Tuesday Tip | Store leftover paint in food jars

You know how when you finish a painting project, you often have a little bit of paint leftover? You want to keep it around for touch-ups, but you don’t want to store a big bucket for that small amount of paint.

Well, I learned from a friend of mine that it’s smart to pour the leftover paint into a saved food jar.

That jar of Cloud White is my kitchen cabinet paint, and it has come in so handy over the years when I need to touch up dings in my cabinets.

You can use any sort of   jar that’s got a nice tight lid that will keep the air out. I’ve only used glass, but I’ve read that plastic containers work as well.

Pour the paint in, write the brand and color of the paint on the jar or lid with a sharpie, and you’re good to go.

This saves paint storage space, and in my experience (this is the money-saving part), it also helps to keep the paint from drying out. It’s hard to get the used paint cans to seal up properly, and a small amount of paint in a not-quite-sealed large bucket tends to dry out quickly.

(So much air in the bucket!)

And then when you need to do a touch-up, you have to go buy more paint.

Obviously, you need to be careful to avoid breaking the jars if you use glass, but you have to be careful with stored paint in buckets too.   It’s not like you can tip over paint buckets willy-nilly. 😉

If you use glass, just make sure you store the jars in a safe place where they won’t get knocked off and break (especially if your storage room, like mine, has a hard floor).

P.S. In yesterday’s post, I mentioned the Grove food storage bags. Yesterday, Grove sent me an email letting my know that even though I’m not doing a campaign with Grove right now, you will still get some Mrs. Meyer’s freebies if you sign up   for a new account through my affiliate link.

So, if you want to sign up and get some of the bags like I have, make sure you do it through this link!