Mason jars reused

In my kitchen we have these odd shelves along the side of one of the counters (see this post for what I'm talking about)... the ones above the counter are small and not shaped well to fit anything on them. As a result, they tend to accumulate random things. Here is what it has been looking like lately:

Not very pretty! I've been wanting to do something with those shelves but not only was nothing coming to mind, but we have also had to put ourselves on an extreme budget recently due to the joys of being part of a home owner's association (don't get me started!)... which means anything I do needs to be free. Well I was getting sick of looking at those shelves like that... and I happened to find several mason jars (+ one pickle jar) lying around!

Here is my solution. I filled the jars with common cooking ingredients and other things I use around the kitchen, and made some tags for them. What do you think? I might change it up, but for now it makes me happy to see those shelves actually being used, and looking organized!

I especially like how the tags came out - I printed out all the names on white card stock, and then cut out a template which I traced around each name. I then used rubber cement to attach them to some nice paper I had lying around and cut them out so that a little of the paper would show around the edges (it's also on the back). I hole punched it and tied it around the jars with twine. What do you think?

Matthew has discovered the jar with chocolate chips in it... I have to be careful with that one!

It might be just a tad boring... I'll have to think of what I can add. In the mean time, a vast improvement for me, and I even cleared out a bit of storage now that those jars aren't just sitting around anymore!

The best part? It was free! Anyone else get any projects done recently?

Linking to: Just a Girl