Reduce Reuse Recycle

It's something we all learned about when we were kids and it truly does seem simple enough: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Reduce: Stop buying so much crap! The more we buy, the more we throw away. If we cut back on our consumption there will be more to go around and less to go into landfills!

Reuse: When you absolutely must buy something, reuse it (or its packaging) to the best of your abilities. The more we reuse, the less to go into landfills and the less we need to buy new stuff!

Recycle: If you can't reduce, and you can't reuse, recycle. This seems to be the one everyone remembers and a lot of people succeed at it. Sadly, this should be the last stop on the R-R-R Railroad.



Part of the reason I decided I wanted to learn to crochet, and sew, and be crafty in general, was because I wanted to stop buying stuff. I figured if I could make it then I wouldn't need to buy it. Step one: Stop Consuming - check!

What about all that stuff I haven't learned to make yet? Like pasta sauce? Sure, I should start buying locally grown veggies from the farmer's market, but until I learn to make it I need to buy it from the store. This presented me with a dilemma: what do I do with all these empty glass jars afterward? Step two: re-purpose them!

Clean!

Full of glue residue

So that's just what I did! I saved a handful of mason jars from our pasta dinners, I rinsed them out, and then I ran them through the dishwasher. I did have to clean off all the excess glue from the label, but that is easily remedied with some nail polish remover (make sure it's one with acetone) (BTW: this works for getting sticker residue off of any glass, like picture frames!).

I'm thinking I might wrap some ribbon around a jar, or maybe cover one in fabric just to spice things up. Then I'm going to fill them up with notions like buttons... and other things. One day I'll have a wonderful craft room and then I'll fill it up with re-purposed mason jars! I can't wait to find something else I can re-purpose.