It’s nearly Mother’s Day! But, there is still time for even truly skillful procrastinators to send a gift that’s more personal than just flowers and candy. Here are three personalized, last-minute things you can do, with your kids, for Mother’s Day gifts!
Photos She Can Enjoy Day After Day
Send her pictures she can enjoy all year long. Family photo-sharing service, Photo Mambo, is an ideal Mother’s Day
present for any Grandma or Mom who has an iPad or computer. Procrastinator bonus: you can send it on Mother’s Day; it arrives minutes later!
Pick about 20 – 30 of your nicest family photos from the past six months, and send them using the Photo Mambo service . (Free to use at their website or with the iPhone app at the App Store).
Mom will receive an email inviting her to install the Photo Mambo Frame, filled with your pictures. She’ll will enjoy seeing the pictures on Mother’s Day, of course. And, your pictures will stay front and center to be enjoyed long after May 10th. She can click the Photo Mambo icon on her iPad any time, to transform it into a digital frame that automatically shows all the pictures you’ve sent her. It gives her iPad a fun new function while it’s charging or otherwise idle. No iPad? No problem. Photo Mambo also works as a screensaver for her Mac or PC computer.
Whether on her iPad or computer, she’ll enjoy your pictures for weeks and months to come, and you can send new ones to update her frame whenever you have fun new moments to share.
If you want to make it really special, snap a couple of Mom’s-Day-specific photos to include, and let Photo Mambo turn your pictures into a lasting gift she’ll enjoy all year long.
Make Her a Movie
Another quick and easy way to delight Mom or Grandma is to make a short movie telling her all the reasons she’s an awesome Mom/Grandma.
You can keep it simple. Have the kids write down 3-4 reasons, each on a piece of paper. Add a couple of your own, and then with your smart phone or camera film each person holding up a reason and telling her about it. There’s no need for editing. Just switch the cards out while the camera rolls and any “flubs” become part of what makes it adorable. Editing video can be super time-consuming.
Or you can jazz it up just a bit. Especially if the kids are old enough to play with some of the many iPad video apps, they may want to help make the whole thing much more creative. Apple’s iMovie allows the kids to create remarkably well-done movie trailers, Action Movie FX let’s them add big-screen special effects worthy of a Mother’s Day action flick, and Video Star is another special effects favorite* .
To share it….post it privately on YouTube. (How-to info here).
Love You Coupons
A few years ago my daughter gave me “Love You Coupons” for Easter, and highly recommend them for Mother’s Day! They are adorable, and she gets so excited when I use them. She came up with coupon ideas I would never have thought of, so let the kids have at it…their creativity may surprise you.
Some examples: “I will wash your car with my hands”, “I will help the plants grow any day”, “I will put your shoes away on Wednesday or Friday”, and my favorite “I will help make the home we live in a better place any day”.
If you’re making coupons for a Grandmother who lives far away, you might try something like “I will send you a new art piece each week in May” or “I’ll Skype call you every Saturday morning in May”.
You can mail the coupons if you are only a pretender procrastinator. Or you can photograph them and send via email if you are a truly great procrastinator.
Happy Mother’s Day at the 11th Hour!
* With special thanks to my tween-age iPad video app experts, Sophia and Carter. 🙂
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