Any one want a few empty mustard jars?
See, as I was enjoying the enormous pleasure of having someone else wrestling with our unruly garden while I cleared out the larder, I came across a few little scraps of evidence that I am an inveterate hoarder.
For instance, the average spice jar set comes in sixes. Ridiculous. I have at least 60 different spices and herbs in my cupboard and larder (and nearly all of them in regular use I’ll have you know) so we began to collect empty mustard jars. Trouble is we didn’t know when to stop. And every so often I come across a little jar so pleasing in appearance that I can’t bear to throw it away. (It was a terrible decision, when tiny kilner jars appeared in our local cook shop, not to buy two or three or ten just because they are soooooo dinky)
And then I’ve been suffering some anxiety about deforestation and cork forests and have found it hard to throw old corks away. They must be good for something? Surely? There’s a bag of them somewhere – I’m not sure where. And though I’m fairly diligent about re-using old carrier bags, somehow I seem to collect more and after we’ve used them for the bins and for all kinds of stuff there are still a large number of special ones that are useful for special purposes (really!) which are mounded in a box and spill out of a useful bag-holding bag and also live in a drawer upstairs and here and there around the house.
My trouble is I like quantity and quality (thus a few hundred thousand photos on external hard drives which would take many hours to sort through and discard).
Books! did I mention books? Best not. (Why aren’t all walls designed as permanent bookshelves?)
So along with a lot of WPSBD* foods, I had to decide what to do with a vast collection of empty mustard jars – 21 to be precise. (If it wasn’t that I dislike the yellow lids I wouldn’t be able to throw them out at all)
Anyone want a few empty mustard jars?
While you’re thinking about that I have to go and play with assemble a chest of drawers upstairs to contain a few dozen silk shirts and chenille jumpers which I can’t quite bear to throw out. Yet. Next year maybe. (How can anyone discard the sensation of handling silk, the sensual pleasure of its glorious vivid colours?)
This is my planting plan – so far. Of course, not all these plants will be flowering at once (shame that) and it’s quite possible that my friend the gardener may suggest some changes, though we’ve already agreed on some of these plants and quite a few old residents weren’t taken out after the amazing clear-out that she’s already done. And the violets aren’t there because I forgot them but violets will sneak in anyway I’m sure. It’s a thing they often do.
OMG! She’s not coming back till next week – can I wait that long?
*Well Past Sell By Date.
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Letouttoplay 
I think you need to find a class ( do they even have those????) on up-cycling.
It seems to be very trendy around here!
taking oddsbodkins things that need recycling and making something “new” and ” functional” out of them.
Had a lady at my stitching group bring in mittens she had made from old stained sweaters. silk hair tie backs from worn out jammies, and …..Candles out of old relish jars! She uses them in the garden as she put citronella oil in them to get rid of the bugs!
Laughing~
now of course we know we ALL have loads of time to do this..
right
right?
LOL
My middle girl made 100 little wallets out of old juice cartons as favours for her wedding! And one day I’m going to sew all my old silk shirts together and make a …. well, one of those, you know, thingies. And apparently you can iron old plastic bags together and turn them into handbags and strong shopping bags and all sorts.
Candles eh? Hmm. I’ve got time to think about that.
once, years ago now, at a PTA xmas craft do thing we cut corks in half (vertically) and hot-glued the flat cut surfaces onto something (I forget what now) and made sets of pot rests (if you see how the curved surface of the cork would be good for resting a hot pan of and as such protecting a kitchen surface?!?!?) – we glued them into all sorts of patterns. . . we tried to cut the corks with the interesting label part showing. . . of course, proved totally impractical if you ever spilt a slop of something on the mat, as bits would get stuck between the curved bits of the cork. . . but there you go!!
