Best Homemade Mother's Day Gifts

Last year my babysitter had the kids paint flower pots with a flower in them. My daughter was only 5 months at the times so she put her footprints on the flower pot and her tiny little toe prints along thet top. I absolutely loved it (and still do). She just used little clay pots ( between $.50 and $1.00 each)and inexpensive flowers and it was possibly my favorite gift ever.

Hi T.!

There are two websites I use a lot for homemande gifts, www.makingfriends.com and www.familyfun.com. They have a TON of ideas and usually they are pretty reasonably priced. A lot of them use things that you can find around the house.

Good Luck!
J.

how about a Mother's Well of Wishes. It is a small gift bag with little printed wishes like:
clean your room
put away your clothes
put away the dishes
hug Mom
water flowers
Hug Mom
take out trash
help Mom fold clothes
watch sibling while Mom takes a long bath
hug Mom
etc.

Mom gets to pull from the bag and the child completes the task. I still have one of mine that I occassionally will take out and look at. You can put anything in it and it can be multiples of the same few tasks.

My babysittter had my daughter make this for mother's day and i thought it was the neatest thing. It is called the MOm's Survival Kit.

what she did was get a mason jar and a piece of half sheet of paper folded in half. On the first page it says

Mom's Survival Kit

with my daughters hand print in the middle

then the year under the hand print

Inside of the paper are the contents of the jar.

here is what it says

Bandaid - for when things get rough

snickers - for when you need a laugh

crayon - to color your day bright and beautiful

rubberband - to remind you to be flexible

candle - for the late night reading

paperclip - to hold it all together.

marbles - to replace the ones you lost.

shiney penny - to remind you each shines in its own way

peanuts - to get a little nutty

eraser - to remind you we all make mistakes & they are erasable

battery - for a quick recharge when your feeling drained

bouncy ball - when juggling if dropped it'll bounce back in place

lifesaver - for when you've had one of those days

puzzle piece - without you the family would not be complete

key - the key to my heart

Then put a hole in the paper and tie it around the jar. There you have your survival kit.

I thought that was special. My daughter gave this to me in 2005 and I still have it. She always ask if I am going to eat the snicker.

Thought this would be a special mother's day gift and easy things to find also.

B. Scheifele

a decorated picture frame with a digital pic taken by the teacher one day at school...it was a cute surprise.....and i loved it

My kids are younger, but the best gifts are always the ones that come from their own head and heart. Example: my son gave me sheet from pre-school that had things like “my mommy looks pretty when” “my mommy is X old” etc. and he had to fill in the blank. It was great to see what he though of me (he tough I was 22, I love my son). I would go for a poem about their mother they have to write, or a picture they have to make of them and their mom doing their favorite thing together. Other ideas would be a calendar made on photo shop – kids get a lesson on digital photo’s and computer design, something they would love and probably be very proud of, and if you go for the flower thing as listed on other replies I do an alternative with my kids the grandparents love. We cut their hands out of craft foam, take the left and right and curl them around at the bottom and fasten with a pipe cleaner. They look kind of like tulips, but they are made of the kids actual hands – a little more personal.

I agree the mason jars are cute, but I want something I can hang onto. Since the kids are a little older, they can do something a little more advanced than a plant in a jar or the cookies in a jar.

What about some scraps of wood with something burned into them with one of those little burn pen things? Or plaster of paris (I think that's what it's called?) shaped with something indented or painted on it?

With technology these days the kids could even possible do something with a digital camera and print it out?

Or something as simple and cheap as the ten best things about my mom or ten favorite memories? It's always funny to see what they think, what about what they think being a mom means?

I wonder if there's a way to make a cheap durable small sun dial for mom to put in her flower bed?

What about magnets...you can get business card size paper and a bunch of business card sized magnets with the sticky on the back, that would be something cheap and useful. If your budget doesn't allow for the business size paper, I'm sure you they could use a paper cutter to size it.

In the future, maybe if you start earlier you could target local businesses for donations and send out letters, I work for a non-profit so I know how willing businesses are to donate small items!

Also, a quick walk around Michael's or another craft store could be inspiring!

