Potato Soup in a Jar!

SPOILER ALERT - I am sure that some of my readers are going to be receiving the following project as a Christmas gift!  I apologize in advance for spoiling the surprise, and we hope that you enjoy!!

Every year I write out the list of people that we would like to give gifts to!  Each year Derik and I stare at each other and say "What are we going to get them?!?!".  So, I decided making Potato Soup Jars would be an easy and fun gift to give to our couple friends... and it wouldn't be expensive or ultra time consuming!  It's dinner for a family of 4!  Making the jars took me about 30 min, the tags another 30 min, and getting them "finished" another 30 minutes.  So, this project took me about an hour and a half to get finished!  Of course I had to go get everything to put the jars together!  So, I made my shopping list and headed to the store!

List

• 1 Case of 12 Quart Size mason jars - (I got the Better Homes & Garden brand, because the lids looked like Christmas and they were cheaper than the Ball jars!)
• 2 Spools of green Ribbon
• 2 Large Boxes of Instant Potatoes
• 5 Sprinkle Cheese Shakers (only used 3)
• 4 Containers of Freeze Dried Chives (only used 2)
• 1 Container of Chicken Bouillon Cubes
• 1 White Pepper Spice
• 1 Dried Mustard Spice
• 7 Bags of Herbed Croutons... depends on what size you are buying... you need 18 cups total!

After picking up all of the products, I headed home to get to work!  After wiping all of the jars and lids down... I used a canning funnel and layered the ingredients as followed


Ingredients

• 2 Cups of Instant Mashed Potatoes
• 1/8 cup of Sprinkle Cheese
• 1 Tbspn Dried Chives
• 1 Tspn Chicken Bouillon Cubes (Ground up... I just used my Pampered Chef chopper!)
• 1/2 Tspn Dry Mustard
• 1/4 Tspn White Pepper
• and then filled the remainder of the jar with croutons, about 1 1/2 Cups...

The jar is ready for decorating!!

I created labels with instructions and ingredients on Avery Labels that I already owned!  

I picked out some Christmas scrapbook paper, and used my paper cutter to cut it down to 4"x4 1/2" so that it was bigger than the Avery Label.  

I stuck an Ingredients list on the front, and a Directions List on the back!  

Then I simply punched a hole in the tag, and tied it onto the jar using the green ribbon, 

which I had cut into strips!

This was really pretty easy, and it was very cost effective!

Cost -
Jars - $8
Ribbon - $.94
Potatoes - $5.16
Cheese - $5.07
Chives - $4.78
Boullion -$2
Dry Mustard - $2.53
White Pepper - $2.18
Croutons - $11.13

Total Cost of Project was $41.79, but when you divide that by 12, we only spent about $3.50 on each jar!  That means I got 12 Christmas presents for about $40!!  That is good spending! 

 - Jessica