Handmade Holidays- Christmas Treat Jars

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For the second project for week 6 of my 12 Weeks of Handmade Holidays series, where I am sharing 2 projects a week that are gift ideas you can make for the holidays, I decided to make something super simple with my Cricut- Decorated Jars filled with Christmas candy. 

Who doesn't like getting a fun treat, and a simple vinyl cutout on a jar means it will not only taste good but look cute too. I just cut out little vinyl designs on my Cricut and added them to the jars. I used designs I found in Design Space that said Merry Christmas and made them small enough to fit on the jar, but you could use any words or designs you would like. 

I filled my little jars up with candy, and that is a super simple way to fill them up. But there are lots of different ways you could fill the decorated jar for a gift. Some ideas of ways to fill the jar are: a mix to make something, a layered cookie mix, or a brownie mix, or any kind of baking mix, a soup mix, or a hot cocoa mix, maybe even layered with little mini marshmallows or crushed peppermint pieces. You could also do some kind of sauce, things like caramel sauce or buttermilk syrup, or a jam or homemade salsa. 

If you want a non-food option you could make a homemade sugar scrub, epsom salt or bath salt. You could also make a jar full of slips of paper with different things on them- positive affirmations, things you love about that person, journal prompts, favorite quotes, etc. There are lots of ways you could use jars for a cute and simple gift. 

You could even pair some of the other gifts in the series with a little jar gift, like a washcloth with some sugar scrub, or coasters with hot chocolate mix. Also a jar gift can be a very inexpensive, but thoughtful, gift if you want something to be able to give to neighbors, coworkers, or others that you want a gift for but don't have a huge budget. 

This is project number 12 in this series of handmade gift ideas, halfway done. Be sure to check out the other projects shared so far in this series- the Solitude Scarf, Easy Fabric Corner Bookmarks, the Merry Hat, Fabric Lanyards, the Trinity Stitch Book Sleeves, Initial Trinket Dishes, the Sleepy Baby Doll, the Charm Square Doll Blanket, the Evergreen Washcloth, Charm Square Coasters, and Trinity Stitch Cup Sleeves, with several more projects to come over the next few weeks leading up to Christmas. 

How to Make a Christmas Treat Jar

You will need:

• a jar (I used a small 8 oz. jar, and a 16 oz. jar)
• permanent vinyl (I used Cricut Smart Vinyl- but would recommend regular vinyl, details below)
• transfer tape
• Cricut (or cutting machine)

Instructions:

Choose or create designs that you want to use on your jars. I used two designs directly from Design Space- #M2FD02F05 and #M505936F3

I resized the designs I used to about 2", which I felt was a good size for the jar. 

Cut the designs out of vinyl. I used Cricut Smart Vinyl, which I normally love because it doesn't require a mat for cutting, but in this case I would not recommend using it. The smart vinyl has a really thick and stiff which makes it really hard to peel off when transferring the decal to the transfer tape. I lost a couple of the small lines on the tree design because I just couldn't get all of the pieces off smoothly. So for decals this small I would definitely recommend regular vinyl cut on a mat. 

Weed the designs and place on the jars.

Fill your jar with whatever you are putting in it and either leave it there or you can tie a cute ribbon around the top, put a fabric circle over the top, add a tag, or however you want to finish it off.