There are the people you buy gifts for each year–your family members usually and sometimes you throw in a close friend or two. And then there are those special people you would love to give a gift to, but doing so would put you in the poor house. For us this category is filled with about two dozen or so people. This is where “gifts in a jar” become a nice thing to give. 
What is so nice about gifts in a jar? Well, I love the fact that I can whip up something and pour it in all of those jars and it doesn’t take me too long. I also love that making something in bulk doesn’t usually cost too much money (depending on what it is) and it’s a thrifty gift choice for those special people. They are also super cute!
This year, I searched for months before trying to decide on the right gift. I love sweets, but I couldn’t find the right yummy treat to give. Mostly because I know the pastors at our church get a ton of delicious goodies each year from people in our church and I wanted to do something different (that didn’t put them all on Weight Watchers). If you don’t know already, we make our own laundry detergent (find the recipe here!). I thought homemade laundry detergent would be perfect!
The girls and I took a couple hours this week and made 6 gallons of detergent. That’s right! It’s so easy the kids can help! We mixed all the ingredients on the stove. They each got to pour and stir…
Then we set up a special little workshop on the floor where they could start pouring (by the time pouring happens it’s not hot anymore). 
It may surprise you that there were no spills! A little bit dripped on the floor while they were taking it from the jar to the funnel, but I would have done that myself. They really did a fabulous job. 
After the jars were filled and capped, some of them got to go into special baskets. We lined the baskets with some combination of red, green, and white wash cloths.
Then they took their place in the basket and got a cute little tag. This gift definitely needs a tag indicating what’s in there. You don’t want someone thinking they’re going to pour a nice glass of lemonade and be super disappointed. 🙂 I also like to put how much detergent to use for each load on the tag. 
I’ve handed out a few of these already and I have gotten great reviews! People have loved how different this is and a lot of people have been wanting to try making their own laundry detergent and this gives them the chance to check it out before they spend time making two gallons. By the way, two gallons of detergent costs only $.70 to make! It’s fantastic!
