It’s hard to believe this is the final post in our Starting Solids series! Be sure to go back and check out the complete series (listed below) if you missed a post!
In the last post in this series, I wrote about 6 ways to use up baby food purees. Today, we’re looking at repurposing those old baby food jars once all the food is gone!
Now, if you made your own baby food, you may not even have any jars to repurpose. BUT, not many of us take homemade baby food on the go, and, after a while, quite a few jars will start to accumulate–even for those of us who mostly make our own food.
Image by jencu
Now you can just rinse them out and toss them in the recycling bin, but repurposing them is an even greener idea!
Check out these 7 ways to repurpose those old baby food jars:
1. Use them to store spices. This is the main way I now re-use my old jars. I love that I can easily dip my measuring spoons into the wide neck of the jar. I do have a fancy-smachy spice rack, but I use the old baby food jars for my excess spices, so they stay in the cabinet until I need them. Mine are plain and simple. I use a sharpie to notate the type of spice each one contains.
But check out the following repurposed baby food jars-turned-spice containers from DAV.I.SON! Wow! She attached magnets and everything!
Image by DAV.I.SON via Pinterest
2. Use them for children’s crafts. You can make all kinds of crafts with old jars, or you can simply use them to store fingerpaint, etc.
3. Use them as toddler-sized musical instruments. Let your child help you pick out beans, sand, acorns, beads, coins or anything else that makes noise to place in the jars. Your child will be fascinated with the different sounds each jar will make! Decorate the outside of the jar together!
Image by _Libby_
Check out the tiny jar of Nutella in the picture above! You can do the same with peanut butter, jelly, hummus, etc.!
4. Use them to store homemade personal body care products, like homemade deodorant, eye cream or even small lotion bars.
5. Use them as “encouraging note” or “prayer request” jars. Some students at my husband’s school once wrote tiny notes of encouragement and placed them in baby food jars and gifted them to their teachers. You can do the same with prayer requests.
Image by stevendepolo
6. Use them to make Christmas ornaments. Snow globes anyone?
7. Use them to make pretend food for your child’s play kitchen. A friend of mine lets her children pick out dry beans, pasta, rice, etc. to store in the jars, and she super glues the lids shut. No more cheap plastic food! It’s cheaper and better for the environment! (Although, I confess, Little Girl’s toy kitchen is full of plastic food!)
What are some ways you’ve repurposed old baby food jars?
Image by bizior photography via stock.xchng
Did you miss any of the posts in this series? Check them out here:
Starting Solids: An Introduction
The Best Foods to Feed Baby
Homemade Baby Food
5 Finger Foods for Baby
The Second Best Milk for Babies
Baby Food on the Go: Ella’s Kitchen Review
Baby Food on the Go: Sprout Review
Baby Food on the Go: Plum Review
Baby Food on the Go: Happy Baby Review
6 Ways to Use Up Baby Food Purees
Sara
You can also keep a bit of paint in them to quickly touch up your walls when they get knicked or whatnot 🙂
Kimery
Lunches: buying large cans of applesauce, etc. and filling baby food jars to send to school (college) and if you don’t get them back, no biggy!
Erin
Great idea!
Kimery
single servings for college students’ lunches.
Vanessa
You could also make candles with them and if you use parfin wax you can add essential oils on the string for homemade scented ones!!
Jennifer Stohr
I use them to send small amounts of condiments or food in for my kids school lunches instead of using plastic (also works when they go to their dad’s and don’t bring containers home!), for many of the above uses, for storing my rings in while I”m cooking something messy in the kitchen, to put my rings in while they soak in ammonia and water once a week, to put small sewing or crafting supplies in such as beeds. Only my oldest used jarred baby food, but I have a T O N of jars from buying so much to add to my Boxer puppy’s dry food for many months. 😀
Jen
The small/law ones are great as drawer organizers for small things…Hair ties, barrettes, bobby pins, paper clips, buttons, rubber bands, twist ties, bread bag plastic doohickies, cotton swabs…love baby food jars!
Kate @ DCL
I turned mine into a chandelier! http://www.discovercreatelive.com/2011/11/alphabet-chandelier-from-old-baby-food.html
Trish
I saw a post once where someone screwed the lids to the underside of a shelf and then stored nuts, bolts, screws, etc in the jars. You just unscrew the jar from the lid when you need to use them.
r
My suggestion is similar to Trish’s… my dad uses them in his workshop to store bolts, screws, and other small things. Attach the lids to a board on a rack or shelf over head, then you can easily see what is inside from underneath, just reach up and unscrew! Great space saver!
christina
The ones with animals on them now (or if you paint) can be great game pieces for little hands.
Stephanie
I put different sprinkles and colored sugars in them.
Erin
Fun! I bet that is pretty too!
Jayni
I used empty jars to help organize miscellaneous items. They were the perfect size for storing nails, push pins, or other such things. And with the tight lid, I don’t have to worry about them falling out of the plastic container they originally came in.
Erin
Great tip!
Sue
we use to make wild strawberry jam and blueberry jam and can them in the baby jars.. just boiled the lids a bit longer to get that rubber softer for a good seal. Never spoiled lasted for a long time or till it was gone,, which wasn’t that long..