---

Our bathroom has been missing some of your standard accessories, like a canister to hold our toothbrushes and toothpaste. For several months we used a plastic cup that tipped over if you placed the toothpaste back in at the wrong angle. Not effective…

But Melissa isn’t always known for making her mind up quickly about things like that, so we kept on waiting.

We found a few options to choose from, such as this one from Target, which really is fine, and it had a space for the toothpaste, which was nice, but…eh.

And one that we already had (cheapo from Walmart that came in a set we bought just for the trash cans…) didn’t have a spot for the toothpaste, which isn’t all that convenient since that still has to live on the counter.

And this one from Bass Pro…which is…interesting.

We have always liked the look of mason jars, and we were already using them for storage in the hall bathroom, so we came up with this crafty idea:

Before we got started with the actual project, Melissa decided to create a mock-up out of a piece of cardboard.  This was in place for about a week before we collected supplies to make a more permanent lid.

I first tried to make a fancy lid out of a metal mason jar canning lid, but I had some trouble getting smooth edges. I tried drilling it out with a power drill, as well as punching it out with a chisel and folding back the edges, but neither method produced the results we wanted.

So, we started brainstorming on other ideas for lids and came up with the lid from the plastic tub you get cream cheese in.  Score one for reusing and recycling, right? Plus, this was way easier to cut and get nice, clean edges.

I traced around the edge of the jar to get the size I needed.

Then, I cut it out. This is the easy part.

..

Then, I cut it in half, a little over the halfway point actually, to make room for a bigger toothpaste holder, and cut out the holes for the toothbrushes using a razor blade. It looks like a really happy plastic lid, now.

The only problem with this was that the lid wasn’t very sturdy, so I took the metal canning lid that I used for the first attempt and cut out the inside so all that was left was an outer rim.

Then it was time to reassemble it all. I put the metal frame under the plastic top for support and screwed the metal band on top, holding onto the top we made to keep it steady. Ta-da! Or, at least, so I thought.

Melissa liked the taller mason jar better, so she had a plan to jazz it up a little more and hide the ugly look of the toothpaste tube inside.  She took a tall, wide mouth mason jar and poured in a small amount of white latex paint that was left over from painting the striped wall in her office.

She slowly rolled the jar around in her hands until the paint covered everything, tilting it gradually to let the paint slowly move towards the open end of the jar without missing any sections or dripping out.

Once everything was covered, she let it drain upside-down on a magazine, moving it several times in the process so that it wouldn’t dry with a bunch of excess paint.

It will drain a lot, so be prepared with some cardboard, or in our case, ready-to-recycle magazines.

After it dried for 24 hours, Melissa sprayed the inside with some clear enamel to protect it (at least a little bit) from chipping when we drop our toothbrushes into it.)

Here is our end product.

We think it turned out pretty well, considering all the trouble we had for what we thought would be a really simple project.

We may revisit this project again in the future and see if we can get the metal lid to work, as it will look better and be more structurally sound, in my opinion. Still, I’d say it was pretty successful since it’s something we use everyday and will enjoy a lot more than the plastic cup we were using before. Sometimes the small projects can make a big difference.

And yes, these “after” photos are taken in our hall bathroom because it’s nicer than out master bathroom. Plus, that’s where the other mason jars were that Melissa was using for cotton balls and swabs. Rest assured, though, the jar is now where it belongs in our bathroom.

Have you been working on any small updates that make a big difference? We’d love to hear about it!