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Trash To Treasure

I have a lot of jar lids but no ideas.

19 years ago

I have over 300 glass jar lids from canning jars, but I really don't know what to do with them. I want to keep them because they were my grandmother's, so does anybody have any suggestions what I could do with them? I also have lots of glass milk bottles that I am not sure what to do with, so any help there would be appreciated. Thanks.

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Comments (3)

phish_gw
19 years ago
them with different colored paint and make a mobile? If that works, and you have enough lids left over, you could make mobiles for other relatives who loved your grandmother.

On the bottles, I have 2 suggestions but they are a fair amount of work. One is to drill a hole near the bottom and decorate as an incense burner. The other is drill a hole and insert tiny christmas lights and decorate the outside (paint or stickers) it makes a good party light. I've done both these things with wine bottles. Another way to decorate is to basically decoupage with different colored strips of tissue paper. I know of a church that decorated jars this way as votive holders as centerpieces for a big function. Also, maybe you could decorate and turn them into bird feeders?

the other is paint/decorate them for candle holders (I don't know how they are shaped if that would allow it).
luvstocraft
19 years ago
At a craft show a couple years ago, I bought a jar lid painted like a snowman face--they had others painted like gingerbread faces. You could also do scarecrows, raggedy annes, penquins, etc. Or wire three together for a snowman--I've seen those too. Good luck finding projects to use them for. Luvs
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The issue with old jars is with the threads on the neck. If the lid fits, it's useable. The MAJORITY of jars in my supply are second-hand. They're hand-me-downs, auction finds, and goodwill purchased. Mine get used for pressure canning as well as HWB. I have not had a jar break on me in decades, unless it's one I've dropped. I have never counted how many jars I have, but given I may put up three or four hundred bottles of produce, you can imagine. I buy new ones only when I run out of a particular size. Just check them first, as you did and clean them well.
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I have always had seal failures with the two piece lids. I have a jam business now, use the one piece lids, and never have had a failure (unless I happen to bang the edge of the lid on something). So I thought about the process of using two piece lids. I am scrupulous about cleaning the rims of the jars. The jars and the jam or tomatoes were really hot and stayed that way for a while. However, the lids cool off fairly quickly when pulled out of the water and I think this is the weakest link in the process. When I called the Department of Agriculture here about using one piece lids, she had said to me "if you have a hot jar, a hot lid and hot product, you've maintained the integrity of the process" (I was nervous about the one piece lids as you can't check them very well). So I started to do what Pixie has done but doing two jars at a time. Pull out two, fill and place lid. So far, so good - no more failures.
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chickadee__3a
19 years ago
In my teaching days I used to have the children bring in jar lids or the metal tops from frozen juice tins. I would cut , using pinking shears, circles of Xmas fabric which we would glue on and then varathane when dry , adding a bit of glitter to glitz it up a little. Punch a hole, add a ribbon and you have a pretty little ornament.
Re: your milk bottles- some old bottles can be worth something. It might be worth looking into to see if you have any real treasures.

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