Look at familyfun.com or orientaltradingcompany.com to get ideas for quick, cheap, and sweet projects to make for Mother's Day. I always think a sweet, handmade card is beautiful or a fun handmade picture frame. Just a few ideas. Good luck!

I agree with the last mom about making the jar with the dry ingredients for cookies in it. My sons daycare teacher made that one year for all the moms for mothers day and I loved it. I thought it was the cutest thing.

Ok, this is something I did in Elementary school and my mom loved it! Heck, I think she still has it and I am 31 years old now!! We were asked to bring in some old magazines that you don't want anymore. You look through them and find pages with alot of color on them. Rip those pages out and tear them into even strips (if I remember correctly!). Then we rolled them up and they looked like marble beads and strung them on string to make a knecklace. You use a little bit of clear drying glue to keep them rolled up. I remember my mother loved it and that would cost nearly nothing!

My son is in 5th grade now and has a male teacher-it'll be interesting to see if I get anything at all...But last year, I got a heart shaped cake (pre baked cakes as a fund raiser) and the kids decorated them. It had artificial flowers, picks that said Happy Mother's day, candy sprinkles, shiney colored confetti anything and everything you can imaging. It wasn't pretty but it made me smile real big. And I got to eat it too. Also, you might consider a simple home made card. With all the stamps and Scrapbook supplies around,it would be fun to see what they come up with if you lay out all the supplies. ON the inside they could complete a sentence like " I love it when my Mom_______________________." and then glue that inside. Or place a school picture inside. I always enjoyed seeing a picture of my child in the class room at some activity or just doing work at his desk. Hope this helps. 'Mom of a tween'.

I have a great inexpensive craft for mother's day

An arrangment of flowers

Items needed

pipe cleaners
white coffee filters
markers
ribon
squirt bottle

have the kids personalize and color the coffee filters with markers after they are finished. spray the filters with the water. All the colors will bleed together, when they are dry pinch the bottom of the filter a litte bit and tie a green pipe cleaner for the steam. You can also make petals with other colors of the pipe cleaners, when they are all finished tie a pretty bow around the stems. This is a great craft and wont cost more than $10! I hope this helps ;)

I babysit in my home and for Mother's Day I usually get a flower pot and put their hand prints on them. The pots are fairly inexpensive at Lowe's or Home Depot.

I always liked the mason jars filled with cookie stuff like all the dry ingredients, choc chips, sugar, flour, etc. The other idea is hot chocolate stuff in a mason jar or even just a little plant for mom to put in the yard. I'm sure whatever you come up with the moms will love.
I always loved whatever they brought home.

I love anything they bring home that has there picture on it! A magnet for the fridge, they've brought home hand made picture frames w/their picture, cheap little plastic snow globe like things that you can put a picture in. Those are the ones I like.

S.

Hey T. My name is C. and when I was in 5th grade we made spaghetti holders out of pringles cans and self adhesive contact paper that you would put in yoru cabinets its really easy and inexpensive and Im sure you could do a search online for mothers day gifts made at home if you havent already but my mom loved the spaghetti can and we used it for years I hope this helps..

C. Bond

My 4th grader gave me a homemade recipe book. All of the students put together there favorite meals. Some asked mothers to send in their favorite or the kids made some up. My son put peanut butter and jelly heart cut outs. It's something useful and can put a smile on our faces!

This also may be a little young for your kids but my favorite so far was one of the egg holders from an egg carton cut out and decorated, with a pipe cleaner pushed through the bottom to make it look like a tulip. She decorated an empty water bottle and used it as a vase. It sits on my desk and I smile every morning when I come in and look at it.

I'm going to admit that I have been heartbroken that I have yet to get a little plant in a milk carton. Silly, but it was one of the things I was looking forward to when my kids started school. Your class probably thinks they are too big for that though. I have a daughter in the 4th and I think anything hand written from her would be sweet. Even if it was a copied poem. Throw a picture in there somewhere and I would be really happy.

My son made a wreath out of a coat hanger bent in the shape of a heart. He then tied strips of different colored fabric all over the hanger (about 2 inch strips). The ends fill the space and it looks full, pretty and homemade. Since the wreath is made of wire and cloth it is durable and easy to hang. It has hung on our front door for about four years now.