixtures in the kitchen.
Chelsea's small kitchen (above) has no drawers. Her creative solution for housing silverware in mason jars works well and looks great. The mix of glass and stainless is quite stunning.
If you're dealing with a a lack of counter and storage in the kitchen, find open space wherever possible. Consider attaching jar lids under shelves for an additional row of stored goods.
Keep your herbs fresh and where you use them. A collection of herbs growing in jars on the window sill is beautiful and functional.
Instead of tossing a growing collection of frappaccino jars, this woman converted hers into spice jars. Check out her technique for etching labels on the glass here.
Stop buying new plastic soap dispensers. Purchase soap in bulk and refill a permanent dispenser like this lovely repurposed mason jar. Make your own dispenser with this tutorial.
(Images: 1. Chelsea's Cozy and Eclectic Garden Apartment | Lindsay Tella, 2. Home Made Simple, 3. Organic Authority, 4. Instructables, 5. Babble.)
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The cutlery in the first picture should really be placed in the jars handle side up.
I don't buy bottled frappachinos, pasta sauce, or any other things that usually come in jars. Since the theme of this is recycling the jars you accumulate, I don't think buying jars for organization is the intent. Oh well.
Signed,
Pi the Jarless.
Putting the silverware handle up causes a huge mess when trying to extract just one. Personal experience here. I reuse (this is technically reuse) pretty much all jars I get because they're better than plastic storage containers. Not to mention they're nice looking. Also artist pastels work great on them for fast, washable labels.
Pi the Jarless, ask friends to save them if you want some.
I have a jar problem. My husband loves this one kind of pickle (Milwaukee's) that comes in big, 32 oz jars that have a narrow mouth. I've been keeping them because it pains me to throw them away, and by now we have DOZENS, but they're really not very useful. They're not great for stock because the mouth is too narrow for easy fat skimming and because you can't get frozen stock out easily. I put craft supplies in some but they're too big for the small amounts of such items one usually collects and the small mouth, again, makes them impossible to reach into. Ditto spices. They're just so big.
Can anyone think of a way to make these practical, or should I just say sayonara and clear out my cupboards?
We have family that cans jam every year and never wants the jars back. So we used all our similar jelly jars as spice holders, and our spice cabinet looks fabulous. small tags attached with clear nail polish, and voila!
Tis all lovely reuses, but #1 would be lovelier if the label residue was removed. There's a ton of ways to do that, but I like to simmer the jars in a big stockpot of hot water, which at once removes all of the sticky stuff and sterilizes everything.
The downfall of so many articles about storage is the fetish for labels. Does picture #2's jar of utensils really need a label declaiming "utensils"? Ditto for the pasta label -- it actually slows down the process of knowing what's in the jar.
The etched Frappuccino bottles are gorgeous, but what a laborious process that is ...
I don't buy frappacinos either and unless the lady cooks like crazy, I think she has too much. Spices looks freshness fairly quickly so I prefer to store mine in much smaller (also reused) containers and I buy new (from a bulk store) as needed.
@ tasterspoon
Get a glass cutting kit from amazon or a craft store. Cut the top part of the jars off and smooth the edges so you are left with nice straight sided glass containers. This isn't a particularly hard thing to do, though you'll have some that don't cut as well as others.
Then, of course, you'll have to figure out how to use them. Years ago, I made spice jars this way from beer bottles. I even found great big corks that fit in the tops.
DULCIBELLA, I bet those beer bottle spice jars were amazing! Esp. If they were brown, they'd actuaally keep the spices fresher than clear glass!
Spelling cop here. Turmeric typo alert.
But I must say I LOVE the Starbucksbottles and would only use the smaller ones, as I assume these are. They're elegant looking with their frosted glass labels.
Also voting for a glass cutter for @tasterspoon.
Daffodils near food prep areas freak me out. They're super poisonous.
@tasterspoon, I'm a fan of beans, lentils, rice, orzo, popcorn, whole peppercorns, and other small foodstuffs in jars. Some of this I buy in bulk, but mostly it's putting smaller packages into larger ones. Plus if you have issues with bugs, glass is pretty good for keeping those out too.
We're to believe that @Pi never buys
-jam
-jelly
-pickles
-mustard
-sun dried tomatoes
-artichoke hearts
-olives
-salsa
and all the other wonderful things that come in jars.
@tasterspoon pasta!
