Marnie, speak! Good girl.

It's canning time and our local farms have oodles of amazing berries. I started canning last year and one thing I've realized is that I really really hate cleaning old labels off of perfectly good jars and I dislike it enough that I'd rather buy more jars than reuse the existing ones. Madness. And frankly, my handwriting is nothing to write home to mom.

You should see how bad it is when I'm not trying to write neatly

It wasn't until I was putting together a selection of goodies for father's day, that I hit upon a solution for canned goods that I'll be storing for our own use. I'll still use stickers for stuff I give as gifts, since toppers and tags are easy to lose, but for our own use, these work great and they add a nice polished touch to items given as gifts.

Four types of jams/jellies, reusable plastic jar lids and the best gummy bears on earth

For regular sized two piece canning lids, these paper labels sit right atop the lid and under the ring, no glue needed. For other sized jars or single piece lids, you can punch a hole in the label to make a tag, and tie it on with a pretty little ribbon. I used heavy weight paper so that they would be opaque and resistant to humidity but regular printer paper should work too.

Since this solution works well for me, I thought others might like it too, so I've put together a selection of PDFs you can download and use yourself. They come in two styles, 8 toppers to a page.

PDF forms allow you type in the info	Plain PDF can be printed and filled in by hand
The PDF forms are formatted with coordinating text and allow you to create 8 identical labels in one quick step. Great for big batches of canned goods	If you aren't able to use forms or you have lovely hand writing, use the print and fill labels. Lines are included to keep your writing neat.

Download the PDFs from the following options

Label Style	Description
	All 8 styles on one page. Download PDF form Download PDF to print and fill in by hand
	Red labels, great for berries Download PDF form Download PDF to print and fill in by hand
	Orange labels great for marmalade and citrus Download PDF form Download PDF to print and fill in by hand
	Peach labels, great for peaches, of course Download PDF form Download PDF to print and fill in by hand
	Yellow labels great for marmalade and citrus Download PDF form Download PDF to print and fill in by hand
	Green labels, great for pickles and mint jellies Download PDF form Download PDF to print and fill in by hand
	Purple labels, great for berries and plums Download PDF form Download PDF to print and fill in by hand
	Burgundy labels, great for berries and plums Download PDF form Download PDF to print and fill in by hand
	Brown labels, great for apple butters and pie filling Download PDF form Download PDF to print and fill in by hand

Using the fill in forms in Adobe Acrobat Reader

Be sure you have a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader. I cannot promise that these forms will work in other programs.

Note: If you have a full version of Adobe Acrobat, you can also go in and change the text formatting and location using the Forms tools. These files are not locked in any way. These files can also be opened and edited in Adobe Illustrator, if you wish to change the color of the decorative elements or change the typeface.

Once you've opened your PDF, it's a simple matter to enter your own customized text into the labels. For any of the PDFs containing just one style of label, all labels will update if you change one of them. For the labels showing 8 different labels on a single page, each label is edited individually.

Once you are done, print out your toppers/tags on heavy paper or card stock and cut them out. They can be glued onto lids or left loose under the ring or you can punch a hole in them and use them as tags.

Happy Canning!