How To Customize Mason Jars With DIY Lid Inserts

Like basically, oh, everybody who crafts, creates, and saves money with DIY projects, we’re huge fans of a good mason jar project. Whether inside or outside, to show our love or to show our patriotism, for food or for decoration, there really isn’t a material that’s as versatile and adorable. After a while, though, we figured we have to eventually hit the limit of what those little glass jars could do— but we should have had more faith in crafting ingenuity! As Instructables user licheness shows us, there’s a whole part of the mason jar we’ve been ignoring, and paying attention to it opens up a whole world of possibilities: the lid! Check out the lovely, dragonfly-inspired way she’s changing up mason jar lids and opening up how we use those multitasking jars.

We’ve seen projects that use mason jar lids before, and they’ve long been helpful in our cooking, but we’ve never quire seen anything like what this crafter is doing. Rather than simply accepting the lids the way they are, she’s creating her own customized acrylic inserts that make them even-more-perfect for holding flowers, toothbrushes, spices and the like. This project isn’t easy, per se – you do have to use a laser cutter to cut acrylic – but if you have the know-how and the materials, it IS doable. Whether or not you try it yourself, it’s totally inspiring to see how she does it! Here’s how.

MASON JAR LID INSERTS

MATERIALS

  • Mason jars, in various sizes with common lid sizes
  • Corrugated cardboard
  • ⅛-inch acrylic sheet
  • Laser cutter
  • CorelDRAW design file, for dragonfly wing mason jar lids

Find the full instructions at Instructables

CorelDRAW is the computer program licheness uses to turn her beloved dragonfly design into a pattern on the cardboard . . .

. . . which she then turns into a prototype, making sure it works and fits in the mason jar lid rings!

Once the prototypes are proved to work, the laser cutter cuts the acrylic, and voila!

Then, the lids get put to work! The clear acrylic make them perfect for easily viewing the contents, and the holes make them perfect for accessing those contents . . .

. . . or simply holding things like toothbrushes in a pretty manner, or protecting your drink while you enjoy it with a straw.

For such an impressive project, it’s pretty simple if you have the tools and the know-how. And you can’t argue with those results!

So what do you think? How would you adapt your mason jar lids if you could? Do you think you’ll find a way to make this project yourself?