Valentine’s Day is almost here and if your haven’t started thinking about gifts for your loved ones, I have just the idea for you!  For my Christmas gift to my co-workers and friends this year, I made mason jars filled with homemade candy.  I then covered the jar with muslin fabric (stenciled with the holiday greeting “cheers!”) and tied it on with red and green ribbon.  Like most things around here, I finished it late the day before I was handing them out with no day light left.  Therefore, I never came up with a good picture to share with you all.

After thinking about what I could make and write about on the blog for Valentine’s Day, I thought of re-creating the gift jars, except for a Valentine’s day gift.   Mason jars are such a cute way to gift and are usually less than a dollar.  The jars can be filled with whatever store-bought candy or homemade candy you would like to fill them with.  For Christmas I filled them with crock pot candies and peanut brittle.   The crock pot candy was so popular that I decided to fill my jars with them again because it was so simple to make.  I had originally planned to make homemade peanut butter cups for my jars, but had run out of time and calories!

Muslin fabric is one of the cheapest kinds of fabric you can buy.  I bought four yards at Christmas time and used a 50% off coupon so it ended up costing about four dollars!  I will have enough fabric to make gift jars for every holiday for the rest of my life!  As for ribbon, I always stock up on the 50 cent Offray ribbon at the craft stores in all the colors and different sizes.   For 50 cents, you just can’t go wrong!  I love combining different colors and sizes for a texture effect.  Mason jars can be bought at the grocery store, Target or even Amazon for less than a dollar each.

If this project is last minute for you, think about using store-bought Valentine’s Day candies such as conversation hearts, M&M’s, Reese’s, Mini Snickers, and or Hershey’s Kisses.  I also came up with a list of homemade candies that you could gift in these jars if you have more time (lucky!)

From our Blog:

• Crock Pot Candies
• Light Caramel Corn
• Chocolate Oreo Truffles
• Golden Oreo Truffles
• Puppy Chow
• White Trash Party Mix

From Other Blogs:

• Homemade Peanut Butter Cups from Brown Eyed Baker
• Valentine’s Day Homemade Gumdrops from Mom on Timeout
• Peanut Butter Pretzel Truffles from Annie’s Eats
• Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles from Inside BruCrew Life

Materials:

• Muslin Fabric
• Fabric Scissors
• Fabric Paint
• Foam Brush
• Heart Stencil (or card stock paper with a heart cut out of it)
• Rubber Band
• Colored Ribbons
• Mason Jars, cleaned and dried
• Tags

Cut muslin fabric in a 6-inch circle. Stencil the middle of fabric with heart by dabbing fabric paint with a foam brush.  Make sure to put scrap paper underneath because some paint might bleed through.

Let the fabric dry.

Fill your jars with candy and close with lids.

  Take the fabric circle on the top of the lid and place rubber band to hold it in place around the lid.

 Cut about 2 feet of each ribbon color you intend to use.   Double knot the ribbon on top of the rubber band and then carefully pull the rubber band out from below so that ribbon remains holding the fabric over lid.

String tag onto of the ribbons and then tie bow on top. Ta da!  Happy Valentine’s Day!