I’m about two weeks late to start some of these projects. Mostly due to a cold I got a couple weeks back. As a result this year’s holiday crafts have been scaled back. 

Originally I planned on making jelly, various cookies, knitting a hat, making cards and sewing a pair of pants or two. The illness I had knocked me out for about a week. Making it really hard to finish some of these in a timely manner. So far I’ve done the jelly and made most of the holiday cards.

Here are preview photos of a couple unfinished holiday cards. 

   
This year I’ve signed up for the MINI owners gift exchange. They ask you keep your gift around $10 and to keep in mind that for whatever reason you may not receive a gift. All in good fun! Thanks to a decal I got from a fellow PSMINI member, this sign I found is jazzed up. 

My jelly this year is apple butter, sour plum jam, tart raspberry jam, and wine jelly. All of the apples used for this year’s batch came from our tree. It was a mega producer this year! Our raspberry patch also did, this year jam is also 100% from our yard. The plums came from a neighbor’s place which is a couple houses to our side. When I gave the wine jelly as gifts last year, it got such good reviews I had to bring it back. In fact, I’ve already been asked if that was something I would be doing. It’s a great feeling to know that things I did last year were so well liked people are hoping I will do it again.

To give my jars a nicer look, this year I went with the Weck jar. They require no extra processing time and are very easy to tell if the jar has sealed. I love mason jars but when I am giving jam as a gift I desire a jar that has nice presentation on its own. The Weck jars are easy to use and look good when filled. Pretty sure I’ll be using more of these in the future.