I too love glass jars, and used to have space to save them (no more!) – I still hate throwing lovely jars out now (but they go in the recycling, so are not wasted). . . when I used to save them, I’d decant matured chutney from the HUGE kilner jars into smaller quanities. . .
for her DT project last term, I helped Nancy weave a bag out of three “bags for life” – we had such fun with the design of the weaving and the patterns (used two black bags and one white bag, and managed to get the pictures from the white bags criss-crossed with the writing from the black bags)(if you ever shop at Waitrose, you might know the bags I mean?)
I’d save the jars for your next family party, put tea-lights in them (with a little sand or earth under, to take the heat) and then set them along the edges of the garden and light the candles with a taper at dusk. . . or hang them up in trees with a loop of wire and have them as little lanterns. . .
or fill a slatted wooden fruit box with them and then fill each with some potting compost (shingle for the bottom inch, for drainage) and plant them with mustard and cress seeds or or or
hmmmmmmmm perhaps I better take my brain off to bed now and dream of country gardens!
(-:
XXX
I know the bags Inukshuk- clever!
We decant olives from the brine and put them in a stone jar with olive oil which is nice.
And the tea lights could be a project for the younger family members at the family do! Keep them all out from under for half an hour! Brilliant : )
Wow……..she’s GOOD!
I had the ‘tea light’ idea with a bit of sand on the bottom, but I hadn’t quite come to the ‘wire loop for hanging on a tree’. Ummmm…..probably cuz it’d take one HECK of a wire loop to hang from the maple in the back yard. *laughing*
Last week himself muttered about all the coffee cups in the cupboard. HOLD UP MISTER! Yeah–you can bet he moved on to water glasses, which I helped him dispose of……and immediately located four I’d tucked away cuz they were ‘too cute’ to use and I’d used on a shelf for display.
I’m hopeless. LOL
Old mason jars. That’s my deal. They get used for practical things–that’s my defense and I’m sticking to it.
Ya know…..like holding old marbles. 😀
And old buttons (one can’t have too many cool buttons!).
Goodness! Did himself not realise the risk he ran!!!
All my jars are being saved for practical purposes, it’s just that I’m running out of practical!
Hold on.
She’s not coming back for a WEEK?
She can come to my house if she’s bored inbetween her trip to yours.
WOW–what pretty flowery thingies!
So is that the layout of the garden and where each of the plants/flowers are going?
WOW!!
I think she’s doing other people’s gardens Mel. I’d like to keep her all to myself but not only does she do other gardens, she’s leaving the country in a few weeks! How disappointing is that!
And yes, that’s the layout. It looks rather big at the moment, being suddenly almost empty so I will of course bow to my friend’s advice if she suggests better things. Or says it’s too much.
Probably.
Maybe.
I’ll swap the mustard jars for about 75 500g plastic crème fraiche pots.
On second thoughts you can have them for nothing. You could keep your mustard jars in them.
Now there’s a bargain.
Such a bargain Christopher that I think I’d have to treat the creme fraiche pots as a loan and return them with interest.
Actually I have a few rather neat little glass creme fraiche pots with clip on lids. Wonderful for keeping pate. And stuff,
oooh yes, old mason jars full of buttons. . . that sounds lovely! (crème fraiche pots are useful for planting seeds in, but everyone probably knows that!)(line the little glass ones with the coloured foils from chocolates and pop in a tea-light – very twinkly!)
(oh, and make cushions out of the jumpers and blouses – how could you bear to just leave them in a drawer! chennile one side, silk the other, co-ordinating or clashing!!)(as if you need further ideas for creative projects.. .)(xxx)
But I want to wear them Inukshuk!
I did turn some of the chenille jumpers into cardigans.
And I have been thinking about turning some of the shirts into sort of vestie-waistcoat things.
<—- I'm giggling hysterially*, thank you for that (good thing the children are at school, they already think I'm mad – if they saw me now they'd be phoning the men in white coats!)
(*because I'd be cutting up your gorgeous clothes!)
Oh if only I was small and square instead of short and round! (with legs)
Actually I’m thinking about trousers now. they’d be bound to involve a lot of cutting up and some chenille (clashing) could be incorporated.
The leftovers could easily become cushion covers?