DIY jam jar placecards

... or something like that.

In the early days, when the wedding was a fantasy far far away and I was obsessed with the idea that everything about the wedding had to be personal, made by me, and reflect our personalities and lifestyle (HA. HAHAHAHAHAHA), I wanted to make jam for our favors. 200 jars of jam. I smartened up quick, don't worry.



INSTEAD, (because I have issues with letting things go once my heart is set on them), I decided to make jam as favors/placecards for our rehearsal dinner. 40 jars of jam it turns out, was less impossible. Though take note, it did encroach on my crafting time and has subsequently resulted in the recent removal of 2 major projects from my list. For that, I whole-heartedly thank East Side Bride, who in her "wedding graduate" post on A Practical Wedding says:

"3. Know when to let go. Two days before the wedding, your to-do list will seem insurmountable. It is. Take a fat sharpie, cross out three big projects, and get some sleep. Seriously."

Kay, well, 10 days before our wedding I'm taking your advice. It truly feels amazing. I just deleted 1) welcome bags (sorry guests, but I'm sure you'll agree that my sanity and beauty sleep are far more important than the goccoed gift bag full of spiced nuts, dates, oranges, etc. you were going to receive upon checking in to the hotel), and 2) the Cookie Bar. Again so sorry, but we have an excellent favor alternative that does not involve me making 12 batches of cookie dough and then baking 400 cookies in the few days before the wedding. More on our alternate favor later.

But I digress, as usual.



Anyway, I'm super excited to give our bridal party and close fam a little token of our appreciation for coming out 2 days early (our rehearsal dinner is on Thursday), to celebrate with us. I've been making batches of jam for a few weeks... One is the yummy yummy yummy Fig & Lavender jam I posted about a while back. And the other flavor is a new one for me, Plum Vanilla. It's really good too. I stumbled upon it on Martha's site while looking for something interesting to make with the last bits of summer fruit at the Farmer's Market.





It's all about the vanilla beans. Sooo good.

I used leftover ribbon from our invites to tie on the name tags. I don't love the tags actually, but following the advice of many a bride before me, no one will know that I planned to make cute gocco-ed tags instead of these that I busted out in 20 minutes last night with a handy tag-shaped punch from Michaels. Which I finally learned is a pretty nifty store.