How to: Party Favors in a Jar

I told you all about the salted caramel recipe that I chose for baby shower party favors here.  This post is all about how I packaged the final product.  You can use this tutorial for anything that you want to give as a gift in a jar.

Supplies you will need:

Basically any fabric you like will work for this project.  Pinking shears are best for cutting your fabric since they help keep it from fraying and create a decorative edge, but scissors will do the job just fine.

Start out by creating a circle pattern with a 7 inch diameter.  In order to make that easier for you, click here for a pdf with a 7 inch circle.  Simply pin the pattern to your fabric and cut out as many circles as you need.

I also created little tags in Adobe Illustrator.  I wanted to make sure people knew what they were getting and just in case I didn't get a chance to talk to them, I also wanted to include that the sauce should only keep for two weeks.  If you don't have Illustrator, I'm sure you could use Microsoft Word to make simple tags.  Using stamps or handwriting them would be cute too.  If you do happen to make salted caramel sauce, here is a printable with a sheet of my tags for you to use!

I recommend letting your sauce cool in the refrigerator for a few hours before attempting to decorate.  I just put them back in the refrigerator after I finished.  First cut out and punch holes in your tags.  Then place your fabric circle on top of your lid (while the lid is secured to the jar of course).  Hold it down, wrap the baker's twine around it, slide your tag through, and tie a knot.  Then just clip your twine ends and you're good to go.  Super simple assembly process!

I have also used this idea for a hot chocolate mix that I gave as Christmas gifts one year.  You can see those here.
-Kira

Fall Themed Baby Shower

I hosted a baby shower for my sister-in-law Carolyn on Saturday.  I had a lot of fun decorating! I also had a plenty of help from both grandmas-to-be and from Carolyn's best friend with food and flower arranging.  I am so grateful for their assistance.

The shower was really fun.

The group photo was taken with someone else's camera, but this is Carolyn with all of her lady relatives who were present at the shower.  Yes, Pearl and I totally match on purpose.

Later this week I will share tutorials for a couple of DIY projects that I did for the shower.

Happy Sunday!

-Kira

Recipe Testing - Salted Caramel Sauce

Well, there is a first time for everything.  Today is the first time ever that I am doing a dedicated food post on this blog.  Obviously this is a sign that I am not one to spend much time in the kitchen.  I have my sister-in-law's baby shower coming up though and she threw such an awesome one for me last year that I would like to return the favor.

Her baby shower is going to be fall themed (she loves fall colors, the baby is due in the fall, and the shower is actually scheduled on the very first day of fall so it's perfect).  I thought that caramel apples sounded like they would go well with the theme, but they are messy.  So I settled on the idea of doing a salted caramel dip with apples and a variety of fruits.  I also thought it would be cute to make extra salted caramel and put it in little mason jars as party favors.

I found this recipe through Pinterest and decided I better try it out.  It is actually quite easy to make and I already had most of the ingredients at home (it only has four ingredients).  I had no idea that you could just put dry sugar in a pot on the stove and it would melt!  I was kind of fascinated by that.  Also, it takes a lot of stirring.  Her instructions say that it will "take a few minutes" for the sugar to melt and for me it took more than just a few.  It took eight minutes of vigorous stirring and I thought my arm might fall off.  The recipe yields 2 cups of sauce so I'm going to have to make it multiple times over.  I know there is no way I could just quadruple the recipe and still be able to stir it.

Anyway, the point of my rambling is that this stuff is good!  I have used it to dip in a variety of fruits, and I have added it to brownies.  That was probably one of the more genius ideas I have had.

 Tonight I'm going to make caramel corn.

So, try this recipe.  It is delicious, simple, and is a great arm workout.

-Kira