DIY Mother's Day Gift

Time is ticking down on projects for me. My midterm paper is due next week; I spent my entire Saturday finishing the rough draft- paying now for delaying work on it. It's also Mother's Day next weekend, and my mom's birthday on the same day. If I want her gifts to get to her on time, I have to mail it out soon. Only first I have to make it. 

Her birthday gift is easy; a kind co-worker gives the secretaries $40 target gift cards for Administrative Assistant Day. For the 2nd year in a row I'll be re-gifting my gift. :) 

As for Mother's day, I decided the best thing for her (and my pocket book) was a DIY craft from Pinterest. After a little searching, I decided the "50 reasons I love you" mason jar craft was the best choice. There are several variations on Pinterest.

Candy Jar

Another Candy Jar variation

Simple Writing Jar

And the one I modeled mine off of:

The candy is a cute touch, but my mom is allergic to caffeine, which is in chocolate. 

The whole project cost me about $18 (I should have saved the receipt) so it wasn't a near-free idea, but I have a feeling it'll be the best valued gift- mom's are suckers for stuff like this. :)

Supplies: 

1 mason jar

hot glue/ hot glue gun

1 package of cardstock paper (I used a 100 sheet package of 4.5 x 6.5 and have way too much left over)

ribbon

Alphabet scrapbook stickers

3D scrapbook stickers

Time to craft list of 50 things: around 5 hours; I wanted each one to be meaningful and include memories

Time to craft final project: around an hour

The steps are pretty easy to figure out visually, but I'll explain my method:

• create the list
• print onto cardstock (I printed 4 on each page)

• snip each reason apart and fold each up
• insert 'reasons' into mason jar; take care to that the folded paper doesn't stack into each other so the receiver won't be pulling out several at a time
• trace the top of the mason jar on a piece of cardstock and cut out
• place letting on circle
• hot glue circle to lid of mason jar
• hot glue ribbon to rim of mason jar
• add 3D scrapbook stikers randomly on outside of jar

I'm thrilled with the results, mostly because I know my mom will love it!

A variation of this idea that I thought would be fun, but at the moment cannot afford, was to do this same concept but to tape each reason to a $1.00 scratch card! Maybe I'll do a 25 reasons I love you scratch card idea for someone else...