Mother's Day treasures! Our GRAND ideas for 2025!

Thursday, April 24, 2025

We hope you and your loved ones had a memorable Easter celebration!

Near (Laurie) or far (Laura),

our little bunnies had a wonderful day, full of Alleluias and Easter goodies!

In tomorrow’s edition of WEEKLY SNAPSHOTS

we’ll be sure to share a few Easter details with you all.

Today, though, with Mother’s Day (in the USA)

only a few short weeks away,

we're turning our attention to gift giving ideas

with a GRAND twist, of course!

We each love creating gifts with Littles!

After all, we’ve had lots of practice…

Thanks to our many years of making crafts and projects

with classrooms filled with kindergarten students!

Mother’s Day provides a perfect opportunity to do so!

These days, as Grands, we are thrilled to help our Littles (our grandkids) make gifts for our daughters (their moms)! It’s a special way to remind daughters (and don’t forget daughter-in-laws if you’re lucky enough to have them) of the great job they are doing navigating life as a parent!

Also, what a beautiful teachable moment and bonding experience this presents with our grandchildren - the opportunity to talk about mommies and how much they do for their children. It’s also a great time to share memories of their moms (and dads) as children. What Little isn’t fascinated to hear about some of the funny and “naughty” things their mommies and daddies did when little?

Today we are sharing ideas that are new to our blog!

These are the gifts we made with our Littles last year!

(We had to keep them a secret til the big day then, right???)

While each may take a bit of thought and prep ahead of time,

we promise that each is meaningful, cost-effective and easy to pull off…

essential considerations when we’re taking anything on!

Whether you’re a GRAND (like us), a parent, a teacher, a caregiver

anyone else with a special child you spend time with check out our ideas!

Last year I had two projects going…

One with 6-month-old Little P and another one with two-year-old Little D!

I was able to adapt the same project to make it tailored to each Little!

“I Love You” Flower! (The six-month-old - Little P - version!)

This was the version of the project that I completed with Little P! It was so successful!

1. I cut out the shape of a flower and put it in a sealed ziploc bag with a dab of paint. I showed Little P how to smoosh it around and laid it on the table.

2. Little P picked up the bag and crumbled it, but it turned out fine! I think an older baby would have more success with this by pushing the paint around laying on a flat surface.

3. Lay the flower out to dry. I created the stem and grass and painted Little P’s little feetsies to make 2 footprints for the leaves. (I painted her feet green with washable paint and then stamped them onto a piece of white paper, waited for the paint to dry and cut out the foot leaves!) I glued these to the stem and added a photo of Little P to the middle of the dried flower… We were set!

“I Love You” Flower! (The two-year-old - Little D - version!)

This was such a fun project to do with Little D! I loved having her finish the statement “I Love My Mom Because…” and listening to all her answers!

1. I found the flower template below on .Glued to My Crafts and printed off a free copy but it would be very simple to draw a flower and write the words yourself! I wrote one of Little D’s answers on each petal and asked her to color the flower petals in with crayons.

2. Then Little D painted a stem and grass on a large sheet of white paper.

We glued the flower on when the paint had dried.

3. Next I painted her hands and pressed them on white paper. After they dried we cut those out and glued them to the stem. I did hands with Little D instead of feet because she loves making handprints! (But feet would work just as well.)

4. I asked Little D to sign and decorate the paper when we finished. She wanted to add her own words as well on post-it notes so we attached those to the bottom.

A year later,

my daughter still has both projects hanging up in her office!

Last year at this time we were anxiously awaiting the arrival of a new Little!

Little P made her entrance on May 4,

so as you might imagine,

our minds were on other things at that point!

While the gift of a healthy beautiful Little

was the very best present Daughter J could receive,

I did manage to pull off a few small projects as mementos

to mark her first Mother’s Day as a mom to two!

Photo Flowers! (Perfect for any age… even a newborn!)

This project is so easy and doesn’t even require any real directions. I took photos of our two Littles and made prints of each (In fact, I made extras so I could make a flower pot for the other Grand in their lives!)

I cut each Little’s face from the photos and then glued each to a piece of construction paper (I chose yellow for both). This was the “center” of each flower. Then I chose a different color of construction paper for each flower shape and I cut those out. I glued the photo center to the larger photo and added my Littles’ names and the date to each flower. Then I taped each flower to a wooden dowel (I used kebab sticks I had on hand) and stuck both into a flower pot. Easy peasy but truly appreciated!

A Fingerprint Flower Mug! (Two-year-old Little L made this)

Little L and I made this project a few weeks before her baby sister was due! Over the years I had seen and then made lots of fingerprint projects with kids, so this was easy to adapt!

Materials Needed:

• a white cup or mug (ceramic or plastic)

• acrylic paints (green plus 1-5 other colors)

• a paintbrush

• a permanent thin-lined black marker

• acrylic sealer (liquid or spray) - we used this one

Directions:

1. Make sure that the mug you’ll be painting is clean and dry. Using a paintbrush, paint your Little’s hand green! (This will tickle but challenge your Little to keep his/her fingers stretched out as you paint.)

2. Carefully press your Little’s handprint on to the mug, as shown. Gently lift your Little’s hand straight up and away from the mug! Set the mug aside to dry and wash your Little’s hand!

3. When your Little’s handprint has dried, you are ready for the next step! Let your Little choose what color(s) to use for the five flowers. Your Little can choose one paint color for all five or a different color for each flower. Pour a small amount of paint onto a plate (we used a piece of paper towel for easy clean up). Have your Little put their pointer finger in the paint and then guide them to make five fingerprints in a circle to make each flower at the top of each stem made by the handprint. Older Littles will be able to do this independently but younger Littles will benefit from your help!

Repeat until all five flowers have been made with your Little’s pointer finger! (NOTE: Wash your Little’s finger each time you switch colors.)

4. Again, wait until the fingerprints have dried. Then, choose one more color (we picked yellow) and let your Little make one more fingerprint in the center of each flower!

I also used a thin-lined black permanent marker to write Little L’s name on the mug and the year she made it. As a final step, I applied an acrylic sealant to the mug, following the directions on the packaging.