Shades of Blue Canning Jars

Decorating blogs and magazines feature many pretty vignettes and uses for vintage Ball, Mason and Crown canning jars.

Image above: Country Living

I love collecting vintage canning jars and use these versatile beauties for storage of office supplies, bunches of flowers from the garden, or just grouped on a shelf. I love coming across a dusty box of canning jars at garage sales and can't resist peeking to see if the box contains some old jars with the glass and zinc lids. The coloured or tinted jars are my favourites. As with paint colours and fabric, I sometimes struggle to give a name to the particular shades of blue that my jars have. Luckily I stumbled across these photos and can now give a colour name to my jars. I have heard that the most expensive jars are cobalt blue, green and amber.

Source:Unknown

(I found the above 3 images in a google search. If you know of the source, I would love to give them credit.)

Crown mason jars are much easier to find in our area. Most of my jars are Ball blue and aquamarine and have little bubbles and ripples in the glass.

My favourites have the crown on the glass lid with zinc ring.

In our ensuite bath I have some grouped in the corner of the soaker tub.

A grouping in a row on top of the medicine cabinet also in the ensuite bath.

I use mason jars to hold bunches of flowers in the backyard or on a table.

I love seeing the light reflect of them grouped on a shelf in the kitchen.

In our basement guest suite I have filled several old jars with rocks. These ones have the glass and wire locking top and are clear coloured.

In my hobby room they hold antique bobbins, buttons, safety pins, paint brushes and more.

I added a light kit to three jars and turned them into lamps for my hobby room.

I have seen so many inspiring vignettes incorporating canning jars in blogs I visit, and I'm wondering how you use vintage canning jars and if they are coloured, what shade of blue they are. They may be old, but once the dust is washed off these jars have so many uses.