Lotsa great comments here. Hope to learn more as well. Love the utensils in jars, though I've found that in jars or crockery I like to place a piece of white carboard backed with felt on one side and place it in the bottom of the jars to avoid chips/cracks. I just change them now and then when needed. I also like the shape of the large Pace salsas now and then - they have a 'x' kind of shape - narrow at one point 1/3 from top - and work well for small bunches of flowers..... And the etching of the herb/spice Frappachino (sp) jars is very nice too... thanks all!
Spelling police -- copyeditor here -- turmeric is strict British English, and tumeric is an American English variant of the same word. So technically correct.
@tasterspoon -- what a great problem to have : ) I would give some away to friends as vases or dog food containers, unless you have space for a shelf with all of them lined up (vanilla sugar, flour, even mixed smaller packets) and one or two in the bathroom with bath salts, detergent, toothpaste tubes, Q tips (they don't have to be full). Stick a spoon or scoop in to help get stuff out and paint the lids in your favorite color. Plant herbs in a couple. When you run out of ideas, give the rest away to recycling!
@tasterspoon - several good ideas for using your jars here, but if you don't want to - just recycle them! Glass is very recycleable and they are finding lots of great uses for recycled glass these days (like glass countertops, etc.). Or, donate them to a thrift store. Whatever you do - don't throw them away!
My mom buys a gallon of honey at a time and she returns the old jars to the honey producer. He used to get all of his gallon jars from bars-apparently pickled eggs come in gallon jars-but recently he's had trouble so now he just offers a discount to people who exchange their own jars.
I personally use a lot of jars for Christmas presents so I save them all year and then have a big clean out in December.
I like the idea of starting little seedlings in a jar on the windowsill. Other uses would be a "stink jar" (which is something we keep under our sink with the lid on, with all the drained fats or oil that we don't want anymore. I'm sure there is probably plenty we could be doing with the stuff in the stink jar, but it's not a huge priority for me at the moment.
Absolutely great ideas!! As a lover of jars myself, I'm going to have to start instigating some of these ideas. I currently use my old Bell & Kerr jars as vases, pen holders, and most currently one is storing my growing wine cork collection (for another DIY project)!! Love seeing upcycled jar ideas :-)
@Keightdee: "Daffodils near food prep areas freak me out. They're super poisonous."
No, they're not.
They have an alkaloid in them that is poisonous, but it generally only causes vomiting, which resolves the problem. Most poisoning is from people eating the bulbs thinking they're onions. The greens are only mildly poisonous.
feeling SO much better about my decision to use glass jars for cutlery! i'm not creative & have NO design sense (which makes me very sad) but the drawers in my rental duplex are not functional so i decided using jars on the counter was a good solution. glad to see this isn't considered a 'party foul'.
speaking from experience, i tried placing the cutlery handle side up b/c i thought that made more sense but it works better the other way.
I am curious about how the jars in the top pictures stays on the wall. Is it a special type of jars. How are they placed on the wall?
Got some new ideas here...
Huge jars are very useful -- I keep various types of flours and sugars in them, and they're good treat jars too. I find them nicer than canister sets since I bake a lot, they're just easier to deal with. If I had more of them, I'd store popcorn, pet food, and dry beans/barley/lentils in them. I'm s l o w l y getting them by buying huge jars of kim chee, but it does take a while to eat! I wouldn't pay money for a jar, but love re-using them. I use small ones to ake vanilla sugar, store teabags, sugar cubes, ... to make milkfoam in the microwave for my coffee, and I keep various sized jars for potentially messy things like sourdough starters and tangzhong roux. I like the various shapes, too.
@tasterspoon my favorite way to reuse glass jars (especially when the opening is too small to get your hand into) is to put them to use as change jars. I have a glass jug that I keep my vacation fund in, and since the opening is so small I'm not even tempted to take money back out of it.
You can use multiple jars and keep your change sorted out... You might be shocked at how many quarters a 32 oz jar will hold! :)
I'm not sure how the spice containers in the top picture are staying on the wall, but it has inspired me to hot glue some small magnets to containers and pop them onto a metal surface. You've just this spice junkie space, a few more holes in the wall, and $25 on a spice rack organizer.
I also LOVE collecting glass jars and all their wonderful uses. Next up is to buy a bottle-scorer so I can cut them easily. :)
I must point out that spices need to be kept in a dark/dry place for maximum shelf life!