by Ashley
In keeping with the cheap gift ideas of late, here’s another one to add to the mix.
My mother-in-law’s birthday was last Thursday. She’s actually flying into town today for the long weekend (yay!), so we’ll be taking her out to dinner one night while she’s here. But we also wanted to do something on her actual birthday, so I had the girls make another super cheap craft that we mailed to her last week.
This was actually an idea I saw when I was in Michael’s craft store for something totally unrelated. This was right before Mother’s Day and they had a whole display of crafts for kids to do for/with their Moms. One of the crafts was a coffee mug/paint set. They were on sale 2 more $3, which seemed like an excellent deal (came with the mug and the ceramic paints). I bought two and had the girls make 1 for me to keep and 1 for my MIL’s birthday.
We (heart) You!
If I were to do it again, I probably would have done the palms at the bottom, overlapping, and done fingers up (we had a hard time keeping the thumb tucked in, so the heart has some little “wings” hanging off the side). But the imperfection just makes it that much more special and precious. Maybe not worthy of any fine art awards, but definitely worthy of a grandma’s love! <3
Hope you all have a great weekend! A good long weekend to those in the states! Be safe and have fun and let’s remember what the holiday is really all about : )
Hi, I’m Ashley! Arizonan on paper, Texan at heart. Lover of running, blogging, and all things cheeeeese. Freshly 40, married mother of two, working in academia. Trying to finally (finally!) pay off that ridiculous 6-digit student loan debt!
I love that you go the homemade/craft route for gifts. You can personalize it, and the girls are only young once, so it’s almost a time capsule of sorts as they grow.
Another idea would be to put together a yearly photo album or calendar. I used to get a calendar from my SIL every year – and she gave the same one to the grandparents – for Christmas. You can usually find a coupon for online albums or calendars. This would be something different – because you can only have so many coffee mugs, and who doesn’t need a new calendar each year? Of course, this (calendar) would be more appropriate for Christmas, but you could do a mini album for Mother’s Day or birthdays.
Yes, I love this idea! My sister actually did this for the family last year (for parents and grandparents), but I definitely want to steal the idea and use it myself! Great idea!
Could these actually be used?? Did you bake the paint on or something?
Yep! It came with directions for baking when done