Handmade Holiday: Hostess Gift

'Tis the season for holiday parties and visits to friends and family, both near and far. It's not my nature to show up empty-handed at someone's holly-decked door, so I like to bring a little hostess gift to express my gratitude for the person's company and festivities. We have our first holiday party tomorrow evening, so I thought I'd bring my friend Kate and her family some homemade goodness.
I put together a little brown bag of kitchen goodies, including a hand-printed tea towel from Flying Rhymes, a great little shop with Scandanavian-inspired wares. Here are a few other examples of the printed tea towels. Quite charming!
I also embellished a jar of local jam with some scrapbooking paper and jute. All you need to do is cut a square a bit larger than the jar's lid,

fold it in half to make a triangle,

and fold in half again,

and yet again, so that it's folded into eighths.

Then you want to round the outer edge with scissors, forming a pie-shaped wedge.

Then you cut a few scallops or zigzags along the rounded edge. It's a little like those snowflakes you used to make as a kid, which would be equally nice on top of a jar of jam.

You just need to tie it on the top of the lid, which is easier said than done. It helps to have a second pair of hands to hold the paper in place.

I wish I could take credit for all of the hand-making here, but sadly, the only thing I had time to make was the jar of herbal tea, which was organically grown in my garden. It's a blend of peppermint and lemon balm, which I packaged in a recycled baby food jar.
The final touch was a flame-blackened spreader from Jonathan's Wild Cherry Wooden Spoons, a shop that I highly recommend for any handmade holiday gifts. The flame-blackened wood items are nice because they don't get "fuzzy" when they're wet, which wood naturally does.
I took a ride out to Jonathan's studio today and got to see where the spoons are made and shipped. I swooned over spoons, and all of the other wonderful items. I bought some Christmas gifts, and also a ladle for myself. I know I'll be headed out there to buy some more things very soon.

The final touch was a scrapbook paper flower to embellish the brown bag. I just made three more of the paper jar-toppers and punched two holes in the centers of them, then threaded some yarn through to secure them to the bag's handle. It's a step beyond the traditional red and green. I took a cue from the colors of the tea towel.
So that's it! I hope Kate likes it. It seems a little more interesting than a bottle of wine.