Great Uses for Empty Jars

I admit, my first thought was "make more pickles and jam to fill them up again?"

Mask off the outside, splatter paint the inside. Let dry, then spraypaint the inside with a contrasting color. Looks like shiny speckled enamelware. They're not foodsafe, but they make nice coin jars, small vases, etc.

Unfortunately, not everyone owns enough land to raise a garden. We canners often give extra canned goods away! It is customary to return empty jars to the canning person, but not mandatory -and sometimes that's impractical. I do a lot of canning, but those cans are empty half the time on average. I also use them to store dry goods like rice, beans, bird food, or seeds, and I put individual desserts in the jelly jars, leftovers for the refrigerator in the bigger ones.