gift idea > d.i.y sweet jar

Let's face it Christmas is expensive. I wanted to somehow balance out the blatant consumerism which may appear on the blog throughout December by sharing a quick and inexpensive idea which I often gift - the D.I.Y sweet jar! You see a lot of these in the stores this time of year. They're usually plastic jars (rather than glass), with somewhat tacky labels and priced anywhere between £8 to £15 or more. You can put this together yourself for pennies. The best thing is that you can tailor each jar to the likes of the recipient. My nephew gets Smarties, Jack gets Refreshers, Love Hearts and Drumsticks (he's obsessed with sweets from his childhood!) and my dad gets mint humbugs.

So here's the details: I use Douwe Egberts glass coffee jars, just because we drink that coffee (lots of it!) so they're completely free. They're far too good to recycle so I prefer to reuse - see another use for them here). IKEA sell small and large food jars which would also work perfectly for 75-80p see here and here. I wrap red raffia around the neck of the jar twice and tie in a bow. I had this left over from wrapping Christmas presents so again, this was free. Raffia can be purchased on eBay. I have used this seller. Alternatively, you could use ribbon.
Finally, the labels are what pulls it all together. I used white 160gsm printer friendly card stock (left over from a previous project but you can find this at any stationers such as WHSmith, Ryman) and took advantage of these amazing free printables by Ellinee. I've pinned the ones I used within my Pinterest so if you need them they're right here!
What do you think? Is this something you'd try?
This post was brought to you in collaboration with NOW: Pensions as a way of encouraging people to save money this Christmas and to plan for the future.
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