I make jam year round. During the summer when the boysenberries, strawberries, and apricots yield a bounty of goodness, you can find me making desserts, dried fruit, and of course, jam. When I can’t keep up with the harvest, I freeze the fruits for winter jams.
Everyone I know loves homemade jams. My kids are so spoiled with homemade, they don’t even buy store bought jams. They say it just isn’t the same. I agree. I give my jams away as gifts by themselves, in food baskets, and as hostess gifts when Kerry and I get invited to dinners. And I always dress up my jars when I give them away. No naked jars from me!
The Japanese say that presentation is very important, no matter how big or small an offering is. It’s almost an art form separate from the object that is being given. Even a simple and meager gift takes on a special meaning when “dressed” to show the thought behind it.
This particular decorated jam jar is quite simple. I will be decorating more elaborate jam jars in the future to show you how beautiful a simple gift can be. For this jar, however, I used a simple dotted beige gift wrapping paper. You can cut it in a circle or square. It was purchased at Target from their dollar bins and of course, you can save the rest for regular gifts. Rustic brown twine found just about anywhere is used to secure the paper to the lid. If you have trouble tying the twine, a dab from a hot glue gun can hold the knot in place. Using the glue gun again, I attached a beige paper flower that came on a sheet of twelve from Michael’s for about $3.
These two jams, strawberry and boysenberry, were then given to a dear friend who recently just moved into a new apartment. He was delighted to get them and said he was going to leave them on his kitchen counter as decoration until he opened them. How sweet.
No comments:
Post a Comment