Canned Goods for Christmas

This year for Christmas I gave canned goods that I made at the end of the summer and early fall. I made cinnamon applesauce, pickled tomatoes with rosemary, and spearmint orange jelly. The last two are from recipes from Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publication Canning which I picked up at my grocery store last summer. I love canning and it seemed like a perfect gift to give this year.

To make the tags I cut 3/4" x 2-3/4" strips of cardstock. clipped the corners on one end to make a tag shape and used my 1/8" hole punch to create a hole for threading. I then wrote the contents of each jar on the tag.

For the cinnamon applesauce, I embellished the tag with some sticks of cinnamon and tied the tag to the jar with twine for a rustic look. To cut the small pieces of cinnamon I scored the stick with a serrated knife and then snapped off the piece.

To decorate the pickled tomatoes with rosemary I used red ribbon to attach the tag to the jar. I then hot glued some rosemary that I had dried from garden this summer to the back of the tag.

On the spearmint orange jelly, I used my hot glue gun to add an orange leaf to the back of the tag and a dried kumquat slice to the front. I then tied the tag to the jar with a lime green ribbon. To make the dried kumquat slices I cut some kumquats into 1/4" slices and then baked them on a cooling rack (not a cookie sheet - they will stick!) at 250 F (125 C) for about half an hour.  

Of course even though I have given away a lot of canned goods this year, I still have plenty left for myself. In fact I couldn't help but keep all of my vanilla pickled sweet cherries. Is that bad?