“This and That” jars

I love to collect little nonscrapbook items that might come in handy–used raffle tickets, fortunes, patches and labels from kids’ clothes, and so on. Some of these items prove useful as unique embellishments. Others are just a delight to horde. You could call all this stuff “found items,” but really it’s just fun junk.

I used to toss this sort of thing into an old tomato sauce jar, but it was packed to the top and I had trouble finding what I wanted. I did a bit of rearranging last week and freed up a set of nine Mason jars. I used to store my ribbon in the jars, sorted by color, but that didn’t work well for me. (I’ll cover my new ribbon organization in a future post.)

I liked the jars, but the two-piece lids drove me crazy. It finally occurred to me that I could hot-glue the pieces together so they wouldn’t come apart whenever I opened the jars. I did that this weekend, and it seems to be working well.

I sorted all my bits and bobs into the jars and created some quick little labels for them, using assorted papers from ScrapMode’s Nature Love line (my favorite line to date).

I used my Cricut to make the labels and toppers for the lids. Read on for more photos and directions, in case you’d like to try this yourself.

Label Directions

1. Using the Mini Monograms cartridge, Real Dial Size feature on, cut a 1.5-inch scalloped circle from patterned paper.
2. Using the George cartridge, Real Dial Size and Silhouette features on, cut a 1.25-inch circle from brown paper.
3. Adhere the circle to the label, doodle around the edge with white pen, and punch a hole in the top.
4. Label with black pen.
5. Tie a ribbon around the neck of the jar, and attach the label with a piece of string, a safety pin, or a jump ring.

Lid Topper Directions

1. Using the George cartridge, Real Dial Size feature on, cut a 2-inch circle from brown paper.
2. Using the George or Mini Monograms cartridge, Real Dial Size feature on, cut a 1.5-inch flower from another color of paper. Punch a hole in the center of the Mini Monograms flower.
3. Doodle around the center hole of the flower and around the edge with white pen.
4. Adhere the flower to the circle, and glue both to the top of the lid.

Copyright © 2008 by Judith Mara.