Speaking of Jam Favors...

A Canning Party

What better party favor than jars of tasty canned goods that can be enjoyed year round?

Making jam can be delicious sticky fun, but the real adventure comes when you take it to the next level: the canning party. Perhaps you’d like to share the magic of jam-making with a dozen friends? Or maybe just have someone to talk to while you pit 40 pounds of peaches?

Why not turn canning into a party? Send out invites to friends and family and include several recipe cards so they can fill them out and share their favorite recipes for jams, pickles, sauces, and more. Decide if you’d like guests to arrive with their ingredients, or if you’d like to include a trip to a nearby farmers’ market or U-pick farm as part of the day’s activities. Also, ask guests to share in advance what recipe they will be preparing to avoid duplications. Be sure to have plenty of extra recipe cards on hand during the party for recipes created on the fly, and have plenty of labels and tags, too, so everyone can label what they made and share with the other guests.

There are plenty of resources on the web to help you figure out what supplies you'll need if this is your first time canning. Lots of recipes, too!

Pick Your Own is a fantastic resource for learning how to can pretty much anything.

Fresh Preserving has step-by-step videos on canning different types of goods, and they have an online shop where you can purchase canning jars and more.

The National Center for Home Food Preservation is another great resource with plenty of safety tips and recipes.

Sunset has a great article that gives you a basic outline for throwing a canning party. Recipes included, too (like this one for raspberry blackberry jam!)

I like the site Canning Across America, too! Lots and lots of resources there. 

Want more canning tips? 

-Follow directions and use only tested recipes. Do both of these things and you won’t need to worry about botulism.

-Can foods that taste much better in season than out of season.

-Make large amounts so you get a good payoff for your time.
-Don’t double the recipes For reliable results, stick to the amounts given. If you want to make two batches, start the second while the first is in the canner.

Guess what the coolest part is? All the adorable paper goods you're feasting your eyes on are... drum roll... free printables!! Thats right, you can download and print the invitations, envelope liners (fit 4 Bar envelopes from Paper Source), jar tags, recipe cards, and circle labels. Since the canning party labels and tags are completely blank, you can print them out and write in whatever you’d like. Or, if you have access to a graphics program (FotoFlexer is a great online tool!), you can open the files and use them as a background for a text layer containing your information.

So, who wants to have a canning party with me?? 

Thanks DOMISTIFLUFF for the idea and free printables!