Spice Jar Storage

Repurposed spice jars hold precious items such as favorite cat treats. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Spice Jar Storage

If you still have that set of spice jars in a box somewhere, go dust it off. Repurposed spice jars make wonderful storage containers and look good while they are at it!

I first collected spice bottles for storing flower seeds. They also work well for rooting hormone powder and small plant ties. The one challenge of using these jars for gardening is that they are easy to get lost in flower beds so I have moved on to using recycled plastic bottles.

I still save some for favorite cat treats scattered and hidden throughout the house. They are the same treats in all of the repurposed spice jars but my cat Shirley Honey insists on taste testing all of them. Just in case.

One of the reasons I like using repurposed spice jars is that they make it easy to nicely store items in the open and easily keep contents organized.

Take my garage, for example. Hey, it qualifies as being inside. I have a work bench at the back where I keep a rack of spice jars holding some of my more popular repair items. I do fine as long as I don’t remove one and take it somewhere, then forget to return it. See reference above to using these jars in gardening.

Seeing that empty space in the rack does remind me to go looking for it, another benefit of using spice racks for storage.

Old spice jar rack keeps screws and nails nicely organized. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

My mother had several repurposed spice racks in her small house. I inherited the one she had in her sewing room, a simple wooden one with plastic containers that fit along the side.

She didn’t have the jars marked on the lids so I now am used to looking under rosemary for sewing machine needles.

This is my mother’s old spice jar set keeping the sewing area organized. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Before re-using, wash them in hot water with Dawn detergent to remove any spice scents.

And since I mentioned spices, these jars can also be used to save dried herbs, which are the foundation of cooking spices.

I found this spice rack last year and made good use of it, storing the most important dried herb in my house first: catnip.

Spice jars can also be used to hold - well, spices! (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

This set can be cleaned and re-used, writing the new dried herb on the lid.

You can find spice jar sets at thrift stores and sometimes on deep discount at home decor outlets. Buy them on sale because the herbs don’t hold their flavor for more than six months or so. By the time some of these sets are available for retail the spices are well on their way to loosing their flavors.

Charlotte