homemade gifts – Sacramento Mom Blog

Ever thought of making your own line of honey without becoming a beekeeper? Need a project to do with school-aged kids while making gifts for friends this season? Today is your day!

This year, I decided to infuse Sacramento honey with garden herbs! To gift 12 special people in my life, I spent about $2.50 a person.

Here is what you will need:

5 days lead time
Honey (I got 5 lbs because I wanted extra, talk to the honey people)
12- 4oz mason jars
Dried Herb – choose one herb type per jar. If possible, dry the herb on the stem
Large soup pot
Tea kettle

First, stop by Sacramento’s famous Sacramento Beekeeping Store, located near X & 21st Street. Did you know they have a tasting area? For real though! You can taste all sorts of local honey and decide which one would go best with the herb of your choice. Also, they can help you calculate how much honey you will need. Why is that important? Because honey is very dense and is measured by weight verses ounces. For a 4oz jar you need 5oz honey. Honestly, my brain cannot even handle the calculations and lucky for me the beekeepers are there to help.

When you see this, you’ve come to the right place! My kid is cute, right?!

Tasting area! All were delish!

Sacramento Wildflower honey has a strong and wonderful taste.

I chose Delta Wildflowers! It’s more mellow. Who knew?!

Okay, a note about your dried herbs. The jar will look cuter when the herb is dried on the stem. A trimming of rosemary or mint can be dried upside down in a paper bag. You can also use a dehydrator but be careful with your delicate babies. The key is to have completely dried herbs that are fresh (if not dried all the way, they will mold).

I wanted to use lavender but quickly learned a couple facts from reading up on it. First, only English Lavender is edible. That’s important, right? Second, only the flowers have enough flavor to infuse. My plants at home are not in season so I made due with purchasing local buds from my honey friends.

Local herbs and instructions. Better safe that sorry.

So you’re ready? Let’s do this!

Sanitize your mason jars and lids. I boil the pieces for about 5 minutes and then let air dry.

Put a sprig of herb in the bottom of your container or along the side. I used flower buds so I put 1/2tsp in the bottom of my jar. Meantime, warm water in your kettle until it’s screaming. Then pour water into a soup pot. Place the honey (in the container you purchased it in) into the hot water to warm it until it’s nice and syrupy. The runnier the honey the better. Add more water as needed.

Once the honey is warmed, pour it into your jars. You will notice that the herbs want to rise to the top. That’s okay!

My jug

My jug in a bath

My honey pots

Close them up and store them upside down for 5 days.

For flower buds, flipping them doesn’t matter; however, for sprigs it does.

All that’s left is to make them cute and give them away!

Side note, if you want to infuse more flavor than what this recipe suggests, a drop or two of edible essential oil of your herb will do the trick. Just warm the honey jar in a water bath, add and stir.

My cute honey pots ready to go to their new holiday homes. I added a note stating it was Sacramento Delta Wildflowers for an “oooh-aaah”factor.

Did you know that honey never goes rancid? If it crystalizes, you can just warm it up in a water bath and it will be as good as new.

That’s about it. Have fun giving your one of a kind honey to your friends!

Written by Mariah Cook, Sacramento mom and lover of bees everywhere. After making and giving this honey, she was was asked if she has her own bee hive. She thinks the beekeepers in Sacramento are doing a mighty fine job and she will gladly support their work.

Nothing says, “Mini Garden,” quite like a terrarium. Terrariums are a great gift and fun craft to make with kids. Personally, watching them grow is an equally magical part of having one as each plant grows differently in whatever container you use. Succulents are a favorite these days because they are low maintenance and require very little water, which is a good thing because water is pretty rare these days in lovely Sacramento, California. Here is my step-by-step succulent terrarium using a mason jar, plants from my own garden, and tools from my kitchen.

What You Need:
Mason jar
Tiny succulents
Tiny helper hand (optional)
Potting soil (you gan get at Dollar Tree)
Small rocks (Dollar Tree)
Floral moss (Dollar Tree)
Chop stick
Tweezers
Toothpick
Spoon
Spray bottle with water
Miniature action figure (optional)

One thing to note about terrariums is that they need drainage to prevent the roots of the plants from rotting. There will come a day when you over-water this by accident. Drainage will give you the grace you need. It also gives you the opportunity to create great layers of colors in your jar. I am creating a jungle theme with this one, so I chose earth tones.

First, place a layer of small rocks at the base of your jar. You can choose any color rock you want! I went with river rock colors. At minimum, make sure your layer of rock covers the entire surface of the bottom of the container. The more rocks you add beyond that will add height to the overall garden inside.

Then, add a layer of moss. Moss comes in all sorts of fun colors too! The purpose of the moss is to create a barrier between the soil and the rocks. If your moss is dry, you can lightly mist it with a spray bottle to get it to pack down. If you want a thin layer of moss, be sure the layer is still dense enough to prevent soil from slipping down into the rocks. This will create the drainage for your garden and add a layered look.

Take a moment to choose your mini plants. I have a small succulent garden that is slowly growing already. I decided to just pick a few of my own guys. The key: The smaller the better because it will GROW over time. I chose a small Hen and Chicks and a couple types of Sedum.

No need to get crazy on a million plants. If the terrarium looks a little sparse don’t panic. Plan based the fact that they will grow.

Put in a layer of soil in your jar. You can spritz the dirt to moisten if it seems too dry. You only need enough soil to cover the roots of the plants, but added soil will lift your garden higher. Maybe you like that. Do what you want! You can spoon in extra soil as needed once you have them in place. I use long tweezers, a chopstick, and a toothpick to get the job done. This is the hardest part, but is fun. Tiny kid hands work great too. If you have a plant that seems to lean to one side and you can’t get it placed ‘just right,’ you can use a rock to aid in your efforts.

Add decoration like small rocks, sand, twigs, or miniature fun stuff. I chose rocks, an army man, and a small can of beer (don’t judge me).

Spray down the inside of the jar to rid the sides of dirt, clean the plants, and moisten the soil. Then use a tissue to, ever so GENTLY, wipe down the inside of the terrarium.

For a mason jar, put the rim on the jar but not the lid portion. You do not want to cover the top of this container or it will mold and die. I tied some kitchen twine at the top too! Cute, but not obnoxious.

Enjoy! With Father’s Day around the corner, this might be right up your ally! These do great in offices, in kitchens, in kid’s rooms, and you only need to lightly water them when you actually remember. And let’s face it, as parents, there is no way we will remember. But hey, your kid(s) might remind you.

Here are a few other terrariums I have done in the past to help inspire you: