There's just a little over 2 weeks until Mother's Day. Do you have a plan for a Mother's Day gift already? If not, I have some great ideas for frugal, homemade Mother's Day gifts.
- Heartfelt Card - Does mom really want/need a gift? If your mom seems to have everything, perhaps she would best love a card with a message for your heart thanking her for all she's done for you and meant to you over the years. I bet that she would appreciate that more than any purchased gift. You don't even need to purchase a card...just whip one up with some leftover scrapbooking supplies or design a digital card.
- Digital Photo Slideshow - Smilebox.com is a great program where you can load your pictures and create a photo slideshow with cute templates that you can burn onto a CD or e-mail. Plus, you can create cards and photo albums. The service is free for the basic products, with a small charge for some extras.
- Digital Photo Scrapbook - My mom and MIL both seem to like pictures having of their grandkids around, so I usually whip up a digital scrapbooking project and digital card that I can print out for both of them. Then, they each get a personalized book, but it's not double the work. Better yet, there are lots of quickbooks out there where the designer has already created the page, and you just need to slip in your pictures, saving even more time (and they're usually much cuter than any page I could design on my own). The Shabby Princess has some of my favorite quick albums, but I also like some of the albums at Sweet Shoppe Designs. Basically, you just add your pictures and then I reduce the page size to 6x6 and print 2 pages on a 8x12 sheet at Costco (only $1.49 each). For a tutorial on how to add your pictures to a quick page using Adobe Photoshop Elements, click here.
- Photo Gifts - If you don't feel like creating your own scrapbook, Snapfish and Shutterfly both have some great Mother's Day photo gifts that you can order. However, Shutterfly has some great digital scrapbook-type templates that you can use to create your photo book. Plus, you can save up to 20% on photo books at Shutterfly through 4/30.
- Flowering Plant - If your mom likes to have plants on her deck or porch, why not a practical gift like a flowering plant or some flowers to go into her garden.
- Chore Coupons - Do you live near your mom? If so, is there anything that you can do to help her? Could you help her with a project she's working on? Create a coupon book with some chores that she can use her coupons on. Better yet...this is a great gift to hint to your kids for yourself :-).
- Free kids craft workshops at Michaels - Each day during the week before Mother's Day, Michaels is offering a free craft workshop, where kids can create gifts for mom or gramma.
What are you planning on doing for Mother's Day? Do you get gifts for your mom? Do your kids give you gifts? What are your favorite gifts to receive (mine are homemade)? For more frugal ideas, please visit Life As Mom.
Photo from Mother's Day '07 gift using Shabby Princess' Wonderful Piece-of-Cake album.
Amy -Cutting Coupons in KC
Lowes is also offering a FREE Kid's workshop to make a Mother's Day planter:
http://cuttingcouponsinkc.blogspot.com/2009/04/lowes.html
The Prudent Homemaker
I have made a bookmark with pictures of my children on it. I just printed it from the computer. Instead of laminating it, I covered both sides with clear contact paper (which you can get at Walmart with the shelf-lining papers).
Corrie at "Cents"able Momma
Great ideas, Amy and Prudent Homemaker. I never thought about making a bookmark with pictures of the kids on it...I might have to try that this year.
Your Frugal Friend, Niki
Unfortunately homemade gifts really don't fly in our family. (eyeroll)
But giving a flowering plant sounds nice.
🙂