Quick Autumny Gifts

All safe at home together.  These are our three youngest kitties.....littermates, born last year to my daughter's cat, Cleopatra.  The little female, Judith, in the upper right had been missing for a couple weeks or so.  I was heartsick because of all the predators we have around here, but I kept hanging on to hope that she was still alive.  Our recent weather has been cold and violent, in turns.  Last night the wind was gusting around 50 mph.....not exactly clement weather for a little lady kitty all out on her own.  But today she came racing on to the back porch area......dehydrated and skinny, but okay.  It was sweet to see her tonight all snuggled together with her two brother kitties:  Caspian (left) and Brian.  Judith has the best spot with Brian half-lying on her.  :)

Hi, Friends....

I have been doing a little crafting (in between naps!!) but haven't gotten anything posted for a while.  One fun and easy project I worked on recently was a set of autumn decorated jars filled with candy that I made to give to some girlfriends who had birthdays.  

I used some recycled almond butter jars and wrapped either some burlap ribbon or sheer ribbon around them.  (I scored these ribbons at 90% off at Walmart!!  Woo-hoo!!)  I attached some autumn leaves over the sheer ribbon, but left the burlap ribbon by itself.  I used my Sizzix - Circles, Scallop dies to cut scalloped circles from some DCWV autumn scraps for the jar lids and topped with some autumn leaves I had glittered and some gold bows.  I filled them with some yummy wrapped caramels, toffees, etc.  Super easy peasy!!!

Another little thing I usually include in gifts for my girlfriends is a set of A2 sized notecards.  I do the very simplest thing imaginable.....I choose pretty DCWV patterned paper, trim and fold.  On these particular sets, I rounded the two outer corners of each card.  I tie together 2 each of 3 prints with white envelopes with a coordinating ribbon and package them in a zip-close sandwich bag.  So super easy, but they seem to like them.  :)  For these girlfriend gifts, I also included a purchased autumny kitchen towel.  You can see the gifts for these three gal pals in their sets below:

Hope this has given you some ideas for simple and quick autumn gifts.  Wouldn't some of these make a nice hostess gift for Thanksgiving?  And the ideas can be adapted for Christmas or other occasions by varying the prints and patterns.  You could even try making more masculine-looking jars, since some guys really like candy. These would be easy to make ahead and have on hand for quick gifts!  (I say this in theory, only, because I don't know when I have ever made a gift ahead of time to have on hand!!!  lol..  Well, maybe my notecard sets, but nothing else!)

Thanks for stopping by!  I have a bunch of Christmas cards I've been making that need to be blogged, too, so you might be seeing a lot of posts coming soon...if I can muster up the energy!!!

<3
Janis

Thank you for the honor of entering these decorated jars in the following challenges:
1.  Crafty Gals Corner Challenge #46 - Use Scraps
2.  Pixie's Snippets Playground Week #203 - Use Snippets
3.  Tuesday Throwdown #271 - Shopping Spree
4.  DL.Art November Linky Challenge - Anything Goes
5.  Little Scrap Pieces Show-It-Off Saturday Linky Party - Anything Goes
6.  Amusing Challenge - Fall Colors
7.  DRS Designs Challenge #201 - Inspired by Color