Over the weekend, I found out that I have a girlfriend with a birthday this week. We generally don't do big gift exchanges, and often our gifts to each other are homemade.
I had thought to run out and pick up a small gift Saturday afternoon (to give on Sunday, after church). Then rethought that, and checked my gift stash. Nothing too appealing, so I checked my preserves from last summer.
I collect nice canning jars when I hit second-hand shops. With those, I use to put up some of my nicer preserves, to be gifted later in the year. Last summer I made cherry preserves, and spiced fig jam, both in some of the nicer canning jars that I've acquired. For my girlfriend, I chose a jar of Spiced Fig Jam.
Wanting to spiff this homemade gift up just a tad, I made a couple of labels, using a printable "frame" from Graphics Fairy, and adding customized lettering from the Pages application on my computer.
I printed out these labels onto regular printer paper. I cut them out, then reinforced and waterproofed the front of each label with a strip of clear packaging tape.
I adhered the labels to the front of the jar and the lid with a little glue stick, as well as the small amount of overhang from the clear tape (when cutting the tape, I allowed a narrow margin of clear tape all around the paper label, for extra adhesion).
A plastic bag and nice ribbon and my small gift is ready to give.
An update: I gave this to my friend on Sunday after church, as planned, and she loved it. I knew this would be the sort of thing she would like!
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