Mother's Day Crafts

Mother's Day is one of those holidays I always forget about until the last minute.  Blame it on the fact that it's the end of the school year and we have about a zillion activities going on right now.  My calendar is full of special events, most of which involve the word "party."

I always seem to lack ideas for Mother's Day gifts.  There was the year of the cookbooks.  I assembled and bound 20 cookbooks.  I had so many kind thank yous for that one, but it was sooooo much work!  I don't think I have the time or patience to embark on that project again.

Then, last year we made the picture tiles.  (You can read about those here.)  Those were really great, but I did those already this year as Christmas gifts.  I've actually run across this craft of mine on Pinterest a few times!

So, now I'm left to figure out an easy, cute, and cheap Mother's Day gift idea that I can hammer out in the next week.  (And by "week" I mean Monday and Tuesday since Wednesday is a baseball game field trip, Thursday is reading training, and Friday is Field Day!)

Pinterest to the rescue!

I'm not sure which, if any, of these I'm going to do.  I need to review these a little more and then see how much this Hobby Lobby trip will set me back.

Here's the best of Pinterest's easy Mother's Day gift ideas...

Slacker teachers like me shall take note!

Source: crafts.kaboose.com via Jenny on Pinterest

Source: andsewwecraft.com via Crafty on Pinterest

Source: familyfun.go.com via Rachel on Pinterest

Source: starpictures.info via Grisel on Pinterest

Source: belladia.typepad.com via Robyn on Pinterest

Source: applesandabcs.blogspot.com via Polly on Pinterest

Okay, it's a little late... Mother's Day Project

Things have been kind of crazy with school lately and so blogging was put on the back burner until summer.... Thankfully, SUMMER VACATION IS HERE!

Anyway, I'm getting caught up on a few posts I was meaning to share.

This was our Mother's Day project for the year. It's a picture tile. Total cost for me: 9 cents per student. (I had all supplies except the tiles on hand already!)

I can never settle on what to do for Mother's Day and I honestly forget about that holiday until usually a few days before. I've had years over being an over-achiever (Mother's Day cookbook = hours and hours of work on my part = very happy moms) to under-achiever (poems on construction paper made on Friday afternoon.)

I actually "borrowed" this idea from my aunt who is a first grade teacher in my building.

Here's what you need:

1. Plain white paper and a color printer


2. Plain 4x4 white tiles (I got mine at Menards on sale for 9 cents each.)


3. Mod Podge


4. Foam brush


5. Craft Bond stick glue


6. Digital camera


7. Paper cutter

I had the students select a place and a pose out on the playground. The kids got pretty creative with how they wanted their pictures and I *tried* to make them look somewhat artsy.

I printed the pictures on regular paper on my inkjet printer. I just printed them as regular 4x6 photos and then cropped them down to about 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 with my paper cutter. (Some pics I adjusted my cropping to make them look better.)

Now, here's where I messed up and learned a lesson the hard way. Wait to let the pictures REALLY dry before gluing and applying the Mod Podge. (Had I not been in such a hurry doing this project on Friday morning I may not have had problems with pictures bubbling and curling a bit.) I had the kids help me with gluing the pictures down and rubbing them flat.

With the foam brush, apply a thin layer of Mod Podge over the picture. It's best to use a wide brush so that you can apply a layer in just 2 or 3 strokes. I went over all of the tiles once, let them dry about 15 minutes and then applied another layer. I repeated this about 3 times until they all had a nice glossy finish.

Mod Podge dries pretty fast, so we worked on the project in the morning, let them dry during specials and lunch, and then were able to wrap them up right after lunch. I had the kids create a card and let them decorate a white sack. We wrapped the tiles in pretty Dollar Tree tissue paper.