How to Clean a Peanut Butter Jar

Random blog post for me? Mayhaps. But I'll tell you what - I get most of my protein from peanut butter and this stuff is a big part of my daily routine. (I'm not a vegetarian, but meat is not my favorite thing to eat.) Between David and me, we probably consume one 16-oz jar of peanut butter every week - and that leaves us with a TON of used peanut butter jars.

Whether you need to clean out your peanut butter jars for recycling or for reusing, there's a way to do it that will leave your sponge much less... peanut buttery. Am I the only one who hates getting my sponge covered in wet, soapy peanut butter? Yuck.

Well have NO freakin' fear, y'all. I'm here to help you de-pee-bee (eh? eh?) your glass jars so you can use them for whatever your little heart desires. Massive disclaimer:  David is the one who taught me this trick! He's the most clever boy in the entire world. #DontArgue.

Step 1: Use your peanut butter. Like... all of it. Till the jar is as empty as it can be without you licking it clean. Because how would you get your tongue in there anyway? I mean, come on. If you could fit your tongue into every crevice of a peanut butter jar, there'd be no need for this instructional blog post to exist. You'd just clean it with your tongue. NEVER WASTE PEANUT BUTTER. EVER.

Step 2: Squirt one pump of dishwashing soap into your empty jar.

Step 3: Fill your jar halfway with hot water. You'll probably notice that the soap bubbles up and over the lid a bit. That's ok. Just make sure that it's only about half-full of water.

Step 4: This is the interesting step that you might not have thought of before... Place a small teaspoon into the jar and close the lid.

Step 5: SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE. SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE. SHAKE YOUR BOOTAAAY PEANUT BUTTER JAR. Like, seriously shake the shit out of that thing. Turn it into a dance or upper body exercise if you must.

The teaspoon acts like the tiny agitator ball inside a can of spray paint (or a nail polish bottle, if we're making it more relevant to my more typical blog posts). The spoon helps to mix up the soapy contents of the jar and scrapes along the sides of the container to remove the stubborn peanut butter remnants that normally you'd have to scrub off with your sponge. Your precious, precious sponge.

Once you've shaken your jar in every different direction (to get the spoon into as many crevices and crannies as possible), then you can either let it sit in the warm water for awhile and repeat, or unscrew your lid, dump out the contents and rinse it out.

I haven't even rinsed this one out yet and it's already pretty spotless:

So now that you have a clean glass jar - what are you going to do with it?

We usually move about once a year, on average, so I've learned a thing or two about packing up a house. One of the worst parts of a home to pack up is the kitchen. UGH. CITY. So many heavy/breaky things - none of which fit well into boxes. For that reason, we're notttt fans of buying a bunch of glassware from a store and then needing to "deal with it" come moving time. With all of the peanut butter we consume from glass jars, it occurred to us early on that we should just use these empty jars as our glassware. Not only does it save us from needing to purchase glasses, but we also a) don't have to worry when one of them breaks (since we basically acquire a new glass every week) and b) get to have handy screw-on lids for all of our glasses, in case we want to take our beverages to-go!

But that's not the only good reason to have a bunch of clean glass jars around. Here's another way I use glass jars AND holiday lights... which is especially relevant now that we're into February, hmm? Bet your husband/boyfriend is getting pretty close to fed up that your holiday decorations/Christmas trees are still up, eh ladies? Time to transition those lights from "holiday" lights to "BABE, let's leave these in our bedroom year-round!" lights:

Read all about that project here. It's a popular one!

Do you have the same issues that I do with soapy peanut butter sponges?

Do you have an exciting/creative use for your empty glass jars? I'd love to hear it!

Did you enter my nail polish giveaway? There are still a couple of days left!

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