Happy Mothers Day!
Last minute gift ideas for a green Mothers Day —
[May 8]
Last minute gifts for Mothers Day can be hard to find, especially when you would like to do something eco friendly for your mom. Green kids of all ages can and should consider giving some of the following Mothers Day gifts to celebrate moms.
- MAKE MOM A HEALTHY FOOD MEAL SHE WILL NOT FORGET ON MOTHERS DAY. Make mom a gourmet breakfast in bed or mid-day brunch from scratch using local produce and all organic fruits and vegetables. While she sleeps in, head out to your local farmers market or roadside fruit and vegetable stand to pick up your bounty of colorful and tasty treats. Make a fruit salad in a watermelon bowl. Create a parfait of fresh local blueberries and strawberries from the organic food section of your local grocery store like Earth Fare, Trader Joes, or Whole Foods — and throw in a handful of her favorite granola in each yummy layer. Make a non-traditional eggs benedict by serving poached eggs from hormone-free free range chickens and placing them on top of fresh spinach, grill tomato slices, and sliced avocado. Whip up some fresh whipping cream from heavy cream that comes from an organic farm to decorate french toast made from challah bread from your local bakery. The sky is the limit as long as you remember to make what MOM likes — not what the kids do.
- CREATE A MOTHERS DAY ARTS AND CRAFTS PROJECT FOR MOM AND KIDS OF ALL AGES TO DO TOGETHER. Make your mom an arts and crafts project starter kit that has a project you can do together. Using all the greeting cards you have saved over the years, cut them up to make a scrap book. Take each old greeting card and split it down the middle. Glue or paste each card into an empty scrap book so one page shows the front of the card and the next shows what was written inside. Then, using old magazine copies that mom is done reading to cut out a variety of special shapes and borders. Cut out shapes like stars, hearts, diamonds, cats, dogs, flowers, you name it! Putting all the tidbits into an re-used plastic Ziploc bag, head out to the Christmas giftwrap section. Use odd sections of giftwrap to cut out border pieces that can frame your old used greeting cards in the scrapbook. Clip bits of Christmas and birthday ribbon, too, so you can decorate the pages. When you give mom the scrapbook, give her the glue, a pair of scissors, and a stack of 3×5 note cards. Include a copy of a coupon for an afternoon each month of the year with you (if you live close) or for at least one long afternoon if you live far away from home. In your note, ask mom to tell you about special holiday memories she has about the person who sent the paper greeting card. Have her write the memory down on the 3 x 5 card while you decorate and glue. No matter what your age, the mothers day arts and crafts project can be an inexpensive last minute gift idea that making will be a memory that lasts a lifetime for the two of you — sure to become a family heirloom!
- PLANT MOM FLOWERS OR MAKE A GARDEN SPECIAL FOR MOTHERS DAY. Take a trip to your local Home Depot, Lowes, or local flowers and shrubs nursery and get ready for Mothers Day to be a labor or love. Why? Because on this special holiday, offer to plant mom a butterfly garden. If you want to be thrifty, it might be worth spending the money to buy some perennial flowering plants, as they will grow back year after year as a mothers day thank you reminder. However, if the goal truly is to spend more time with your green celebrity mom, make her yard the neighborhood star by planting her an abundance of annuals. But while you are planning your planting adventures remember this: try to select plants and flowers that are both native to the area and will require the least amount of water. Don’t forget to mulch with a local product that will help protect plants while retaining water and preventing soil erosion.
- BE SWEET BY BAKING YOUR MOM A CAKE BOUQUET FOR MOTHERS DAY. Create your own edible mothers day gift — by baking her a gluten free cake or cupcake muffin bouquet! The sweetest way to send a Mothers Day greeting to your mom might just be in good taste. Did you know Betty Crocker is making an inexpensive gluten free cake mix now? If you don’t already have a favorite specialty food maker brand of cake mix in mind, take our word for it and use hers. If mom is a chocolate lady, the gluten free chocolate cake is the way to go, especially topped with whipped butter cream icing with coconut added. To make a muffin bouquet, use a large round plate and place one big cupcake or round cut out cake circle to make the center of a flower. Decorate with colored sugar then place all the other cupcakes around like daisy petals. Use fresh berries from your local farmers market, chopped nuts if she likes them, and dried fruit to create the illusion of petals or decorative borders. Take a photo of the plate looking straight down from above and save it as a jpg photograph, because mom won’t want to not eat this one. If she is a vanilla person go for the gluten free yellow cake by Betty Crocker. Make a topping from Cool Whip, pineapple tidbits, and mandarin oranges to keep the cake light. Use golden raisins, dried cranberry, and fresh mint sprigs to embellish this one by using the mint for leaves and stems, dried cranberry for the center of the flowers, and the golden raisins for petals. Arrange on the cake top to look like a cake bouquet or make one flower design on top of each cupcake.
- HELP MOM RE-GIFT HER FAMILY HEIRLOOMS NOT IN USE. Offer to help mom clean out her closets of the garage. Take photos of anything with sentimental value that has outlived its useful life and create a jpg file on the computer. Have her help name the photos of each object and add a description so you and your kids can remember the story behind each item, but definitely take as many of the clutter items down to re-gift to your local battered womens shelter, Salvation Army, Goodwill, or mom’s favorite church or religions charity resale house as a donation. Before mom has time to start missing her stuff, give her one of those digital photo frames that flips through slides of pictures. That way, mom can still remember her things while they are being utilized by another person who won’t simply keep them doing nothing while in storage. You have a win – win situation with this last minute gift idea as mom gets your help for the day as a labor of love, and you get to spend the day learning about your mother’s history.
Have another great mothers day gift idea or thing to do with mom for an unforgettable mothers day? Leave your idea in the comments section below.