Cookies In A Jar - Housewarming Gift Ideas + Free Printable
I love giving little homemade gifts to friends and family especially for special occasions such as baby showers, bridal showers or birthdays and sometimes just because. I had a friend move back to our home town recently and I wanted to bring something around when I visited as a little homemade welcoming gift or housewarming gift for her. I ummed and ahhed over what to make as I wanted to gift to be homemade with a little touch from me. It got me thinking about what it means to me to make a house a home. To me a house becomes a home when the first batch of chocolate chip cookies are pulled out from the oven and placed onto the bench to cool.
illing the air with the scent of freshly baked cookies is a sure fire way to make a house feel lived in. It is the comfort, warmth and a feeling of security to sit around with the ones you love munching on cookies and washing them down with warm mugs of tea or cold glasses of milk. So instead of making cookies to give to her I thought I would give her a jar of my Peanut Butter & Choc Chunk cookie mix to allow her the pleasure (or pain depending if you like to bake) of filling her new house with the scents of freshly baked cookies and making it into a home.
If cookie mixes aren’t your thing I’ve also got another little gift idea for you. Potted house plants! Who doesn’t love houseplants? I adore them and it a nicely placed plant makes a house feel lived in. It’s cheaper than a pet and only requires a little attention and care to thrive. I bought a beautiful little flowering African Violet and ensconced it in a sweet thrifted pot for myself but this idea would make a great alternative house warming gift.
So let’s talk how we make these gifts look a million dollars.
To start off the cookie jar you need the ingredients for the cookie mix, a large glass (about 4-5 cup capacity), and a piece of material, jute string and adhesive labels.
The first step is to fill the jar with the Cookie Mix ingredients. The recipe for the
I placed the ingredients in the following order so that the full effect of the different colours and textures could be appreciated.
- Flour & Baking Powder
- Oats
- Chocolate
- Brown Sugar (I used all brown sugar instead of partly white and brown)
- Peanut Butter
- Coconut (I only managed to fit half of what the recipe stated)
Once the ingredients were layered I closed the lid and attached the piece of fabric to the top of the jar and secured it with a piece of jute twine.
I used the Avery Gloss White Round label to create the cookie jar label and the Matt White Tags for the houseplant. By customising the labels and tags is a fantastic way to make a simple looking gift into something pretty special. The process of creating your own custom label is really simple. Simply visit
, type in the software code located on the packaging and select the template you want to work with.
I chose to use the blank template and create my labels from scratch. The design section in the site is really easy to navigate and has heaps of different options to choose from to create your custom label. I went with a simple font and decided to forgo any further decoration for the Cookie Mix label. I had other plans for that once it was printed. I also created a label for the top of the jar explaining what other ingredients need to be added to the cookie mix. For the tags I sketched a little whimsical house and scanned it, uploaded the image to the online software and added it to the tag template. A little sweet note and the tags and labels were complete. For the
free printable for these labels
see the end of the post.
I printed them off on my inkjet printer and they printed off beautifully. To add a little pizazz to the labels I decided to spray paint the edges with gold paint. I removed the Matt White Tags that I was using from the sheet and lay them in a row on the ground. I covered up the printed section with a piece of cardboard to block the paint from spraying on it and left a small section at the bottom. I sprayed this area with gold paint making sure I left it a little splattered looking and not completely painted. I left them to dry and started on the Cookie Mix labels. I ripped edges of a piece of paper wide enough to cover the printed centre of the label. I placed this over the centre of the label and sprayed the edges that were overhanging with the gold paint. The ripped edges of the paper created this rough effect where the paint finished on the label and I think it turned out pretty cool. I just attached the labels to the top and front of the jar and the tags were attached to the potted plant with jute twine.
These gift ideas are pretty versatile and don't have to be just used as a house warming gift. They can be customized to birthdays, baby or bridal shower favours, Christmas or Easter gifts or a simple hostess gift. Let your imagination run wild!
On a side note: Carol if you are reading this post and I haven't given you your Cookie Mix yet it is on it's way! :-) SURPRISE!!!!
I would love to see your cookie jar creations so make sure to tag me over on
or
. #thewhimsicalwifecookiejar #CelebrateWithAvery
For those wanting to print their own labels see below for your free printable! These Cookie labels work with the Avery Round Labels {Code: L7270} and the gift tags work with the Avery Matt White Tags {Code: C32303}
Happy creating everyone.
{Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Avery products however all opinions and creative input were my own. }
