Celebrate your mom with one (or more) of these 10 unique yet inexpensive gifts for Mother’s Day. Your mother, if she is anything like my mom or grandmother, just wants to know that she is appreciated and remembered. Your mother wouldn’t want you to go in debt to impress her. In fact, she is probably the one who taught you “it is the thought that counts.” Match her personality to one of the 10 thoughtful — yet cheap and reasonably priced — gifts below to make her Mother’s Day special.
1. Customized Mug
Give a coffee or tea loving mom a coffee mug with her favorite saying, poem, family photograph, or child’s drawing. Customized coffee mugs can be created at many local stores in the photo department as well as through online customization stores. Personalized coffee mugs can be purchased for between $4.99 and $29.99 depending on the store and customization you choose. Alternatively, you can create a do-it-yourself customized mug. Craft writer Amanda Famaro of FamilyCorner.com Magazine uses acrylic enamel paints to draw designs on a coffee mug for Mom. Once the design is complete, the mug is baked in a standard kitchen oven per paint directions. My daughter made a design-your-own travel mug for me last year. She created an art pencil drawing of us for the mug insert. The total cost was $1 plus sales tax because our local DOLLAR TREE stocks 11 ounce Design-Your-Own photo travel mugs for $1 each regular price.
2. Photo Bracelet
Give the mom who loves to show off photos of her children, grandchildren, and pets a photo bracelet of her favorite family members. Take a photograph of each child, grandchild, and/or pet and insert each trimmed photograph into the slots in the photo bracelet. Photo bracelets look like a bracelet made of several small frames linked together. Photograph bracelets come in a wide variety of materials from wood frames to metal frames starting in price as low as $5. You can purchase your photo bracelet at a local photograph or portrait studio as well as online.
3. Customized Mousepad
Give the techie mom or mom with a home office a customized mousepad. You can design a custom mousepad online with one photo, a collage of photos, and/or a quote or special text online. Or you can buy a mousepad with an insert for a photo or drawing as a do-it-yourself custom gift. Custom mousepads typically start at $5. Personalize the text with “The Best Mom” or “#1 Mom” for year round use.
4. Mom’s Favorite Dessert
Give your mother her favorite dessert as a gift. You know what your mom likes best and whether she would like it baked-from-scratch or bakery-made. Personally I always love a batch of fresh chocolate chip cookies. If you don’t know how to make cookies from scratch, you can use the refrigerated dough or the box mixes to make her a sweet treat. My other favorite dessert is Tiramisu which I readily devour whether from-scratch or store-bought. Kroeger stocks a beautiful non-alcoholic Tiramisu layer cake for approximately $12.
5. Flowering Tea Set
Give a mother who loves blooms a flowering tea set. Flowering tea sets come with a clear glass tea pot and a special tea blend that blooms into a flower in the pot. According to Primula , glass tea pots are made of durable hand blown borosilicate glass which is more resistant to thermal shock than common glass. You are able to boil water in the tea pot and then put ice in the pot to make ice tea without fear of shattering. If your mother loves flowers, tea, or both, she will enjoy this unique Mother’s Day gift. Flowering tea sets can be found in specialty coffee and tea stores and online for between $20 and $50.
6. Hand-selected Gift Basket or Gift Bag
Purchase a cute basket or bag and fill it with hand-picked goodies for your mom. Find a store with a dollar section or where all items are a dollar and then hand-select items that your mother will love and use. Common items that can be found for $1 include small candles, toiletries, make-up, hair accessories, craft items, and candies. Target has a dollar section that often stocks some bakeware and garden related items while DOLLAR TREE has everything for one dollar in the store.
7. Pearl Jewelry
Give a mom with traditional or elegant taste white, pink, or off-white pearl earrings or a pearl earring, bracelet, and necklace set. Give a mom who loves color a set of pearl studs or dangling pearl earrings in red, blue, purple, or another brighter hue. Pearl sets can be found in local stores or online for reasonable prices. According to FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) improvements in technology in pearl cultivation result in stable production; stable pearl production leads to lower pearl prices. Multi-colored pearl earring sets can be found as low as $16 at Walmart. A boxed set of 6 pearl earrings in different hues can be found as low as $29.99 at JCPenney and on Amazon.com.
8. Craft Set or Baking Set
Give an industrious and creative mom a craft set or bake set. You need to know either what your mother loves to do or what she might like to try so that you can select the appropriate set for her. Craft sets for jewelry making, candle making, watercolor painting, and scrap-booking are readily available in local stores. Baking sets, culinary art sets, and bakeware sets are in local stores, specialty stores, and online. Your mom might want a set of fabric swatches for quilting, a set of icing tips for cake decorating, or a special tool for her hobby.
9. Mother and Child Charm Necklace
Give your mom a sterling silver mother and child charm necklace to celebrate Mother’s Day. There are necklaces with a single charm that has a mother and one, two, or three children embracing. There are also necklaces with a single charm for mom and each child (boy or girl). If mom already has enough necklaces, there are rings and bracelets that can be customized with the birthstones of each child to celebrate her family.
10. Genuine Gold Rose
Give a mom who loves receiving flowers a genuine gold dipped rose for Mother’s Day as a change of pace from a more traditional bouquet. A small gold dipped rose is a unique Mother’s Day gift relatively inexpensive when compared to the standard price of a delivered bouquet of flowers. If her gold rose is treated with care, it will last many years to come. Gold dipped rose foil flowers start at $24 while larger roses and bouquets start at $50.
Resources:
“Painted Coffee Mug for Mom” — Amanda Formaro, FamilyCorner.com Magazine
“Primula Top FAQ” — Primula
“Pearl Oyster Farming and Pearl Culture” — FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) Fisheries and Aquaculture Department
