I have made votive, or tea light holders with them. Just mix two parts craft glue with 1 part water, paint the jar with the glue mixture, then roll the jar in sparkles, rhinestones, or any decoration you like!
A group of children can make homemade butter in baby food jars. Fill the baby food jar under the rim of the jar with heavy whipping cream; give to the children and have them shake it, taking turns until the whipping cream becomes thick and creamy; refrigerate. You can add a dash of salt to the homemade butter and stir or leave it plain; it is delicious on homemade hot biscuits or homemade bread or even toast! The children love shaking the baby food jars. Make sure they hold the lid down!
I have used baby food jars for mini-snowglobes. you can buy mini ornaments for almost any holiday . glue the ornaments to the inside of the lid, let dry, put water in the jar with a few drops of glycerine, and some glitter. Put the lid back on, turn over, and you have a snowglobe.
they can also be used for sand art and for mini-candle jars, if you make candles. cover the lid with a circle of fabric and yarn or ribbon and you have a nice little gift or favor.
My mum and grandma make lemon butter and other jams etc that they put into small jars to give away as gifts or they donate their jams etc to the church.
I use them for cheap mosquito repellent holders. The huge citronella candles always cost a pretty penny, so I buy a large bag of small citronella candles and put place them inside glass baby food jars, jam jars, etc. They look beautiful outside at night, and the glass also protects small children from the flame.
I use mine to store loose herbs. I have found that the spices found in the Mexican section of the grocery store (that come in cellophane) are much cheaper than regular spices and I use the jars to store these in.
WE MADE PAPERWEIGHTS FILLING THE JARS WITH COLORED SAND IN LAYERS,ALSO FILLED WITH WATER AND SMALL PLASTIC FISH, OR COLORED MARBLES, A PRETTY ARTIFICIAL FLOWER,AND ALSO A SMALL SNAPSHOT OF A CHILD FITTED INSIDE THEN FILLED WITH SAND.THESE SOLD WELL AT OUR PRESCHOOL FUND RAISER.SEAL THE TOPS WELL AND DECORATE THEM WITH BITS OF RIBBON OR CLOTH OR PAINT THEM. MAYBE THIS HELPS YOU. ALSO AS A GRANDMOTHER MYSELF SEVERAL TIMES OVER,I'VE HELPED THE KIDS MAKE THESE AS GIFTS.
I first decorate the jars with glass paints (purchased at your local hobby store) and give each one a beautiful pattern. They look great on the window sill with sunlight shining throuh the painted glass. I then use them for either storage of small misc. items like hair clips, screws, or spices, or place a tea candle in them. Hope that helps you.
Starchild, making items out of recycle-ables IS recycling! It all counts! Unfortunately, there are not recycling facilities in every area of every state. I live in a very rural, low populated area and we are not offered recycling with our trash pick-up, nor are there any collection bins available to us; so, it is up to me to be a more responsible consumer and not buy unnecessary items.
I read a lot of ThriftyFun stuff about making items out of recycle-ables, and it worries me a little. Isn't there recycling everywhere? Are people really throwing out glass, plastic and cardboard, etc? Check your local garbage drop-off.....recycling is usually FREE or very cheap.
Editor's Note: It is a good point. Although it is a lot easier to recycle now than it was when ThriftyFun was founded, it is still more difficult in many places than others. We look at it finding ways to reuse common things and as free material. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
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Archives:
Tip: Uses For Baby Food Jars
Archived on 03/16/2007
Snow Globes
My niece made snowglobes out of babyfood jars with her Girl Scout troop. Fill clean jars with water. Water can be tinted with food coloring if desired. Add glitter into the water (for the "snow"). Spraypaint the lids gold or silver or whatever color you like. Then hot glue small figurines or objects onto the inside of each lid, such as a tiny trees, animals, people, etc. Hot glue and screw on the lids (with the figures now inside) tightly. Let dry thoroughly. Hot glue ribbon around the edge of the lids if desired. Turn babyfood jars over and shake -- and watch the glitter swirl in the water like snow -- and you have snow globes! If any jars leak water, try to remove the lids and re-glue.
You can also put loose items into the jar with the water and glitter -- such as colored beads and metallic confetti cutouts -- that will float (and not disintegrate) and look pretty when the jar is shaken.
NOTE: Because Liquid Nails Adhesive is used as glue, each row of jars must dry overnight before next row is added. Project will take a number of days to complete.
Prepare the jars. Wash and dry all jars and lids.
Drill the holes. Before drilling holes in lids for the bulbs to fit into, drill practice holes in a board to determine appropriate bit size. Bulbs should fit snugly into holes. Drill holes in the center of all 33 lids. Place tinsel in all jars and replace lids.
Glue the jars. Line up 7 jars with caps up next to each other along a straight edge on a flat surface. Use Liquid Nails to glue jars together. Tie string around the row of jars to hold them in place. Let dry over night. Turn glued jars on side. Glue a row of six jars on top of the 7 jars. Let dry overnight.
Continue to glue a row each day until the last jar becomes the top of the tree. Make the tree trunk in the same way.
Assemble the tree. Glue tree trunk to the finished board. Let dry overnight. Glue large section of the tree onto the trunk. Let dry overnight. To attach ribbon to tree, start at top of tree trunk and apply double-sided tape around tree, ending on the opposite side of tree trunk. Place the ribbon over tape.
Insert the lights. Starting at the top, insert a light in each hole. Set the completed tree in a location of your choice, plug it in and light up!
In your garage or basement, you can nail/screw the lids to the undersides of your shelving, then put nails, screws, and other small fasteners in the jars and screw them onto the jar lids. Baby food jars are a good size for this, but you can also use larger jars. This provides a free, convenient, see-through way to organize.
By Claudia
Freezing Herbs
I was reading a book on Home Freezing this weekend. It talked about using baby food jars to freeze fresh herbs in. Pack fresh herbs tightly in the jars. Put lid on. Boil in water for 5 minutes. Cool and freeze. Take out what you need when you need it.
For my daughter's first birthday party, I made her into the "Gerber" baby by creating new "labels" for the jars. I started with a Word document and inserted a picture of her from my Kodak files, then shrunk the picture down to the size needed to fit the baby food jars. After that, to the left of the picture I typed "ingredients" to include mom, dad, grandparents, and added aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. On the right side of the picture I typed her birth statistics and her height/weight a year later.
I even inserted lines and bars to make her very own "barcode" with the numbers of her birthdate under each bar. I copied and pasted 6 or 7 to a page, cut them out, then glued them to the baby food jar. I filled them with M & Ms, Skittles, and cereal to give as gifts at her birthday party, and for table decorations.
