Still trying to come up a gift idea for your mom? One thing that doesn’t change is that mother’s appreciate the gift of time. Why? Because most mothers have learned how to juggle time commitments and therefore understand exactly how precious time is. How do you give the gift of time? You can either spend time together or take time to make something for her.
My mom still likes getting handmade gifts from us. I know she appreciates the time we take to make something special just for her. If your mom doesn’t want more “stuff” cluttering her shelves, give her something consumable. Sometimes I give my mom a stack of handmade cards for her to use. She gets to enjoy the beauty and then pass it on to someone else. I know my mom likes sharing those handmade cards with her friends. And I enjoy making and giving her something I know she can use.
To inspire you, here are a couple cards that I whipped up this week. These are very simple basic cards and would be good for either female or male recipients.
These cards were inspired by very similar cards that I saw on Patty Bennett’s blog. And, they can be made in about 2 minutes each. Patty used our Notecards & Envelopes sets, which are actually slightly smaller than our standard size card. My cards are the standard size: 4.25” x 5.5”. The dimensions for the pattern paper are 4” x 4.5”. Then you cut it on a diagonal. The larger piece gets adhered to the bottom of the card and the smaller piece gets adhered to the top of the card. These leaves about .75” in between the two to stamp your sentiment. Make sure you stamp closer to the right hand side instead of the middle of the card. Then you’ll have room to add a flower or a balloon or anything else. I used balloons for the “birthday” cards and flowers for the “thank you” and “thinking of you” cards. If you wanted to jazz it up a little, you could add baker’s twine or rhinestones or glitter.
I made 6 of each of the 4 cards and then packaged each group separately with envelopes. These cards are being donated to our local Ronald McDonald House for the house guests to use as desired. My downline Poli came up with this idea and asked us all to pitch in and donate some cards so she could take them to the house in time for Mother’s Day this weekend. I could have spent hours making something over the top and super fancy, but sometimes, you just need to get it done. I made 20+ cards, rather than just a few, so simple and a done was definitely a better idea.
I know the guests staying at the Ronald McDonald House will really appreciate having these on hand when they need to send a card to someone. The families staying at the house have a more important focus and the last thing they need to do is run off to the store to get a birthday card for someone. Yet, they will still need these things because they have family and friends they want to remember.
People sometimes think that handmade is the “cheap” way out of gift giving. But, don’t undervalue the gift of handmade items. Think about how much people spend on those expensive greeting cards you see in stores ($5+ yikes!) and they aren’t even that cute most of the time. Plus there is nothing like receiving a hand-made card in the mail. You know that person took the time to make something special just for you.
Note to my Mom: this is not your Mother’s Day Gift. I didn’t want to spoil the surprise for you!
PS. The “Thank You” comes from the Best of Greetings stamp set and the “thinking of you” comes from the So Happy For You stamp set, both of which are several years old.
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