They say one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. In my case, what my family throws out, I see as crafting supplies. Can you relate?
Take salsa jars, for instance.
Something about them is so appealing and cute! Sure, I could go to a craft shop and buy similar glass jars for crafting. But why spend money when I can eat salsa and repurpose the jar for free?
Glass jars have great crafting potential. A quick Pinterest search shows hundreds of ways to reuse, fill, or decorate glass jars. Recently, I’ve been using glass jars to plant rosemary clippings.
Although the salsa labels looked cute, I initially intended to decorate this jar before planting the clippings. So, off (sort of) came the stickers!
…but not the glue. 🙁 We’ve all been there: the sticker starts coming off but the goo gets left behind. Because planting the clipping was time-sensitive when I first planted this jar, I decided to not worry about decorating the jar and used it as-is. Now that it’s nearly summer, though, I have plenty of time to decorate some new jars and plant more clippings.
But what about the glue?
I’ve tried many methods and looked for different techniques online. However, my favorite way–probably because it is also the least-involved way–was to use a simple product you may already have on hand.
Rubbing alcohol!
It’s a very easy solution to a challenging problem. Just start with a jar covered in sticker-residue, scrub the goo with a cotton ball dipped in rubbing alcohol, and enjoy a clean, like-new jar!
Here’s my jar before cleaning, with a nice streak of sticky goo.
Now for a bad, very-staged photo of me cleaning the jar, because I know something you don’t: I am not left-handed (or a photographer). 😛
And finally, the clean jar! It’s clean enough to reflect me as I take the photo and is ready for my next crafting project!
Hopefully this hack saves you from throwing out jars that could easily be repurposed for crafting! Here are some tips to remember when using this hack:
- Don’t be afraid to use a little elbow grease. Although it comes off much easier with the rubbing alcohol, it’s not a perfect solution. Don’t be afraid to scrub.
- Try scraping with a fingernail. Sometimes, the rubbing alcohol breaks down the goo, but the cotton ball can’t seem to lift it off the jar. First, rub the goo with the rubbing alcohol. Then, a gentle scraping motion with a fingernail (as in, not hard enough to break a nail) might lift the residue off the jar the rest of the way. After that it just takes a simple wipe to clean it off.
Do you have other easy ways to get sticker-residue off surfaces? Comment below!
Happy Crafting!
-Amanda