Make It At Home: Mother's Day Edition

I'm fairly confident none of my sons' grandmothers or great-grandmother read my blog (or at least I hope they don't this time!) as I am going to share today about our little Mother's Day project for this year. My sons are lucky enough to have a GG (great grandmother), a Safta, a Bubbie and a Nana in their lives. My older one is now old enough to understand giving a gift a bit better (although he requested to also make and send one of these to his almost 2 year old cousin and he may be slightly less interested in scented candles and trinket boxes than an adult woman!). He was excited when we took a trip together to pick out supplies and materials to make gifts to send the grandmothers! I gave a couple of ideas and suggestions, and he picked which project to do together.

We found some plain cardboard craft boxes that would be great for decorating. My toddler helped pick out a selection of stickers to decorate them with. He personally sniff tested and chose a color of candle for each grandmother (that took a while!) and lastly, I picked up a bag of colorful paper shreds to use as filler/protection. I helped arrange the letter stickers we used to spell out each grandmother's special title but let him have at it with the rest of the stickers. (Hopefully they will appreciate his artistic creativity!) 

Next, it was time to get to work on our card with one of my (and now my toddler's) favorite artistic methods: hand (and foot) prints! This time, little brother could get in on the fun and lend a hand, er, foot...

Big Brother had a grand time making colorful hand prints on white paper with washable ink. At the end, I chose two of hand prints to cut out and glue to our finished project and we hung up some of the rest of his colorful work. Little Brother was not so interested in providing his hands in an open position, so we used his feet instead. I find it a lot easier to cut successful hand and foot prints from white paper and use them to create a collage than to try and perfect the positioning and coordination of creating your artwork directly on the finished product. Big Brother helped position the butterfly wings and choose the papers for the background and butterfly body. Lastly, I photocopied our finished collage for each of our cards--another huge time (and stress) saver when making multiple projects like this. We will be able to personalize each card inside for its recipient.

We are so fortunate to have so many grandmothers in our sons' lives and unfortunately do not live so close to most of them. I'm glad that in lieu of being able to spend Mother's Day together face to face that they will each get to enjoy this small token of their grandsons' appreciation. I wish all of my fellow mothers a special day this Sunday however you spend it. Until then, I wish you joyful mothering and happy playing!