I love Jars!

Where I live we don’t currently have a glass recycling program so, being a responsible recycler, I try to reuse and re-purpose as many glass containers as I can.

I’ve been ramping it up lately by reorganizing my kitchen and craft areas – the more glass jars I end up with, the more plastic I recycle.

A friend takes the recycled jars and adds handles to the lids making them quite decorative. I have a couple in my guest bath.

And another in my kitchen (I know what will be going in it, I just don’t have any right now.) And that pasta is just a decoration!

I use jars for small things like buttons and beads.

And as everyone in the world must, the Danish Butter Cookie tin!  This one is full of zippers.

I use them to hold tools in my studio.

I used a decorative jar to save my graduation corsage in – these types of jars work really well for keepsakes.  I think this one came with candy in it, but you can reuse candle jars too.

And I love mason jars!  They are perfect for food storage. The ultimate recycled jars – people give them to you full and you have them forever!

I store my nuts and baking supplies in the mason jars – it is so much neater than a bunch of bags or other containers.  I can see everything clearly in the cupboard.  I also store tea bags in jars – I cut out the name from the box and stick it in the jar.  The jars help keep the tea fresher longer.

I’ve also have some larger jars for things in bigger amounts – my almond and coconut flours, my homemade nut cereal mix, and snacking peanuts.

I also reuse spice jars of all sizes: glass and the larger plastic ones.  I like to make my own spice mixes so it is handy to have some spare jars on hand.

I have some can shelves and a large spice rack mounted in the stairwell to the basement, this is right off my kitchen and really convenient for me – I just take a step or two down and all my spices are at eye level!

I just stick labels on the recycled jars.  I buy bulk to refill the commercially labelled jars. And yes, the bottom four shelves are in alphabetical order…

I’ve discovered a really excellent sauerkraut, Bick’s Bavaria-Fest – and it comes in a nice squat wide-mouthed jar!  And it was on sale with bonus Airmiles… I have stocked up and have a plan for the jars once I’ve emptied them all.

If you’ve got a glass recycling program available by all means use it, but also remember that glass containers are extremely reusable, and in many more ways than I’ve mentioned above.