Cookies for Santa

Christmas time isn't complete without a little plaid and some Christmas cookies! The two are a perfect pair to create a classic homey feel. I was given a project for my internship toward the end of the semester for a Christmas themed table complete with not only a center piece, but also a name plate and party favor. After researching on Pinterest, I decided that my inspiration was a mason jar. Yes, a mason jar. From there the rest of the concept of the table fell into place. 

Starting with the mason jar I decided that I was going to make a cookie mix to go into the jar and attach a label with directions to make the cookies. This craft is fairly common and found all over Pinterest. I also did this for a project in 5th grade too. It's great because it is super simple an cute and cheap. Plus who doesn't like cookies at Christmas time?! The ingredients needed to make 12 pint sized cookie mix filled jars include:

-3/4 cup flour

-1/4 cup sugar

-1/4 teaspoon baking soda

-1/4 cup brown sugar

-red and green M&Ms

To make the jars you'll need a funnel of some kind or you can use a plastic baggie and cut a hole in the bottom corner. Using a baggie worked pretty well for a makeshift funnel. At this point I added the flour, baking soda, sugar, and brown sugar. The order isn't a huge deal and can go almost however you want. I would recommend putting the flour first as it is messy and the most of any one ingredient. Lastly, I filled the remaining empty jar with the M&Ms. Here is what the jar looked like at this point.

Being pint sized, there were super cute on their own, but needed some kind of label. I went back and forth on what to do for the label. After several ideas floated around in my head I ended up drawing this.

I immediately became obsessed with my little drawing and started brainstorming ways of mass-producing my art. I found myself at my schools "maker lab". This is basically a crafters heaven as they kind of specialize in projects and MAKING stuff. Normally I wouldn't use the word stuff, but in this case it's appropriate as the maker lab makes all kinds of projects. After taking to a maker lab "maker" she suggested that I make my drawing into a stamp. Yes, a stamp. So i scanned in my drawing and it was put into Illustrator in order to make the white sections as white as they could be and the pencil marks as dark as they could be. It was then sent to a lazer printer and burned into a stamp material.

After the printer finished its work, I super glued it to a piece of wood.

So to make the actual tag I used a white stamp ink and black card stalk. The only recommendation I have for the stamp ink is to use waterproof ink. After stamping the card stalk, I let I dry and then touched up as needed with a white gel pin.

{this was for a letter project using different colors}

When everything had dried, I cut the tags down to a smaller size leaving a small black edge. I then took a piece of chalk and covered the tag with it in order to give it a chalkboard look. Then so the chalk would stay, I sprayed the tags with some hairspray. The card stock will curl slightly so be careful with your project. To attach them to the jar I hole punched the tag and tied it on with twine. The final project turned out like this.

For the name plate I hand wrote the names on the same card stalk I used earlier. I wrote them in chalk and touched it up and make it bolder with a white gel pin. Covered in chalk, hairspray, and folded in order to stand, they made pretty good name plates.

The bulk of what I spent and made was for these pieces. The center piece was mostly put together with items found around the storage room and really came together with the linens. Here is what the final table looked like when if was complete.

Like I said the linen brought the whole table together. The entire table was covered in a basic white tablecloth and then three plaid runners were put over them. The napkins were neat because they were not only plaid, but had a burlap like part on the inside. The main part of the table has tree stumps with candles and acorns as well as several pine cones. The center of the table had a piece of burlap, to tie in the burlap on the napkins, and coffee berries.

I was very pleased with how everything turned out and had some fun in the process. How cool is it that I get paid to not only do Pinterest projects, but make my own. Happy Pinning and Merry Christmas!


Your Favorite Redhead