Decorating Canning Jars

I will have to start all over making Christmas presents, but that is perfectly OK. It turns out that my treats are going to a better cause.


You see, the 3 year old granddaughter of a coworker of mine had to have her right eye removed because of cancer. I borrowed a picture of the girl from www.EyesForJaclyn.net. A child that age grows so fast, that a prosthetic eye has to be re-sized quite often. In fact, if the eye is not re-sized often enough to keep the pressure in the socket about equal to the pressure from the real eye, then the bones on each side of the face can actually start growing at a different pace, leading to a lopsided face. If you have ever felt that your child grows faster than you can get new clothes, then imagine how many eyes this girl will go through.

My jams will be among the items auctioned off for this girls fundraiser. Since I spent the weekend decorating the jars and boxing them up for the auction, I decided to write a post about different ways that canning jars can be made to look a little fancier. This is especially nice if you are giving food as gifts.

A very simple thing to do is simply tie a ribbon on the jar. You can also cut a circle or square of fabric and temporarily use a rubber band to hold it on the jar while you tie a ribbon on. If the rubber band is a pretty color, then you can just leave the rubber band in place and forget the ribbon. You can also put the cloth under the screw band.

Amazon.com offers a Decorative Jar Topper Kit. This has elastic bows, so you get the ease of using a rubber band, but it looks prettier than just a rubber band.

Another idea is crazy quilt jar toppers. These use up very small scraps of fabric. Queen of the Castle Recipes has a very nice post about these.