Scrambling to quickly get a gift together for Mother’s Day? You’ve came to the right post.

For the last week, I’ve been looking around the house to see what Mila and I can up-cycle and make for Mother’s Day gifts. All of these items can be found at home or a quick trip to any store really. Mila helped me with all of these projects and some of them (you’ll be able to see) I worked on a little extra too. If you have older kids, they’ll definitely be able to help out more!

Seed Bombs

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

When I think of Mother’s Day, I think about flowers. I know a lot of people love planting this time of year and I wanted to combine that with something Mila loves, getting dirty. This recipe was in this month’s Mommy and Me Art Box.

You’ll need:

• 1 cup of flour
• 1/3 cup of water
• 2 cups of soil
• 2 packets of flower

Mix the dirt, flower, and water up until you get a sticky concoction. Once it starts sticking to the spoon and forming together, add the two packets of seeds too. Mix them evenly in the mixture. Then either use cookie cutter to form shapes or make little balls. Let them dry out. She recommended two days, but I think mine were pretty good after a day!

Mila LOVED sticking her hand to help me mix it. She also enjoyed forming the shapes we did. It’s toddler friendly, but she needed a little more guidance than an older child. As with anything, right?

I packaged mine in tissue paper to give to my family. They’ll just need to put them in their flower garden or pots and water like normal.

Another suggestion if your child is going to see their grandma or other mother figure is to bring these ingredients and make them with each other.

Coffee and Coconut Body Scrub

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

What’s more pampering than body scrub? And you probably have everything needed to make it in your house, right now.

What you need…

• 1 cup of coffee grounds
• 1/2 cup of coconut oil
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract (optional, but smells amazing)

Mix the ingredients all together and once its blended evenly (sort of liked crushed Oreos) put them in a jar! Yes, it’s that easy.

To use this scrub, I’ve used it in the shower. Just get enough to scrub on whatever body part and rinse off with warm water. Your skin will feel so much softer. I’ve read online (but I’m not a scientist or anything), that coffee helps tighten the skin. If anything, it makes your skin feel softer and it smells amazing.

I loved making this with Mila because if it got outside the bowl, it wasn’t a big deal. Plus, I feel like kids connect so much when they can cook with you. She loves putting the ingredients in the bowl and stirring. It was also funny to watch her smell it and have to persuade her not to eat anything!

Tin Can Vases

This is probably the easiest one on the list and it came out SO cute.

All I used was a can I washed out and scrap material. My material was the cover/bag that a sheet set came in. You could use an old shirt or any fabric that you’re wanting to throw away to give it a second life. Just measure how long the fabric needs to be to tie it around and then knot or bow it.

The opportunities on how you do this is endless. I love the way these two came out and am so glad I made them. Once I get another big can, I’ll definitely be making one for myself!

For this project, Mila didn’t technically help with the finished project. Since I was using scissors, I had her practice cutting with her kid’s scissors. She cut a few things then wanted to run around, which gave me time to finish them. This would be a nice project for older kids.

This little vase could be used to store lots of things or fill it up with handpicked flowers or handmade ones…

Bouquet of ‘Flowers’

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

If you’re scrambling or can’t find any flowers at the store or wherever, handmade flowers are so fun to make with your kids. Mila loves to paint and draw, so it’s a good fit for our little family. You can use different techniques or even have your older child cut flowers out, but I specifically did things age appropriate for Mila.

Fork Flowers– For these little flowers, I had four different paints in little bowls. Mila used a fork (one for each color) as a paint brush. It was different for Mila to use the fork, but she seemed to think it was interesting. She played around with it for about fifteen minutes. I haven’t done this yet, but I’m going to cut little parts of the painting and glue it to pipe cleaners.

Plastic Bottle Flowers– First, I preheated the oven to 250 before I even showed Mila how to color these. There’s so many times I forget to preheat and it takes me so much longer. Then, I used some plastic bottles that were waiting to be recycled and cut the bottoms off. I had Mila use permanent markers to color them. When she was finished, I cut ‘petals’ (slits) and put them on a baking sheet. After, I threw them in the oven to bake for a little while. Honestly, I forgot they were in there and put Mila down for a nap… oops. They didn’t melt and I think they turned out really cute. I’ll either glue these on craft sticks or pipe cleaners to put in the bouquet too.

Mila also wanted to paint her hand, so we’ll use one of these as flowers as well. To fill up the bouquet, you could help draw flowers with your child or even make some out of pipe cleaners. Either way, this will be the cutest bouquet your loved one will get.

Watercolor Cards

This one was a lot of fun to do. I love making handmade cards for people. It just shows so much personality and just that extra little touch.

Mila painted these cards a few days ago. It was a salt technique too, which made the prints seem to have glitter on them. While she napped, I got creative and made more flowers. On the back, I’ll write a little message and have Mila ‘sign’ it too. The opportunities are endless with these and they can be as elaborate as you’d like them to be!

I hope you like these little DIYs. They’re not exclusively for Mother’s Day either! If you decide to do any of them, I’d love see your pictures!