Glass Jar Project

[rincaro]

I have roughly 40 glass jars. Mostly peanut butter jars - plain, holding about 2 cups, with plastic yellow lids. Some jelly jars which are more narrow, etc. Some artichoke heart and pimiento jars which are smaller.

There are another 15-20 in my cupboard holding various spices, ingredients for vegan cooking - nut yeast, rices, beans, seaweed, etc. But I *really* don't need anymore jars. But I can't bring myself to throw them away.

My house is mostly undecorated. Any really cool ideas on a project, craft, decorating idea for all my jars! :help:

See - look at the picture. There's imminent danger from the jars falling off the shelf my cupboard is so freaking full!

[Jinga]

You could cut a hole in the wall, frame the opening with the studs you cut out, then stack up all the jars on their side to make a loverly window :D :p

... or you could make something like candle floaty displays or vases ;)

[Joe]

I don't think this is exactly what you are looking for, but here goes.

Do you have a canning funnel? You know, one of those funnels with an opening about 2 and 1/4" wide at the bottom? (If not, you can get a plastic one cheap.) If so, divide your jars into two categories: those wide enough for the canning funnel to fit and those it doesn't fit. Those it does fit should be used to store dry foods bought in bulk, like brown rice, lentils, split peas, any other grains, beans or legumes.

I know this may sound silly, but it seems that glass jars are disappearing from the store shelves fast. I think this is bad for the environment. But I too am reluctant to part with glass jars.

The jars that are narrower than this, a couple ideas. For those that are fairly wide, they can be brought to potlucks or used when guests come over who say they like your soup or gravy or stew. Just ladle it into the jar and you have a "soup doggie bag" for people to take home.

Really small jars are useful for storing screws, bolts and other hardware from particular projects, straight pins, and so on.

If you winnow through your jars this way, you should only have a few left.
These can be used for decorations or recycled. Since you have kids, why not store marbles in some of these jars? Do your kids play with marbles? Marbles are also useful to put in spray bottles (like Windex or other spray cleaners) so you use up more of the remaining spray.

[Jinga]

If you search online, you'll also find plenty of jar art pages :)

Jar Art (http://www.polsteins.com/jarart.html)

[Amy SF]

I know this is not the answer you were expecting, but when I get too many glass jars, I throw some of them in the mixed-materials recycling bin in the alley behind my building, along with aluminum, plastic and paper.

[SallyK]

Those are Arrowhead Mills peanut butter jars aren't they? ;)

[Tiggzie]

Stick candles in those suckers. Just put some sand in the bottom first to "ground" the candle. Incense works too.

Use it for your own food/herbs/etc.

Put dried or fresh flowers in them.

Fill them with sea glass, shells, pebbles in different colours to put on a sunny window sill (you get a nice light effect on the walls/ceiling sometimes).

Decoupodge with pretty pictures.

Make your own oils (herbs/olive oil for a few days out of direct sunlight).

Wrap wire and beads around them.

Drill a hole in the cap, glue cap to the bottle and hang the decorated bottle somewhere.

Make your own "snowglobes" with your kids.

Print out small version of vintage posters or labels and paste them on.

Make your own potpurri.

Errr, I'm out of ideas for now. All my glass bottles hold my gemstone collections, flowers or are just empty. :)

[renaissancesun]

I use glass jars for storing left-overs, mostly in the freezer so the whole plastic leaching into food thing isn't an issue. I also buy 1 lb bags of some spices from a food co-op and keep a small jar out with the rest in bigger jars in freezer. Also nuts, seeds.

When I make soup, those size of jars are just the right size for my husband to take for lunches.

Just make sure if you freeze wet food in them that you leave some empty space at the top for expansion.

A side note...When they stopped making those baby food jars out of glass (gerber), my husband had about 4 boxes in our garage that he bought at a garage sale. He had the best of intentions to use them some day, but... I got sick of tripping over them so I put them on freecycle. it was a small group with under 100 members and I got 27 or 28 requests for them!

It never thought about what joe said though, that glass jars in general are on thier way out.

[vggiegirl]

Use them for food gifts!
http://www.recipegoldmine.com/foodgift/foodgift.html


I've made tons of soup mixes, etc. and given them as gifts.

[borealis]

My dad uses them to sort/store screws, nails, etc. in his workshop.

They'd be good for craft items, too.

[Vicky]

Rincaro, i have two ideas for decorating your house - one for the wall one for a bookshelf. the first one seems kind of difficult and more dangerous but the second one is pretty cool IMO, so if you want to see the sketches i'll post them, don't wanna force it on you if you're not interested :)

you could also MAKE candles in those jars, maybe even melt down old ones ! but candlemaking is kind of expensive ....

[rincaro]

Sketches please! I need some interesting ideas. I just joined up at craftster.org and I'm lookin there.

I tried the candle thing - but you are right - it is way too pricey. And I don't really need 40-50 candles. :p

[Vicky]

i'm not even gonna scan in the wall thing - it's stupid. i was gonna say that you can make a little "wall" i nthe corner of your room , a half circle 3 jars wide thatw ould go all the way to the celing and have lights behind it ..... but that's too hard and dangerous ( as i mentioned in the previous post)

so i attached a picture of what i would really do, sorry my hand writing sucks especially when i do it fast and with a pencil

ETA: and you could fill the jars with dried or fake flowers and neon post-its ! i know it sounds crazy but if you put at least one post-it note (of the same color) in all of them and turn all the other lights off, the room will be filled with the light of that color. i did a project in school where i covered all the windows with pink post-it notes and the whole hallway was bright pink (i'm actually gonna repeat it and include in my portfolio if everything works out well)

EATAM(edited again to add more): you could probably use colred water or paint the jars ! but the post-it thing seems to be a lot easier

[Hansbos]

You could cut a hole in the wall, frame the opening with the studs you cut out, then stack up all the jars on their side to make a loverly window :D :p

In natural building, people actually use jars and bottles that way. They make beautiful windows:

[Vicky]

wow that's so cool hansbos ! if i ever build a house ............ :)

[borealis]

Purty. :)


You could frost a few, put them in a row and put christmas lights in them. Actually they'd still look nice unfrosted. Hmm, maybe I should do that!

[SilverC]

Make playdough body parts and bugs and stuff like that. Put them in and then fill the rest of the jar with with water tinted with red or brown food colouring. :evil:

[Hansbos]

I started building such a house this winter, but we're only at the digging foundation trenches stage, but this time next year maybe we could organize a VB building workshop in Mendocino!

More pictures of how such a house would look:

[Vicky]

i found something similar on a polymer clay website - they filled the bottle with distilled water and glitter, and made it into a snowglobe by making a polymer lawn with two people sitting in it. it was kind of cute....

[Vicky]

i'm so building a house Hansbos ! :)