I love canning. My mom taught me how to make jam when I was a teenager and she learned how from her mom and her grandma. Growing up, we had a plum and an apricot tree in our backyard, so when June and July came around and the fruit was ripe, we'd hurry to pick the ripe fruit before it fell or the birds got to it. Then we'd spend an afternoon cleaning, pitting, crushing and stirring pots of molten sugar and fruit. The reward at the end of the day was the satisfying POP when the jars sealed and snacking on the leftovers.
If you've never made jam before, it's fairly simple and lots of fancy tools aren't required. I didn't own a water bath canner until this year. I just processed jars in my big soup pot. I don't own a pressure canner either. I love this post and send it to anyone who's interesting in canning for the first time. It's a great place to get the basics.
Half pint mason jars are my favorites to use, (both in standard and wide mouth, but in late summer, they sell out pretty quickly in my local stores, so I will order from Amazon, and save from having to drive from store to store hoping some are still in stock.
Every year my husband and I typically give whatever we canned as gifts to friends, coworkers and family, so the jars naturally NEED some sort of fun label. I created a couple of new ones this year and I added them to my Etsy shop for purchase.
Thanks to a local friend sharing the wealth of New Haven Peaches on her tree, I made a few batches of peach jam and peach vanilla butter.
Then I created a few different versions of the label for whatever else someone may be canning. I have watercolor graphics of many, many different fruits and I'll adjust the background color to make sure there's a good contrast between it and the color of the fruit.
This next design I created was a blast to work on and definitely moves toward the non-traditional when it comes to canning labels.
So far I have created similar labels for strawberry and plum jams. I'll create a breakdancing fruit cartoon for whatever kind of jam you've made.
This "That's My Jam" theme really only works with jam. Jellies, sauces, pickled items won't really work with this design. But I can always create something different with the same font and overall look, like I did for our "Twerkin' Vanilla Peach Buttah." If you'd like to do a custom label like this, just shoot me a message.
Lastly, this is the label design that I created last year. It's printing on what looks like faintly stripped kraft paper with a custom little fruit or vegetable cartoon.
These can be customized for pretty much anything that goes into jars. I can add a greeting to the bottom or not, totally up to you.
I can set these up to be printed on Avery labels, 22807 for standard sized jars or 22830 for wide mouth jars. If you'd prefer to not go with Avery labels, I can squeeze as many on a page as I can and you can print them onto full-sheet sticker paper and the use a circle punch. It's pretty easy.
Links for each label:
That's my Jam
Script & Watercolor
Kraft Paper Cartoons
As always, if you're interested in creating a custom label with fonts, color, verbiage, or anything that's different than these, don't hesitate to send me a message or email. Thanks!
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