Frugal Food Storage

Okay, I know that there are thousands of people in blogland waiting with baited breath for my first project post. Anyone, ANYONE?? Okay, well, here I go anyway.

In the interest of saving money on my food budget, I have been buying more dried beans, lentils and rice. I know what you're thinking, that must be one gassy family. Well, you'd be right. Even the dog is gassy.


My pantry is full of these:






I hate plastic storage bags.

In the interest of reducing our trash and reusing or reinventing as much as possible (hence, the blog title), I hate to throw away these:Empty spaghetti sauce and applesauce jars (well, I forgot to take a picture of the applesauce jar).


They have been washed thoroughly and now they're soaking in Goo Gone to remove the label residue (LOVE GOO GONE!).


I applied some Expresso Brown spray paint to the lids, and using scrapbook labels and cardstock with my favorite letter stamps, I came up with this:

These would look great on open shelving in the kitchen, for those of you lucky enough to have open shelving. And if you do, I'm jealous.

We also used these jars, decorated with red and green card stock and the words "peace" and "joy", for Christmas gifts for our neighbors, filled with homemade truffles. They were a big hit. They would also work in the bathroom holding cotton balls, toothpaste or other toiletries. I have my kids' toothpaste in a jar that used to house roasted red peppers.

Now when I grocery shop I buy the product with the coolest jar!!

Any other ideas for glass food jars? Please add yours in the comments, I'd love to "borrow" them!

Edited to Add: Welcome to Visitors from beingfrugal.net! Check out other entries in Tightwad Tuesday!