hand stamped jam knives

I shared on Monday about my jam making adventure. I also left you with a preview of a small project I did as an accompaniment to my gifting jars of peach jam to friends and family. Im sure we've all seen the hammered flat spoons with stamped lettering, right? Here's another spin on silverware stamping, butter/jam knives.

I made a stop by the thrift store and picked up a variety of spreader knives for $.10 each. Then using the metal stamping kit I already had I picked a phrase and steadied my hand. One good whack of the hammer on the end of the stamp was all it took. The hardest part is lining up the letters straight and getting a good impression on the silverware. Hit it too hard and you'll double up the letter, too soft and you wont get the full letter stamped into the knife.

After the knives were stamped I used a permanent sharpie and filled the letters in. Then I used a magic eraser to wipe off the excess sharpie, leaving the letters darkened. Then to make sure the knife is food safe I ran them through the dishwasher. Easy peasy!

Don't they make the most darling accessory? And they were easy! I'm going to help a friend stamp names into spoons as favors for the kiddos at her daughters ice cream themed 3rd birthday party. How cute is that idea?!

homemade peach jam

I may have a new hobby. Yes, another to add to the list of 1,345,215 things that I enjoy doing. Canning! Travis and I ventured into canning when we were trying to make his barbecue sauce shelf stable. So we packed the mason jars full of sauce and boiled them, then sat back and listened to the "ping, ping, ping" and they self sealed. So gratifying to hear that little sound.

My sister in law recently bought a new house in the area and was lucky enough that the property came with 3 mature fruit trees, two apricot and one peach. We feasted on apricots (one of my favorites) prior to out adventures in canning, otherwise i'd be slathering apricot jam on every food item at every meal. 

Don't get me wrong, when we visited the new place a few weeks later we were lucky enough to pull about 20lbs of beautifully ripe peaches from her tree. She didn't want them and sent them home with us. I immediately knew I wanted to try my hand at making peach jam and canning it, and so I did!

We followed the directions on the back of the Sure Jell pectin package. "If its not broke don't fix it" was our first time jam making motto. And it turned out SO GOOD!!! I made a whopping 21 jars of jam and our tiny family of three has already gone through almost three jars. 

I also had to have labels for the jars. Im kinda obsessed with sticker paper and making custom tags and labels and stuff. It makes it look so much more official. I came across this amazing site called the jam labelizer where you can customize different designs and print them. Super easy, super cute. I named my jam after the little one-of course. 

I also DIY'ed a little something extra to go with the jam I gave to a few friends. There's a sneak peak below, but I'll share more about that later this week. Now don't be intimidated, go make some jam!