30+ of the Best Mason Jar Uses for Your Home

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Mason jars have become a trend recently, but these little jars were extremely useful for many years before the trend. I keep my pantry, workshop, and cup cabinet full of mason jars and I always have several in use outside of the ones that are used for canning food. Check out over 30 of my favorite Mason Jar uses for your home!

30+ Mason Jar Uses for Your Home

How to Use Extra Mason Jars

1. Food Storage & Preservation

Mason Jars are a food preservation staple. They are used to safely store produce, meat, soups, broths, butter, and just about any other kind of food that you would want to store for your family. If you want to start home canning, but you don’t know where to start check out The Sustainable Canning Course.

Honey, chocolate chips, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cookies, cereal, coffee beans, snacks, goat milk and more yummies are stored in mason jars in our pantry & fridge for short-term use in addition to the long-term canned food.

2. Mason Jar Glassware

All of the drinking glasses in our home have been replaced by mason jars. We use these Ball Lids with Straws on the jars to keep the little ones hands out (they LOVE to play in our drinks :/) and for traveling.

Even the littlest ones in our house are mason jar fans! They have 12 oz Jelly Jars that are turned into sippy cups with Jar Jackets and mason bottle nipples. They use these jars around the house and on the go. The covers are shock absorbent to reduce the risk of breakage and the kids LOVE them!

mason jars as baby bottles and sippy cups

3. Store Baking Mixes and Pantry Staples

Add dry ingredients for brownies, cookies, beerbread, brownies, cornbread, cakes, pancakes, biscuits, and other baking mixes into your mason jar. Be sure to write the additional ingredients and baking instructions on the outside of the jar.

You can also store your pantry staple ingredients (like flour and sugar) in mason jars.

mason jars in pantry storing popcorn, sugar, and flour

4. Tart Pans

This is one of the simplest & most creative mason jar uses. Use mason jar lids as mini tart pans for a fun personal sized treat.

5. Milk Frother

I learned this mason jar use out of necessity. My Ninja Easy Frother broke so I put my coffee creamer in a mason jar, replaced the lid tightly, and shook the jar for about a minute for perfectly frothed cream!

6. Single Serve Salads, Breads, and Desserts

Layer ingredients for salads, bake a personal size loaf of your favorite bread, or make an individual serving of cheesecake in a mason jelly jar.

7. Make Butter in a Mason Jar

You can use a mason jar to make your own butter!

8. Soap Dispenser

Mason jar soap dispensers are an easy way to add charm and reduce plastic waste. Just add dispenser lids to mason jar tops and you are finished!

9. Bath & Body Product Storage

Mason jars are excellent for storing lotions, creams, balms, scrubs, etc. I keep my Homemade Bag Balm (useful of humans & livestock) in small jars like this.

10. Candles

I have made tallow candles & emergency oil candles in mason jars. You can also place tea light candles inside jars if you aren’t making your own.

11. Pin Cushion or Sewing Kit

There are sooooo many craft & decorative uses for mason jars. One of my favorites is the mason jar pin cushion. This is one that I made a couple of years ago.

small jar as a pin cushion and button holder

12. Gift “Basket”

Use a larger mason jar to package gift sets like a pedicure kit, a new mom gift set, tea time sets, an art kit, a java jar, or whatever gift you think that the recipient would enjoy.

13. Bird Feeder

There are lots of mason jar uses to help you take care of animals in your backyard… Like this one: Feed the birds in your yard using this mason jar bird feeder tutorial.

14. Butterfly Feeder

Did you know that you can feed butterflies in the same way that you feed the birds? Check out a cool mason jar butterfly feeder here!

15. Toothbrush Holder

Use one mason jar to hold the toothbrushes and use a second jar to hold your toothpaste tubes. Paint & decorate the jars to match your style if you like.

16. Country Chic decor

Mason jars are used all over the place in country and farmhouse decorations.

17. Tea light Candle Holder

This is one of my favorite mason jar uses! I love it so much that I made mason jar candle holders as decorations for my wedding! We put corn from our family’s farm in the bottom on the jar and placed a candle on top. We used votive candles, but tea lights work just as well.

mason jar tea light candle holder with corn

18. Advent Calendar

One creative holiday mason jar use is to create a homemade Advent Calendar. Place a piece of paper with a verse and a family activity along with a treat into a case of jelly jars for a fun and decorative mason jar advent calendar.

19. Flower Vase

No tutorial needed here. Mason Jar–> Water–> Flowers–> Done.

20. Spice Shaker

Poke some holes in the top of your small mason jar lids and use them as salt, pepper, and spice shakers.

21. Snow Globe

Make a mason jar snow globe by gluing a small toy, figure, or mini decoration (like a pine tree) to the inside bottom of a small mason jar.

22. Party Favor Jars

Obviously, I used a ton of mason jars in my wedding. These were spray painted and used to hold our homemade lollipop favors!

23. Bathroom Organization

I used this tutorial to create storage space to hair supplies in my bathroom. A set up like this can also be used to store cotton balls, makeup sponges, hair ties, and other bathroom essentials.

24. Cleaning Supply Storage

Most of my powder based cleaning products (laundry detergent, scouring powder, crystal fabric softener, carpet freshener, etc) are kept in mason jars.

25. Arts & Crafts Organization

Store buttons, markers, sewing supplies, pipe cleaners, paintbrushes, and other arts & craft supplies in appropriately sized mason jars.|

26. Matchbox

This is one of the most simple & practical mason jar uses! Take the lighter strip off of a cardboard matchbox and glue it to the lid of a mason jar. Poke a match-sized hole in the lid, place the matches inside, and enjoy your new mason jar match dispenser and lighter!

27. Toothpick Dispenser

Poke one hole that is slightly larger than a toothpick into the lid of a mason jelly jar. Fill the jar with toothpicks and you have a new toothpick dispenser!

28. Honey Dipper

This is one of my FAVORITE mason jar accessories… the honey dipper lid!!

29. Container Gardening

You can plant an indoor mason jar herb garden, succulent terrariums, or grow indoor flowers. Just be sure to put rocks below the soil so the water can drain.

30. Aquaponics

You can even create your own mason jar aquaponics system!

31. Garden Labels

Use the metal mason jar lid inserts for this cute & practical project!

32. Seed Storage

Store seeds from your garden in air tight mason jars so you don’t have to purchase new seeds next year! Only save seeds from the highest quality fruit to ensure a better crop each year.

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33. Piggy Bank

Spare change found in the laundry can be kept in mason jars… Or you can use jars for a “give, save, spend” system to teach your kiddos about money management.

34. Chore/Responsibility Jar

Label 3-4 jars with “Chores”, “I’m Bored”, “Paid Jobs”, “Rewards”, etc. Write chores, jobs, and rewards on individual popsicle sticks and place them into the appropriate jars. When your child is bored, wants to earn some cash, or needs an extra chore as a punishment, have them pull a random popsicle stick out of the mason jar.

35. Date Night Mason Jar

If you are like us and have date nights every blue moon, a date jar is a good idea. We can’t ever decide where to go or what to do and we waste all of our time trying to pick. Now we just pull a slip of paper out of the mason date jar and go on the date that is listed. You can get the date night idea printable template here.

36. Blessing Jar

Use a blessing jar as a reminder to keep a grateful mindset. Write down things that your have been blessed with and pull them out when we are feeling down.