The past couple of years it has been hard to get together with the ones you love to celebrate the mothers in your life. This Mother’s Day, why not choose a theme-oriented around a passion of hers and run with it all day long? If you can’t get together this Mother’s Day due to distance you can still find lots of great virtual ideas in each theme mix below.
Here’s to the unstoppable women in our lives!
For Moms Who Love Flowers and Gardening
- Put flowers in colorful Mason jars scattered throughout the house; whenever she enters a room over the next few days, a burst of love and color will greet her (and wipe away the isolation from pandemic sheltering). A virtual option: Consider a monthly delivery of flowers.
- Make a blossomy breakfast in bed. You can serve hibiscus tea and put chive flowers in the omelet. Sprinkling rose flower petals on the breakfast tray would add visual excitement. Or, instead of serving a croissant on the side, go big with focaccia bread decorated in “sunflower art”. Vertically sliced mini yellow bell peppers create the petals, chives for stems, Italian parsley for leaves, and chopped black olives for flower centers.
- Decorate your Mom’s bike handlebars and basket (if she has one) with flowers and then take a bike ride together. This delivers a big wow effect, especially when you use big flowers like peonies, roses, or daisies. It’s an easy DIY: Cut flower stems short and affix them to the handlebar and/or basket with floral wire.
- Fit in a little gardening time together. Plant a great perennial like a lilac—known as “Queen of the Shrubs”–that you both can watch grow.
- Take an online floral arranging class together.
- Go shopping together at a vintage clothing store to find a great flowery print dress. Seventies fashion was all about flower power.
- Go to a farmer’s market together, grab fresh flowers and picnic food, and have a picnic in the park. Use an empty soda can or water bottle for a temporary vase to make it feel special.
- Make a simple cake and top it with edible flowers like lilac blossoms, elderflower blossoms, and pansies. You can find candied edible flowers at stores like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods.
- Buy a flower design puzzle and assemble it with your Mom.
- Purchase a gardening gift she can use or enjoy, like a beautiful floral scarf, gardening gloves and tools, gorgeous planters, or floral throw pillows.
For Moms who Love to Craft
- Try a paint-and-sip class. These studio stores are popping up all over and feature super fun classes where you can paint beautiful watercolor scenes on canvases, while you sip wine or mimosas and even listen to a DJ play tunes.
- Turn your kitchen counter into a craft table by making pizza or crepes with unique toppings. Use store-bought pizza dough so that the only “work” is creative. If you go the crepe route, offer toppings to make either sweet or savory crepes: banana, fancy jam, berries, ricotta, and honey for the sweet crepes; gruyere cheese, sautéed mushrooms, scallions, bacon, spinach, and fried eggs for savory possibilities. Use store-bought crepes (found in the strawberry aisle) to save your energy for the fun toppings.
- Make an adorable “green roof birdhouse,” popular these days, and then put it in your Mom’s backyard for her to enjoy. Do this simple project together if you can, or mail her the basic materials and have a Zoom session with her. You can use a cheap birdhouse with a flat top purchased at a craft store. Affix a lightweight small planter on its roof. Paint the outside of the birdhouse and planter and then fill the planter with succulents. This birdhouse doubles as gorgeous backyard art.
- Visit an art gallery in a nearby town; poke around a flea market to discover cheap vintage art or gilded frames or pretty flower adornments to hot-glue onto your flip-flops; or get tickets for an exhibit opening at your local museum.
- Make a pretty photo pendant to attach to a costume-jewelry necklace your Mom already has. Decoupage a picture of you and your Mom onto the back of it. You can then paint the back of the pic with a little metallic acrylic paint and attach it to a fun necklace using jewelry wire (or a jeweler can do that for you). Ask your Mom to pair her necklace with another important pendant – a Medical Alert system she can wear for peace of mind. In this context, you can let her know you’re thinking of her and that you care about her health and safety.
For Moms who Love Games and Exercise
- Take a morning hike through the park.
- Play lawn games together, like cornhole, horseshoes, and croquet. Set the games up around the yard like a circuit-training class and move from one game to the next.
- Make a fun “inventory” quiz to determine if she has what she needs for a full active life. Does she have good sneakers? Does she have a mobile Medical Alert system that alerts an emergency response operator if she falls?
- Play cards or have a family game night playing charades, a fun board game like Scrabble.
- Create an at-home wine tasting class and have a fun competition guessing the tasting notes, whether fruit or vanilla or coconut. Or there are virtual options as well.