2-5 August, 2012
On Thursday, we canned double batches of our newly jazzed up recipes for Bread & Butter Pickles and Sweet & Tangy Pickle Relish. As we were waiting for our veggies to brine in the fridge for a few hours, the kids, remembering the fun labels we created last year, used coloured pencils and oil pastel crayons to design some artwork to use as the background for this year’s labels on our home-canned goods. Bea took on the relish, while Tobes chose pickles. This year’s work was completely abstract! I think they were inspired both by the Pollock-esque Mini Action Paintings we created for Bea’s BIRTHDAY pARTy last fall and by the artwork we’d been looking at, particularly that of Stuart Davis, when we brainstormed for our Outdoor Mural. After the kids had finished their designs, we created our labels and “glammed” the first of our 2012 cans.
Kid-Designed Canning Labels DIY
Materials
Paper
Coloured Pencils, Oil Pastels, Crayons, Paints, or Markers
Scanner/Computer/Printer
Avery Labels (we use #22807, 2 inch round, glossy white, 12 per page)
or
8.5 x 11 Sheets of White Sticker Paper (Sometimes found at the Dollar Store) & Scissors
Method
Optional: Trace a circle or a square frame on a piece of paper so that the artwork will easily crop to a circular shape.
Have the kids create an abstract (within the optional frame) on the page in strokes and shapes of colour.
Scan the image and save it to your computer:
Use the free photo editing site fotoflexer.com or your fave photoediting software to do the following:
Use the Basic: Crop feature, crop the artwork into a square (if it is not perfectly square already).
You will lose some of the artwork with this option.
Use the Decorate: Borders tool and select Rounded Corners option.
Drag the radio button from the – to the + to transform the picture from a square into a circle.
You will lose some of the artwork wtih this option.
Use the Decorate: Text tool to add one or more text boxes to the circular portion of your picture.
(Opt for the transparent background for each text box)
Save the picture to your computer.
Download a suitable Label Template from the Avery Site or from the site of your label provider.
Even if you are using full-sheet sticker paper, you can use Avery’s label templates to create a template to suit.
Here’s a copy in MSWord of the free template we frequently use: 2 Inch Circular Label Template, 12 Per Page.
Open your Template in Word or in another compatible word processing program.
Choose to Insert a Picture into the center of the first circle in the template.
Size your inserted picture to fit the circle on the template.
Repeat or copy and paste until you’ve filled as many circles as you would like to print.
Save your completed document with a new file name.
Print your completed document on your label or sticker sheet.
Attach the labels to the sealed lids of your canning jars.
Family Fun Photo Gallery:
Stay tuned for more post-canning canning-label workshops in the coming weeks!!!
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