Christmas Gifts in Jars

Every year, and this year is no exception, I make handmade gifts for friends and colleagues. This year they will be gifts in jars. The idea came to me to create themed jars that would serve both as gift packaging and later as storage containers around the home.

This led to the concept of giving each jar a positive quality - something to wish each person for the coming year. The jars are to be filled with practical things - edible, usable, consumable. I am not yet sure whether it will be a lucky draw or whether each jar will be intended for a specific person, but here is what jars I came up with.

I will share the recipes for seven gift jars, though there are many more ideas.

Start by cutting out shapes from colourful, medium-weight backing material. I used jewellery photographs from an old calendar. Then come up with jar names, write them in an attractive font and print them out. Glue the backing and the text together to create a beautiful label - both the jar's name and its decoration.

The Sweet Jar

First prepare colourful Christmas stickers on which you write (as appropriate): the name, the contents, the maker and the date of making. For example: "The Sweet Jar: peppermint chocolate dragées, IINUU, 2013".

The sweet jar must of course be filled with something tasty and sweet - apple-vanilla purée, gingerbread biscuits, sweets in colourful wrappers or dragées. Pour in the dragées, close the jar, tie on a ribbon, attach the pre-made label from the back with colourful adhesive tape, and if needed tie on a gold or silver bow.

The Beauty Jar

The beauty jar is intended to contain items for personal care - a nail file, hand cream, lip gloss, or for example bath salts.

The Light Jar

The ingredients of the light jar must emit or create light. So in here you can place a small Christmas fairy-light string, small candles with a lighter, colourful matches, and so on.

The Christmas Fragrance Jar

If the light jar must create light, then the fragrance jar must of course create a pleasant scent associated with Christmas time - mulled wine, pies and gingerbread, mandarins. This jar can be filled with dried herbs, cinnamon sticks, allspice, vanilla fragrance, various spices.

The Energy Jar

The energy jar is to be filled with calorie-rich, energising products - breakfast cereal, oat flakes, dried fruit (dried apples, pears, pumpkin pieces, cranberries), nuts, seeds, and so on. The main thing is that the products can be poured in colourful layers of three or four, forming the jar's decoration by themselves.

Similarly you can make a HEALTH JAR with large cranberries, a small jar of honey, a natural beeswax candle, as well as a HEARTY JAR, for example filling it with various sizes and colours of beans, peas and grains in layers. When decorating the jar, a wooden spoon can be tied on with linen twine.

The Warmth Jar

What better way to warm up on a cold day than a fragrant hot mug of tea. I put a tea strainer and loose-leaf Oriental tea in the jar. But you can also fill the jar with various tea bags.

Similarly you can make an ENERGY JAR by filling it with coffee beans.

The Diligence Jar

The diligence jar has everything for craft enthusiasts or handy women - a measuring tape, buttons, pins, bobbins, decorative stickers, and so on.

You can likewise make a BAKER'S JAR with paper cupcake cases, measuring spoons, baking powder, and so on.

Another idea that keeps nagging at me is to create a MEMORY JAR, which could contain, for example, a USB memory stick and prints of old photographs.

I hope that one of these ideas will come in handy or inspire you too to make heartfelt little gifts for your loved ones.