This past weekend we took a day trip to the Hood Canal to spent the last sunny weekend outdoors. Hood Canal
is only 20 miles west of Seattle, however getting there from the Seattle area takes a couple of hours as you have to take a ferry. Of course, our day got thrown off as we missed it (we just assumed it wouldn’t be busy on
a off-season weekend) and missed the low tide. Instead of enjoying fresh oysters on the beach our children and
us spent the morning gathering shells and looking for crabs. We visited one of Luke’s clients who lives in the area and had fun running around and enjoying the fruit in his garden. Don was very generous to send some with us and we came home with bags full of the sweetest plums, pears, raspberries and strawberries. It’s probably no secret now that I really enjoy home canning. I rolled up the sleeves and got to work on making the most delightful plum jam or powidła (in polish.) This jam, so deliciously European, is my my favorite – naturally sweet and so aromathic! I knew, before I even made the jam, that I wanted to dressed them up with custom labels.

I calligraphed these labels with black ink on a heavy cotton paper and glued to the jar with a double stick tape.
I couldn’t help but add cute little branches with plums illustrations and some swirly doodles. I love how easy they’re done with a good calligraphy pen and nib. I’m so pleased with the results, in both aesthetics and taste! Yeah, I could eat this plum jam by the spoonful…