These days, it's almost impossible to go to a restaurant without consuming something from a mason jar, be it a craft cocktail, creamy burrata cheese or a delicious dessert. Though the contents would taste exactly the same from a regular glass or on a plate, it's just more fun when served in this trendy presentation.
But food and drinks aren't the only things that look cooler in mason jars. Here are 10 simple ways to use these versatile containers to spruce up your apartment life:
1. Memory Jars: Instead of rectangular picture frames, put pictures of your family and friends in mason jars for a cool 3-D effect. Or, on your next beach vacation, collect some sand, shells, a postcard and other little trinkets and create a mini mason jar diorama to remember the trip.
2. Desk Storage: Fill a couple mason jars with pens, pencils, scissors and other office supplies that are prone to creating clutter. For paperclips, line the inside of the rim or the underside of the lid with magnetic tape for easy access.
3. Party Favors: Impress your guests and send them home with mason jars filled with M&Ms, bath salts or magnetic poetry. For friends who like to bake, fill each jar with all of the pre-measured ingredients they'll need to make your favorite cookies, with the recipe tied around the top with a string or ribbon.
4. Candles: Fill the bottoms with a little sand or dirt and put a tea light in the middle, then either attach some wire to hang them up or keep them on a surface that can stand a little heat. More serious crafters can make the entire jar into a candle with wax flakes, wicks and other candle-making supplies, available at craft stores and on sites like Amazon and eBay.
5. Plants: Clay pots are nice too, but mix it up and plant your basil, thyme and other small plants in mason jars. You can paint them or keep them clear to watch the roots growing in the soil.
6. Bathroom Organizing: Take Q-tips, Band-Aids, cotton balls and nail files out of their unattractive packaging and put each one in its own mason jar. Store them in the medicine cabinet, display them on a shelf or, if you're up for a little handiwork, mount them on the wall with a strip of wood, picture frame hangers and pipe clamps.
7. Fish Bowls: Large mason jars could make the perfect home for betta fish, which unlike most fish don't need much room to swim around. Get some rocks or marbles for the bottom and just make sure to put each fish in its own jar - this colorful breed is also known Siamese fighting fish.
8. Sewing Kits: Fill the jar with all those extra buttons that come with new clothes, spools of thread, thimbles and mini scissors. Then, turn the top into a pin cushion with a scrap of fabric, a little fiberfill and a glue gun.
9. Spice Jars: Your guests will never know that your spices are really just the McCormick kind from the grocery store if you display them in mason jars instead. Make cute labels with a label maker, alphabet stickers or just plain printer paper.
10. Piggy Banks: Are you and your roommates trying to save up to throw your next party, or are you tired of always being the one who has to pay for the toilet paper when you run out? Pool all of your loose change in mason jars labeled Essentials, Beer Money and Douche Jar, a nod to the show My Girlwhere the roommates have to put $1 in the jar whenever they say something obnoxious.
