My good friends got married in June and I wanted to give them a special handmade gift. On their registry they had mentioned wanting a herb and flower garden and to bring a plant to contribute to their future garden. However, I knew they were going to be moving soon and thought seeds would be a better contribution to their new garden since seeds can travel anywhere and recently I have been talking a lot about saving seeds (here, here and here). I found the smallest 4 oz. jam jars that were perfect in which to put seeds. I figure after they are done with the seeds they can always use the jam jars for something else. I love reusable gifts that keep on giving!

To dress up the jars I decided to make labels. I wanted to do something special so I got inspiration from the couple’s wedding invitations. Their invitations were handmade by a printing press and they found the perfect plate of California poppies to go behind their initials. I drew a mock up to include both of their initials and left room on the side to write what seed was in the jar and the year the seed was saved. Once I had a mock up that I liked, I traced the label onto small pieces of paper. This proved a bit difficult because the paper I used was thick watercolor paper through which it was hard to see. I ended up holding the paper up to the window and had to trace mid-air using a plastic box top to let in the light. Then I colored in the poppy and lastly I outlined the letters in black. I did this last because otherwise the color would smear into the black ink and I didn’t get a clean look.

I taped the labels to the front of the jars and then filled the jars with my saved seed. I thought it would be cute to make tiny seed directions to include inside with the seeds. This way when the couple opens up the seed jars they find a little surprise inside as well!

I found the perfect gardening harvest basket to put the seeds inside (you always need a handy basket when you start harvesting, flowers and herbs!) and lined the basket with straw which they can use as mulch in their new garden! I also added some herb labels and two tea towels to wrap their freshly picked herbs. Here’s to the happy couple!

Want to make your own wedding seed gift? Here are the materials you will need:

• 4 oz Ball Jam Jars
• Thick watercolor or drawing paper
• Double sided tape
• Ruler
• Scissors
• Pencil and eraser
• Nice pens (I used Color Petel Fine Point pens, Stabilo Point 88 Mini pens, and Uni-ball Vision Exact Black pen)
• See through board to trace on, or light table
• Seeds