1HappyCorner.com - Gift Blog

“This is your life, mother”

 A great idea for this mother’s day is a scrapbook depicting your mother’s life up until this point. It’s like a chronological tour of her life ’til now. The hardest part of this book will be finding all the pictures and keepsakes you will need, but you still have about 2 weeks to gather everything you need from aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents and close friends.

Here is a list of basic items to get you started (these can be personalized according to your mom’s taste):

• a scrapbooking kit (any craft/hobby store should have one)
• Mother’s day embellishments, stickers, rub-ons
• Memory and Date embellishments, stickers, embossing
• Personal pictures (from her childhood to current) school photos, high school prom, graduation, wedding, following baby’s birth, vacation pictures
• Mom’s favorite and best recipes
• Mom’s accomplishments
• Poem for first page that describes what your mother means to you
• Her ambitions from when she was young (”I want to grow up to be”) and then what she became
• Past cards from husband and kids (mother’s day, birthday cards, valentine’s, etc.)
• Personal notes to mom from family members, friends and you
• What your mom means to you page

The book should start from the earliest information you can gather to today. The setup of the pages will be left up to you, I use a similar setup as pictured above. The page arrangement in the book will depend greatly on how much and what information you have on each item in her life. This is a great site to get ideas on different layouts for your pages. This will be such a special from-the-heart gift, it is sure to be treasured and showed off over the years. Another cool thing to do, is every mother’s day from this point on, you could incorporate more parts of the book; displaying such items from the previous as vacations, special moments (births), valentine’s and Christmas. Once your book is complete, wrap it in your favorite Mother’s day paper and wait for the tears .

—-image belongs to www.cluttercontrolfreak.com

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Gel candles can be a beautiful and surprisingly easy gift to make. The good thing about making your own gel candles is that you can personalize it as much as you want. The more personalized a gift is, the more meaning it has to the receiver. I like to always add a great fragranced essential oil, it’s always good to see and smell a candle. It is quite simple to make gel candles just make sure all your items are non-flammable, wish someone would have told me that my first time making one. These are the needed items:

• candle gel
• stainless steel pot
• zinc wicks
• thermometer
• Liquid candle dye
• essential oil (specially for gel candles)
• Embeds (things you want in the candle)
• glass container
• glue

*easiest way is to buy a candle making kit

Now you’re ready to make your candle. First things first, place hot glue in the center bottom of the glass container. Cut the gel in small pieces so that it can melt evenly. Place cut gel into steel pot on medium heat. Now this is a critical part, make sure the temperature is 200 degrees (use your thermometer). Maintain this temperature until the gel is completely melted. It will have the appearance of syrup. Now add your dye, start with a little and add until it is your desired color. If you are adding embeds, remember to keep the candle mostly transparent.

Almost finished! After you have your desired color, add in your essential oil. Use 1 tablespoon per two cups of gel. Get the glass container with wick in it and heat in microwave until about 150-160 degrees. This will make the gel pour in smoothly eliminating any bubbles. But before you pour in the gel, if you want embeds add them now. Dip the embeds into the hot gel (be careful not to burn yourself!) and arrange them in the container. Now, just slowly pour in your gel. Pull up the wick, let cool, and Voila’…you’re done. You now have a beautiful hand crafted gift.

—image belongs to www.partyfavormall.com

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If you are like me, you love to do creative things and give them as gifts. I consider myself artsy and I have made this Beta Plant craft as gifts for many of my friends, who all loved it. It is so simple to do, and inexpensive. The items you are going to need are: 1 beta fish, a clear glass vase, a plastic cup or saucer (can be purchased at most garden stores), small decorative rocks or glass, a plant, beta food (tropical fish food) and 1 gallon of drinking water. The plant you choose can be peace lily, photos, or philodendrons.

     1st thing you do is choose a beta fish, I like to pick out the color of fish I want so I can match it with my plants and rocks. Once you get home with all your supplies, you need to clean the vase and rocks in water. You also need to clean the plant and the roots, you can do this with a water hose outside or in the sink once you have knocked off all excess dirt. After this is done, you will most likely have to split the plant into pieces to ensure a proper fit into the vase. So you could make more with the remaining halves of the plant, if you wanted.

     Now all the cleaning is done, here comes the fun part. Cut a small hole in the bottom of the saucer. You need the hole big enough for the roots to fit through and still allow air into the bottom. Now place the roots through the hole in the saucer and place saucer into the neck of the vase to make sure it fits properly. If needed, for personal preference, you can trim the roots to make them look neater.

     Carefully, remove the saucer with plant so you can finish up. Add about an inch and a half of rocks or glass to the bottom of the vase. Make sure your water is room temperature and add it to the vase, leave about an inch below the neck of the vase to provide air for the fish. Yes, beta’s are air breathers…imagine, that .

     Gently pour the fish into the vase filled with water. I always give him some food now, just to keep him happy and calm from the move. You should only have to feed him once a week. Now, place the saucer with plant back into the neck of the vase. Check to make sure everything looks fine and there is enough room for the beta to swim around with the roots.

     If you are happy with the way it all looks, add some rocks to the saucer to help keep the saucer and plant in place, and to make it look prettier . Leave room for a small straw to poke through lid, to allow for feeding the beta. Now you are all done. Add ribbons or bows around the neck of the vase and you have your gift!

–image belongs to  www.prettypetalsplus.com

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Designed Paint Cans can make great “gift wraps”! Talking about personalized gifts…  what an ingenious idea! The moment I read about it I knew I had to share!

So, here we go: Amy has a step-by-step tutorial on this at Prairie Paper & Ink . It seems to be very easy to follow and Amy even made greeting cards to match the can!

Other cool examples can be found at TipJunkie , Stampin’ and Scrappin’ with Kristin

The images belong to their respective owners: Amy,  Gifts That Say Wow and Kristin

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