Ideas for Glass Jars

The enforced lockdown of the past few months has certainly given many of us time to pause and think about our lives, and to re-evaluate what’s important to us. It’s also meant that we’ve had to entertain ourselves, and our children, often with whatever we’ve had to hand at home, or what we could easily order online. For many people, that has meant taking up new crafts and hobbies or picking up long-forgotten ones once more. This has also involved looking at ways we can reduce, re-use and recycle more in our everyday lives. For today’s blog post, we’re taking a look at something that spans both of these concepts, with some fun and practical ideas for things to do with glass jars.

Let’s start with glass jars with lids

Some projects involving glass jars require the lids as well, whilst others only make use of the jar itself. We’re going to start with some ideas for glass jars with lids, and then we’ll move onto ideas for when you only have the jar to use, either because the lid is missing or because it’s damaged.

One of the best uses for glass jars with lids is as a container for your lunch. Whilst many of us are now working from home on a permanent basis, it’s still a good discipline to make a healthy lunch and to have a proper lunch break. Salads in glass jars are a fabulous treat - packed full of healthy and delicious ingredients and a joy to look at too with their layers of colourful contents. Look at our previous posts for how to get the layering right in order to avoid soggy or oily items, then get creative with your favourite salad ingredients, and pop your jar in the fridge to chill until lunchtime.

Another great idea for using up glass jars with lids is to create bath salts to give as Christmas gifts to friends and family. With September just around the corner, now is the time to get started if you want to go 100% homemade with your Christmas gift-giving this year. Again, we’ve covered how to make your own bath salts in previous blog posts, and they are very quick and easy to do, so this is a great way to get started with homemade gifts.

Other ideas for glass jars

If you’ve had to throw away the lids for a few glass jars, don’t worry, because there are still plenty of ways that you can make use of the jars in creative ways, to make useful and pretty home decor items, for example.

Take a glass jam jar and pop a tealight in it, and “hey presto,” you have a simple but effective candle holder. If you wind garden wire around the neck of the jar and then fashion a handle, you can hang these candle holders from low branches in your garden, or from your hanging basket brackets, to create a wonderfully romantic setting for drinks in the garden on warm late-summer evenings.

Whilst simple glass jars make lovely candle holders as they are, you can also add a little extra by decorating your jars. Tape paper stencils around the jars and then spray etching spray over the jars to give a pretty, frosted look. Alternatively, dunk your jar in a pot of white emulsion, so that the paint comes halfway up the outside, then hang the jar and let it drip dry, before popping in the candle as previously described.

Another simple idea for old jars is to use them as vases for cut flowers. Rather than using shop-bought flowers that have likely been shipped in from halfway around the world and treated with preservatives to extend their life, why not take a walk around your own garden to see what is in flower. Late summer is a brilliant time for creating home-grown mini bouquets as there is still so much in flower at this time. With a jam jar bouquet, you don’t need a huge amount of stems to create a fabulous display, and even a single dahlia will look stunning, especially if you create a grouping on three or five jars and position them close together.

Even if you don’t have any flowers in your garden, you can still achieve something similar by using thin twigs. Either leave them in their natural state or dip the top ends in different shades of paint for a fun and colourful display. You could also try wrapping the ends in different colours of yarns for another creative look. The beauty of this kind of display is that it costs almost nothing apart from your time, and you can simply swap your vase contents out for something new when you fancy a change.

Have you been creative during lockdown, making use of some glass jars for craft projects or home décor ideas? If so, we’d love it if you shared your stories and photos with us, via Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.