Hopefully by now most of us have planned out our Mother’s Day brunch, lunch or dinner and have the gift all wrapped and ready to go. Unfortunately I am not most of us! I still have to figure out what to get for my mom who has everything. The brunch part is a little easier to plan and you can always find great ideas on Pinterest, Better Homes and Gardens and other great web sources. If the weather is nice than an outdoor party is a must. You can use a couple of yards of burlap as a table cloth and use potted plants or potted herbs as centerpieces. To keep the kids busy put out a bunch of pictures and have them make crafts with them. You can use the photo jars as centerpieces as well. And since it is Mother’s Day and you won’t be driving, how about a fruity cocktail? You can let the kids get in on the fun with shirley temples and pretty straws. Try to keep the menu simple even if it is just hamburgers and hot dogs. We often have a swim/bar-b-que on any warm holiday. Throwing corn, chicken, veggies and burgers on the bar-b-que is a great job for the men in the family! Men seem to be born to cook with fire outside. So now that I have the day/menu planned I just need to run out and get the ultimate “I love you mom!” gift. Got any great ideas?
Every year I struggle with ideas for Mother’s Day gifts. My mom has everything she needs and wants so it is always hard to come up with something unique that I know she will use or treasure. Some easy ideas are to just spend time with your mom. Plan on taking her to brunch and a movie. Or how about a spa day. Short on cash, how about a picnic at the park and you make a really nice lunch for the two of you. Here are a few of my favorite gift ideas in a variety of price ranges. If you have a favorite please share!
Does your mom garden, if so these cute bags of seed bombs from Anthropologie would make a great gift. Put several in a basket with a small trowel and gardening gloves.
One of my favorite gifts that we gave my mom was a charm bracelet with all of the grandkids pictures. It was beautiful. We got it from VintageFaerie.com. I also love all of the custom jewelry (above) at Vintage Pearl. Speaking of personalized gifts, why not get your mom a custom cell phone case? They have great ones at KodakGallery.com.
My mom still writes handwritten notes so personalized stationery would be a great gift. This one is from TinyPrints, but they also have great options at LookLoveSend.com and SimplytoImpress.com.
Looking for an inexpensive but really thoughtful gift? Make a “Why I love you” jar. Use scrapbook supplies to decorate a regular canning jar and then just add strips of paper with your personal thoughts about your mom. I made one a few years ago for my mom, it was really fun to think back to my childhood and let her know what meant a lot to me. You can add a Starbucks gift card as a treat.
Warm weather birthdays are the best. Period. Outdoor parties are my first choice for a wound up group of kids. They have space to expend their energy and messes can be hosed down. And the theme potential is enormous (you know how I love a good theme party): Baby Animals complete with petting zoo, Garden Party– each party goer gets to plant a little flower in a cute little pot that he/she painted, Woodland Fairies with magic wands, or Sports Camp. It’s all good.
If I still had any cute little kids (which I don’t, mine are big and teenager-y now–ack) I would totally rock a Garden Party. Get it? I would rock a Garden Party…
Custom invites are all the rage!
I love this custom invite, it’s adorable and affordable at InvitationBox.com. And for party favors I would pre-order personalized placemats from Frecklebox.com, they double as decorations!
Personalized placemats make a great keepsake!
And because anything with a bird on it is instantly loved by all (watch this hysterical video to see what I mean– Put a Bird On It.) I’d continue the theme from my placemats to little nest cupcakes.
Easy to make, easier to eat.
Every great kid party has great kid activities. Just a couple though, I’ve seen uber-moms overdo the projects and the kids get all loaded on sugar and can’t sit still long enough to participate. Or they really just want to play and said uber-mom is now screaming “Sit down and have fun with your damn project! Now!” So my rockin’ Garden Party would include one game that involves big muscle movement, like a nature lover scavenger hunt. They might have to find a leaf, a bug, a long stick and a rock that looks like a heart. Or if they are older you could hide fun things in the yard for them to find, like an Easter Egg Hunt. For the sitting down activity, I’d have them paint a little terra cotta pot and plant a flower in it. It could take 10 minutes or an hour (for the budding designers) and it doesn’t involve more sugar consumption.
Etsy is one of my favorite places to look for unique items. I love ordering birthday or Christmas gifts from Etsy, especially personalized gifts. You just need to make sure you order items with enough time for shipping. There are a lot of fun Easter items right now and if you order them in the next week I am sure they would get to you in time. Below are some of my faves in no particular order. What about you, what are your favorites?
Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. Time to start planning. I like to find unique items for my husband and kids. Even if you do not have a romantic Valentine in mind, giving Valentine’s gifts can be a sweet gesture. Just try to stay away from the mass marketed items or better yet put your own spin on a gift, even if it is for your dog! If you have more time than money check out the millions of crafting tutorials online and make your sweetheart something truly from your heart. Even a mix cd of your favorite songs makes a great gift. See below for purchasing links.
Yesterday CoolMomPicks (an awesome blog for all of us moms) featured a personalized gift guide on the Today Show. And boy were we surprised to see some of our products being featured! One of the companies she featured was Frecklebox.com and we have a variety of goodies on their site, like coloring books, journals, lunch boxes, etc. On the Today Show they featured our Cuddlebumps coloring book, so exciting! I love to buy friends and family personalized items for the holidays and it was great to see our stuff plus a bunch of other great ideas. So fun. If you haven’t finished Christmas shopping and want to get something special and personalized you better hurry not much time left.
Each year my sister, myself and my best friend from elementary school host a cookie exchange party. We try to schedule it the week or two before Christmas so that we can give some of the cookies as gifts. The rest we just eat ourselves! It is a fun no pressure party, bring a lot of cookies or a little. We do not have rules like some parties-you do not need to make a certain amount, no labels required, no recipe cards either. We use evite to send out the invitation. We set up a table with pretty plates and put all of our cookies out, then we mingle, munch and have some fun. Towards the end of the evening we start going around the table filling whatever boxes/plates that we brought. I usually try to fill a couple for gifts and a big tray for home. Over the years we’ve had times when the party was small and intimate, times that it included our children and times where there was a huge group and custom martinis! We have been doing it now for 16 years and it is a great way to see your close friends around the holidays. I try to make a few treats each year. I always make fudge, peanut butter fudge is yummy and I found a great recipe several years ago. It is actually called Killer Crack Peanut Butter Fudge and I found it on the blog CookieBakerLynn. I would recommend that you only make it once or twice a year because as the name suggests if you do it more often they will need to bring a forklift to get you out of the house! I also plan on making the cute meringue cookies that were on the cover of Sunset Magazine this month. I still need to scour through all my latest magazines and cookbooks to see what other yummy treat I will bring, any suggestions?
We are quickly approaching the holidays. Every year it flys by and I always say to myself that this year I will be super organized, holiday cards done by Thanksgiving, presents wrapped as they are bought, and all shopping done by mid-December. I assume I am like everyone else on the planet and this miracle never happens! I do have a small amount of shopping done, no presents wrapped and some Christmas cards ordered so I guess I am 1/4 of the way there. I hope to finish ordering my cards today. With all of the online options and quick shipping this is probably the easiest item on my list to cross off. We have been designing custom photo cards for over 5 years now and each year we add multiple online sites that we design for. You can find our cards on sites like TinyPrints, KodakGallery, Snapfish, Simply to Impress and many others. I have gathered a small sampling of some of our cards to get you inspired. It only takes a few minutes of your time to upload and personalize a card and within a week you get the finished product and a lot of happy smiles from all of your friends and family. Most sites are also running discounts so there is no excuse to sending a personalized card!
Hopefully by now most of us have planned out our Mother’s Day brunch, lunch or dinner and have the gift all wrapped and ready to go. Unfortunately I am not most of us! I still have to figure out what to get for my mom who has everything. The brunch part is a little easier to plan and you can always find great ideas on Pinterest, Better Homes and Gardens and other great web sources. If the weather is nice than an outdoor party is a must. You can use a couple of yards of burlap as a table cloth and use potted plants or potted herbs as centerpieces. To keep the kids busy put out a bunch of pictures and have them make crafts with them. You can use the photo jars as centerpieces as well. And since it is Mother’s Day and you won’t be driving, how about a fruity cocktail? You can let the kids get in on the fun with shirley temples and pretty straws. Try to keep the menu simple even if it is just hamburgers and hot dogs. We often have a swim/bar-b-que on any warm holiday. Throwing corn, chicken, veggies and burgers on the bar-b-que is a great job for the men in the family! Men seem to be born to cook with fire outside. So now that I have the day/menu planned I just need to run out and get the ultimate “I love you mom!” gift. Got any great ideas?
One of my favorite gifts that we gave my mom was a charm bracelet with all of the grandkids pictures. It was beautiful. We got it from 
