It's hard sometimes to figure out what to give Mom for Mother's Day! You have great intentions every year and plan on doing something thoughtful, but then give up and end up sending her flowers or candy yet again. Giving Mom something she'll truly treasure on her special day just takes a little ingenuity and a little planning ahead.

Whatever you do, make it personal. There are plenty of websites where you can make your own individualized cards online and even add a gift.

Here are some other ideas to help.

If you have Small Children

– Grandmas love having keepsakes from their grandchildren that are more practical over the long term than a paper picture that hangs on the fridge. Why not create personalized stepping stones for her garden instead? Craft stores have ready-made kits of all shapes and sizes to choose from, and the project can easily be completed in one afternoon. Kids can make a handprint or create a colorful mosaic in the stone that is completely unique.

– Make a giant wall-sized card. You can buy colored butcher paper at craft stores in any length you wish. Make outlines of your very small toddlers and have them dress them up with faces and clothes. Or you can write a huge Mother's Day greeting in the center and surround the greeting with hand prints, drawings, and personal messages. This kind of card is ideal to send to someone living in a retirement home: Grandma or Great-Grandma can hang it up in the hallway and gloat about it for weeks!

Group Gift idea from Adult Children

– Once children are grown and gone, all moms have left are their memories of them as little ones. Your memories are bound to be different from hers, and you may even remember things she's forgotten completely.

Try this: each child writes down 15 special memories of Mom on separate index-card sized pieces of paper. If you all live in the same town and are planning to get together on Mother's Day, put all of the memory papers into a big jar. After dinner, have Mom take them out one by one and read them aloud. You will have laughter, you will have tears, and you will give your Mom a precious new memory.

– Put together a book of tributes for Mom. Each child can create up to 10 scrapbook-style pages with photos, love notes, and individualized tribute letters from each child, spouse, and grandchild. Put each page into a plastic sheet protector so that everything looks nice and professional.

Whatever you do, make it personal. There are plenty of websites where you can make your own individualized cards online and even add a gift.

For the very best in online Mother's Day greeting card fulfillment, visit the greeting card mailing specialists at Card Cafe (http://cardcafe.com). Art Gib is a freelance writer.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 at 9:22 pm and is filed under Holidays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.