Mason Jar Project for Salt Storage

Last week I went to the cupboard to fill the salt shaker and measure salt for a recipe.  What did I find? About 4 tablespoons of salt left in the cardboard canister that salt comes in when you buy it at the store.  If the salt was stored in a clear container I would have bought salt before I was that low.  I remembered seeing something on Pinterest about cutting the top out of the cardboard salt container and using it with a canning ring on a Mason jar.  I had just purchased a new canister of regular salt and one of sea salt for my husband so I rummaged through my Mason jar stash and found two medium size wide mouth jars.

I washed and dried the jars but to make sure they were absolutely dry I gave them a little blow dry with my hair dryer.

This is the ring placed on to the top of the cardboard salt canister to make sure I had the correct size ring.  Next, I cut off the bottom just to practice my technique.

 That worked out great so now to the actual top.

I guess I got a little over aggressive and poked some holes in the top.  Lesson learned.  Take your time.

Next I used my small wire cutter, that I used for cutting instrumentation wire, to make cuts around the edge so I could use my scissors to cut off the excess.  I cut just to the outside of the top with the scissors.

Here is the top inside the ring.  It really could be bigger so that it is tight inside the ring.  This top will be replaced anyways because of the holes, so not a big deal, I'll just make the second one a little larger.

Here is the second one.  A little larger and without holes.  AND in focus this time.  Damn camera.

 These jars have one side marked with ounces and cups while the other side is milliliters.

Here is the top I screwed up.  It wasn't very pretty to begin with because the sticker over the spout did not come off cleanly.  I wrote 'sea salt' so my husband would know which salt was the 'sea salt' but I plan on adding labels in black lettering. The next time I have my black spray paint out, I'll give the rings a coat of satin black.

You could use these tops for anything pourable. I buy 'coarse ground black pepper' from an Indian market down by Detroit and it comes in a resealable plastic bag.  I buy a pound at a time so storing in a glass jar with a spout would make filling the pepper shaker a lot easier.  Sneeze sneeze.

A real crafty person could also cover the cardboard top with vinyl shelf paper or glue a pretty wrapping paper or scrapbook paper to the top and reinsert the spout.  Endless possibilities.  I can see that I will be making more of these in the future.