Late Night Jam Sessions

Or as Michael and I have labeled it, my Last Little Bit of Crazy.

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See why we’ve called it My Last Little Bit of Crazy? 

I didn’t really have time to talk about it pre-wedding, but I had decided early on that we were going to have little jam favors for our guests at our wedding.  And when I say little, I mean tiny.  The jars I had in mind were less then two ounces.  I had already priced the jars thru multiple websites and decided on the cheapest (but best) route.  I then proceeded to purchase 160 of these bad boys for the 160 place settings I had determined we would need after agonizing deciding on a floor plan.

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This project was originally supposed to be something that I would have completed MONTHES before the wedding, but Wedding-itis reared its ugly head during March and April (when I had scheduled to complete this project), and they didn’t get done.  I’m blaming the Wedding-itis on the invitations.  Those suckers wore me out.

Anyways…..back to the beginning of my Master Plan; after googling the crap out of “making jam” and reading various tutorials and Certo Sure Gel instruction sheets, I decided to make a practice batch.  Keep in mind, this all was taking place in January.  Michael and I taste tested a few jars of jam every week for about six weeks to make sure that they tasted good and that I had successfully completed the canning process (i.e. we wouldn’t be giving our guests food poisoning). 

After taste testing and concluding that I had successfully completed my first canning session, I stopped thinking about it.  I mean, I flat out stopped worrying about completing the jam favors at all.  I would even go so far as to give the box of jars a little kick towards the wall whenever I would go into our second bedroom to get some other more important/fun wedding related item.  This procrastination continued thru mid-May. 

With the wedding countdown nearing six weeks, I knew I had to get started.  I eventually completed the 4 batches of 40 jars following the Certo Sure Gel instructions, but also adding an extra pouch of pectin, like the tutorial had advised.  I only boiled the jars for about 8 minutes even though the recipe said 10, but I figured we were ok considering the 1.5 ounce jars we used are about a quarter of the size of the 8 ounce jars used in the tutorial.

Michael helped me design the below label using Avery return address labels and an online tool that was offered by Avery.  They weren’t anything fancy, but we were able to incorporate our monogram (like I had secretly been hoping, but had had no luck on my own perfecting!).

The final “packaging” element that I, in my infinite wisdom, just had to have was a cover for the jar.  And what material do we have in abundance?  Oh yeah!  Burlap!  This was a little trickier due to the combination of inflexible material with a tiny jar.  It wasn’t impossible, just harder then originally thought (Like so many of my other projects!).  I cut the burlap tops and rubber banded them to the jar, and Michael tied the twine and cut any rubber band that was still in sight.  A real team effort!

And voila! (or, as we say here in Texas, wha-la!)  As a side note, our DIY projects were done by Tuesday night, AND a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders! 

P.S. The title to this post (Late Night Jam Sessions) is slightly misleading.  I never stayed up late to complete ANY of my projects, let alone one’s that were completed mere days before the wedding.  Needless to say, no sleep was lost due to wedding worries or diy details.