Recycling baby food containers into snack holders is a fantastic trick I learned from my sweet sis-in-law, Lindsay. She takes her baby food containers, washes them out, and fills them up with little snacks. They fit nicely in my diaper bag and stay closed tight with their lid.
I’ve usually put snacks into plastic baggies, but the snacks end up as crumbs getting crunched deep down in my bag. So these have been great, providing just enough snack for each of my kids, tiding them over on our trip at the store!
(Can you guess which pureed baby food item was in the bottom right container? I’ll give you a virtual ‘high five’ if you guess right!)
Written by Marie LeBaron
Marie LeBaron is the founder and managing editor of Make and Takes. Always having a love of crafts, she enjoys getting messy with glue and glitter. There’s always some sort of project going on, her kitchen counter is often cluttered with crafts. When she’s not crafting and creating with her kids, she loves to run, read, and blog! Read other posts by Marie
{ 43 comments… read them below or add one }
I sent this tip to my sister, a non-blogger, I think she would use this as our Baby Isaac gets older.
Okay, it’s been two years, but my guess is squash!
Very, very soon we’ll be entering into the land of baby food again. I saved our gerber containers for my dad’s garage. My sister beads jewlery, and they work great for containing the beads, too.
I suspect this time I will be saving them for my husband’s garage and for my crafting things. Meghan is a collector, and she’ll love them too.
These are the cutest little containers.
And everytime I re-purpose them I can reminisce about when the baby was…well a baby.
i never had enough of these because i almost never bought baby food. my guess is sweet potatoes.
I love this trick and used to use it all the time when we had an abundance of them in our house. I liked to use them also for putting her lunch (things like pasta, peas, cut up fruit) in them when my daughter would go to a friends house to be baby sat. I wouldn’t have to worry about if they got left behind.
Definitely had to be CARROTS! They are the worst at leaving stains.
These containers also work relay well for Jell-O. They make little individual portions that you can take with you for picnics or kids can bring in school lunches.
Carrots for sure!
Carrots. They stain EVERYTHING!
I use these for crafty bits and office supplies too. They hold pins and such very securely and stack well.
I like to use these to store home made play dough-they are the perfect size and keep the play dough nice and soft!!
carrots. *hi-five* regardless of outcome!
Okay…it’s either carrots, squash or sweet potatoes!
I have another “tip” to use the containers for. I’ve found them great for storing the little (some are downright tiny) plastic ponytail holders in. Perfect size! At one point, I had 3 different sizes of them and labeled the lid “small, medium or large” with a sharpie marker so I knew which continer held which one! Also, other small little girl barrettes, bobby pins, etc. Keeps them organized and CONTAINED (very important with an ornery 2-year old around)!
My guess was carrots? We used these fantastic containers too – at first for homemade babyfood and then for finger snacks. Now that my daughter is a bit older, I rinse out her yogurt containers (we buy the reduced sugar ones with DHA that have Dora on them) and reuse them for snacking at home – Sweetpea loves having her Dora snacks!
I’m guessing squash.
Those containers are great for storing scrapbooking and office supplies too.
I think this is a great idea, I only wonder if they are a safe to re-use plastic? Number 5?
YES!! These are also my absolute FAVE!! I use them a lot in preschool and kindergarten too. Sometimes we play dice games and instead of giving the kids a free for all with the dice and having them thrown all over oblivion, you can place 1 or 2 die in the container and they become excellent die shakers!!! They are also great for storing small alphabet tiles or for sorting……the ideas are endless!!
I use them to sort hair bands.. The little tiny ones.. Or my daughters little clippies and bows.
I used to use these for teaching. They are great for holding manipulatives (or small objects) for counting and sorting! They stack well in your cupboards, and are small enough that they don’t take up a lot of space. And I love that each child can have their own. They are also easy to open, which is great for small hands and easy for kids to put away. LOVE them!!
Hey! I don’t know if you remember me, but My name is Aubrey Young and I work and E-harbor (I worked with your husband) And I was on my friends blog and saw yours! Your family is getting big! Hope your doing good, I just wanted to say hi.
I guess squash too! Marie = genius!
I’m guessing carrots. I wish I had a little one again so I can buy these. I’m sure they are great for storing crafting supplies like beads and scrapbooking brads too.
i’m guessing carrots too. when I use them in the juicer, it stains the plastic.
CARROTS it is! Those silly pureed carrots are always staining my baby’s clothes! High Fives for everyone, even if you didn’t guess carrots!
And WOW!! What fantastic uses for these little containers. Thanks for sharing all your ideas: craft supplies, pins, pony hair holders, playdough, rolling dice… etc. The list goes on.
It was lovely to meet you today! It is nice to put a face to a blog. ;)
I love this idea! Thank you! And it was great meeting you at Mom 2.0.
You can also use them to hold little buttons, safety pins, hair elastics, you name it. I LOVE those little containers!
Aren’t these baby food containers so useful!? Great for snacks! Also perfect for storing and organizing small craft supplies (sequins, gemstones, buttons, punched paper pieces, etc…). I *love* your post on adding some bling to kids’ straws – fun, fun!
They are great for beads. Do check the bottom of them before storing food in them. They are plastic #7 which you should always avoid. Look for safer plastics: 1,2 and 5. I know it’s crazy, why would a baby food company use an unsafe plastic for baby food storage?
Jenny & Melissa – These containers are #7, Yikes. I better look into that!
But DO use these for storing non-food items, beads, crafts, etc.
I never kept those containers – I recycled them.
Any ideas what to do with the little jars? I’ve got a bag of ‘em :)
I helped my kids make snowglobes out of the little jars. We used little monkeys, hello kitty and puppies from the quarter machines. We glued them to the lids, added glitter, drop of dish soap and water. After screwing the lid on we used hot glue around the lid to keep it from leaking.
What a great idea! Thank you! I am guessing it was carrots!
I made a lot of baby food but I definitely saved the containers when I bought! Great idea for snacks!
I cut slits in the top and made little piggy banks. I also saved 26 and glued a different letter on each lid and put things inside that started with the letter, buttons, beads, little things like that.
Carrots! or Sweet Potatoes!
This is a really great idea!
thanks….
I love this, wish I’d seen this before I spent a bunch of money on little Tupperware containers!
I have a bunch of these holding small foamies and other small pieces that I use in my crafts for my preschoolers. They stack so nicely into the drawers!
I used the same containers to keep pacifiers clean instead of letting them loose in the baby bag. I don’t think i ever thought of putting snacks in them, great idea. I did use empty formula containers to put duck food (seeds, corn, the stuff sold just for ducks) in for trips to the park, the sample size containers were even better.
I buy spices in bulk, so I uses these small containers to stack spices in the cupboard. You can write on all four sides and stack them ever so neatly
Has anybody painted these Gerber food containers? I want to paint them for 1st birthday favors. Any suggestions?
It’s fun to read everyone’s uses for these — they’re great!
My sis-in-law teaches kindergarted and she says they fit her student’s phonics tiles perfectly. I collected enough that she has a classroom set for the next several years!
My sister uses them to freeze pesto portions.
My MIL uses them for beading projects.
I just wish they had a tighter seal, so half-eaten containers could travel home in the cooler bag.
We camp a lot in the summertime miles from any place that sells ice. We reuse the baby food containers to freeze larger ice cubes so they last longer.
Add a magnet strip to the bottom of the container and store your craft/scrapbooking supplies vertically by attaching them to a hanging cookie sheet. Great space saver!