Small wonder. We use beakers around the house and in the office to hold toothbrushes, pencils, flowers and even thumbtacks.
Of all the sizes, our favorite is the 250 ml, which has just enough height to hold these items, but isn't so big that it looks misplaced in your home. Being lab glass, all of the edges are nicely rounded and it resists breaking. They can be hard to find in small quantities. We found it at SurplusLab.com for $1 used and at HomeTrainingTools.com for $3.85.
Veronica & Keith's Handmade Chic 
Before & After: A Bathroom Goes From Pinky Peach to Sleek and Chic
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Hunslet Dinner Plate
A Beginner's Guide to Superb Stir-Fry: Quick, Healthy Meals from a Wok
Easy Pitcher Cocktail Recipe: Strawberry Basil Margaritas
Comments (6)
At first I thought great only $1, but then the site says you need to have a $99 min. order :-(
Could be fun for a "Mad Science" Halloween party... though I think I'd be irrationally paranoid of chemical residues even if they were purchased new.
I have several pieces of glassware around my house. I'm a scientist by trade who longs to be designer so I have a weird love of form and function, even with the things I work with on a regular basis. My favorite pieces are these gigantic test tubes (about 8" long) used with our Kjeldahl distillation unit. I get the ones that have stress fractures and I'm considering bundling them to make a neat vase.
Going to those sites and seeing condensers and such sitting on dirty sufaces next to pop cans (yes, I realize they are there for sizing) paints a weird picture for me. It certainly makes me aware of where meth labs and home distillation projects get their fancy lab bits. Ah, the internet.
Also, if you have a university nearby (I live in a college town), they usually have surplus sales or surplus warehouses where you can go buy stuff. I see a lot of glassware and computer are ours.
I love the glassware. However, we have a few metal canisters that I recycled from when I worked in a biochem lab. Of course, the actual chemicals came in smaller packaging inside the canister (no highly toxic residue for me!)--I just thought having a skull-and-crossbones, Sigma chemicals pencil holder was amusing.
We called a local lab supply place and they were happy to sell us a small quantity. We originally bought them to use as cocktail glasses for a Halloween party, but liked them so much we now use them everyday. They were a little pricey new, but they are very durable.