Use Photos to Make Unique Mother’s Day Gifts
Is your mom’s house full of old photos in drawers, boxes, and everywhere else? Or is your mom the proud parent of a newborn child, or is she a new grandma? Regardless of just where she is in life, you can use photos old and new to create some memorable, meaningful Mother’s Day gifts. Here are some ideas.
Family Tree
For this gift, you have all kinds of options for the tree, even before you decorate it with photos. Some possibilities include:
* Purchasing a cast-iron or resin tree
* Collecting attractive branches and using them as-is or spray painting them
* Purchasing or creating a bonsai tree
* Purchasing a small potted tree or shrub at your local nursery
Once you have your tree, you can begin decorating it with photos. You can slip each picture into its own store-bought frame and hang them on the tree, or you can “laminate” the photos with clear contact paper, leaving a margin of the paper all around the photo so you can pierce it for a hanging hook without damaging the photo.
Variation: Create a paper family tree by drawing, painting, or using construction paper or craft foam cut-outs mounted on a posterboard background. Glue photos to the tree and frame.
Create a Family Newspaper or Magazine
This can be a fun project for up-and-coming journalists in the family! Try creating a family magazine or newspaper using family photos. The more obscure and funny the picture, the better. Create funny headlines and simple stories about the picture; it can be fiction or non-fiction, whichever your mom would prefer. You might create a magazine with a “Smith Household News” theme, and write up stories on various pictures to present a typical day or week in your house.
Special Photo Services
There are all kinds of gift options you can purchase online using your digital photographs. If you’d rather go this route rather than doing a hands-on craft project, then check online for companies that offer to create various gifts using your photos. Some of these places will print photos on canvas, create mugs or aprons, and even make jewelry from photos.
Photo Jewelry Box
With a jar of inexpensive decoupage medium, the sky’s the limit with what you can create! The idea listed here is a jewelry box, but you can take the decoupage idea and run with it.
For a jewelry box, you’ll need a plain wooden one to start with. This is a great thing to find at a yard sale. You can also buy unfinished ones at some craft stores, or use one of your mom’s existing plain ones if it’s okay with her.
Cut the photos into random sizes and shapes, or line them up in rows of neat squares. Once you have the design figured out, use a brush to coat the top of the jewelry box with decoupage medium. Lay the photos onto the medium, and then apply a coat to the top of the photos to seal and protect them.