Hey friends, Let’s chat about this wonderful little celebration in November. I’m not talking about Thanksgiving (however it’s one of my favorite holidays) I’m talking about Friendsgiving. This is a newer concept of celebrating friendship Thanksgiving style. I absolutely love this for several reasons. The holiday season can get so crazy busy it’s hard to schedule time with good friends. I love that this gives you the opportunity to celebrate friendship in a low key way before things get crazy. When I host events big or small, I love to give special gifts or party favors. So, I came up with these simple and beautiful handmade gifts for Friendsgiving celebration. These also make super easy Christmas gift ideas for neighbors, friends, teacher, co workers and more.

 

One of my favorite things about creating party favors is the presentation. I think it makes your guests feel extra special to receive a beautifully packaged gift. I also like my favors to coordinate with my table and actually become a part of the tablescape. Since this is a couples dinner and not just my girlfriends, I wanted to be sure it wasn’t too “girly”. Here are my tips for how I created this party favor.

 

Presentation

 

 

Supplies needed:

• Craft boxes
• Ribbon of your choice. 
• Flowers or leaves of your choice
• Paper doilies
• Jars for the Apple butter
• Small plastic and paper sacks for the apple cider spices
• Hot glue gun
• Labels for your items. If you are subscribed to my blog, you will have free access to the labels I made for this project and more. 

You can create any look you want by coordinating the flowers or greenery you are using on the table. I chose to use the magnolia leaves, some white berries and a vintage black ribbon to tie in some of the black on the table.

 

Apple Cider Mulling Spices

 

 

 

Supplies needed:

• 4 Cups Sugar
• 4 T ground cinnamon
• 1/2 T ground nutmeg
• 1/2 T ground cloves
• Labels for instructions and outer bag 
  • apple cider mix
  • cider mix instructions

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl then fill into jars or bags. I placed mine in clear bags and sealed with a label of instructions. use 1 T per quart of liquid. I halved the recipe since I was only making a small amount.

 

 

 

They smell amazing too and remind me of all the cozy Fall and Christmas vibes.

 

 

Apple Butter

 

 

Supplies Needed:

• Jars to hold the butter
• 1 1/2 pounds of apples ( I used Gala) peeled, cored and sliced
• 3 T granulated sugar
• 3 T brown sugar
• 1/2 t ground cinnamon
• 1/8 t ground nutmeg
• pinch of ground allspice
• 1 t lemon juice
• 1/2 t vanilla
• labels for the jars apple butter labels

 

 

Instructions

1-place apples in a slow cooker

2- add remaining ingredients

3-cover and cook on low 8 hours or high 4 hours, stirring occasionally

4-uncover and stir the apples uncovered for another hour on low (your house will smell amazing!)

5- use an immersion blender to puree until smooth

6- transfer to a glass jar and refrigerate when cool.

 

 

 

 

Packaging

 

 

This ois the fun part for me. Decorate the boxes adding items with a glue gun. Then add your goodies and tie up the box. Place your boxes on the table to finish off your tablescape.

 

Special Treat

 

 

I wanted to add another additional treat to add another element of fun decor to the table. Carmel apples just say happy Fall to me. To give them a little more chracter, I inserted real tree twigs (thoroughly cleaned of course) into the apple. I love the usique look it gives them

 

 

Disclaimer : I’m not a pro at caramel apples by any means and learned a few tips but I still never get them Pinterest worthy!

 

 

However, once the are packaged, they look much better! lol. I made up these little tags to finish off the look and you can find them here friends are the sweetest gifts tags

 

 

Once they were paackaged and placed on the table, they made the perfect addition. I will be sharing the entire tablescape with details in my next blog post so be sure to watch for that. For more ideas and inspiration you can visit this post Ideas To Celebrate A Friendsgiving (or Thanksgiving) Gathering

 

 

Look how cute these little boxes look and how they finish off the table and give more character to each place setting. I can’t wait for my friends to open them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The theme for this table really started with the magnolia leaves, they give such a pretty texture with the wood tones. The pops of black are my signature touch for many of my table settings. I like the sophisticated, crisp feel it gives a table.

So are you inspired to put a little firendsgiving together? Or maybe these ideas gave you some Christmas gifting ideas? Speaking of Christmas ideas, I’ll be sharing several ideas soon.

 

 

Shop the Post

 

 

Happy Entertaining

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HANDMADE GIFTS FOR FRIENDSGIVING