12 Different Glass Jar Types You Can Upcycle

Making the most of your resources is a lifelong journey, especially in a day and age inundated with single-use plastic waste. The truth is that there are many ways to make better use of everyday items around your home, which can actually save you money and make your life easier. If you're trying to get better about reusing what you have, why not take a second look at all of the glass jars around your home and imagine all the ways you could upcycle them? 

There are a plethora of glass jar types that you likely encounter on a day-to-day basis: There are the pasta sauce jars from Monday's marinara sauce, the nearly empty candle jar on your table, as well as baby food jars, and empty spice jars that you've been putting off recycling. Fortunately, all of them and more are easy to repurpose in convenient and helpful ways, from filling with dry pantry ingredients to using them as containers for shampoo and sunscreen on your next vacation.

Offering a generous capacity and a perfectly blank canvas, pasta sauce jars are a perfect type of glass jar to upcycle. You can easily clean labels off of these jars, then fill them with a variety of dry ingredients, like beans, pastas, and rice, or even use them to store leftover soup in the fridge. Bear in mind that pasta sauce jar lids can harbor savory odors, so avoid using them for storing contents whose flavors will clash, like chocolate chips or oats.

If you have a little one who is eating jars of baby food, these cute and compact glass jars can serve a number of purposes, from practical to decorative. Turn those baby food jars into magnetic spice containers to declutter your pantry, clean them out and let your older children use them for drinking glasses, or use them to start seedlings for your garden.

Those adorable glass yogurt jars you've been hanging onto can come in handy for many purposes. It's a bonus that they are also super easy to clean out. Use them in the kitchen for eating more yogurt or other foods from, store Q-tips in them, use them to keep water when you're watercoloring, or they could hold candles for an affordable yet chic look.

If you have a kombucha brewing jar sitting around but don't have time to start a new batch, why not put that unused jar to use? Since it's so big and has a wide mouth, you can seamlessly fill it with a number of dry ingredients like baking flour or coffee beans. You can also use to make a big batch of cold brew concentrate to get you through the week.

Among all the types of glass jars to upcycle, glass candle jars tend to be pretty sturdy, making them ideal for reuse. You can use them for housing cotton balls in the bathroom, or candies in the living room. Additionally, they can make the perfect jar for storing spare change. If you're struggling to get yours clean, you could remove leftover candle wax from jars with a simple vinegar trick.

Clamp jars might just be the most versatile of all glass jars, offering an airtight closure, as well as being easy to clean and stack in the pantry. Learning how to use clamp jars to affordably and aesthetically organize your home is pretty intuitive, but if you need some hints, you can use yours for dry ingredients, bathroom hygiene products, pickling in the kitchen, or even organizing small items like nails and screws in the garage.

Sometimes used in the grocery store for honey containers, these aesthetically pleasing hexagonally shaped jars are a powerhouse of storage potential. Thanks to their lovely and unconventional shape, you can absolutely upcycle yours for storing sprinkles, chocolate chips, nuts, or other add-ins for your yogurt or ice cream. Another use for these jars is for making small individually portioned servings of breakfasts like overnight oats or chia seed pudding.

You may be out of cinnamon powder, but you can keep getting more use out of its empty spice jar. Upcycle your empty glass spice container as a dainty flower vase, use it when planting tiny seeds to prevent spilling too many at once, or refill with your own taco seasoning mix. Their size makes it easy to find smart ways to repurpose old spice jars in your home and garden.

Whether you got your bamboo lidded glass jar at Dollar Tree or filled with pasta at Home Goods, you can now put it to great use in your everyday life. Size permitting, you can use it for organizing granola bars, holding ingredients like dry nuts or rice, or keeping bathroom essentials arranged in an aesthetically pleasing way.

Mason jars are the most versatile glass jar you'll find. Offering you a convenient number of sizes, these are containers that are easy to wash and can be used in countless ways. Some of the best ideas are using your mason jars for pickling and preserving foods, using them as a trendy drinking glass (screw on the top for a sustainable to-go container) and letting them help you organize your crafting supplies. There is even a genius mason jar hack that will keep your home smelling fresh.

Smaller than pasta sauce jars, glass salsa jars make for an excellent storage resource in the kitchen. You can use them to store leftover marinades for meat, salad dressing, leftover egg whites from your recipes, or even chopped veggies that you'll add to tomorrow's omelet. Consider this all-natural solution to get rid of used jar odors, which might give you sunny results.

You've probably seen these adorable jars at hotel breakfast buffets where they hold everything from small servings of honey to strawberry or orange jams. If you're having a hard time parting with them, you can easily put them to use by upcycling them for your next trip. Fill them with toothpaste, hair product, facial cleanser, moisturizer, or even a squeeze of sunscreen for a fully sustainable toiletry kit.