This year, Mother's Day is on Sunday March 15th. It's a great excuse for celebrating motherhood and saying thank you to our mums (not that we should ever need an excuse for doing that!)
Truprint have challenged me to make some personalised Mother's Day gifts for my mum and my mother-in-law. I decided that it would be lovely to use some old photographs from our family albums to create some nostalgic gifts for the mums in my life.
I love old photographs. Each one is rich with memories, evoking emotions from days gone by. Although the quality may not be as good as photographs nowadays, the images themselves are simply wonderful. Losing a little bit of clarity when they are used in photo gifts adds a retro charm, reminding us of fond moments from the past when things seemed so much simpler.
Mother's Day for me, is a time to celebrate the relationship that I have with my mum. I loved looking through old pictures from my own childhood, finding photos of my mum as a young woman with myself and my sisters. Snaps from holidays, days out, family parties and even pictures from photo booths depicted moments from our shared past, which I knew would make an incredible photo gift, charged with love and emotion and steeped with happy memories.
My mum is a proud silver surfer, using the computer that we gave her to stay in touch with the grandchildren and to surf the net. So the ideal gift for her was a new mouse mat. Creating a collage design on the mouse mat allowed me to use eight photographs dated from the early 70's through to the mid 80's in both black and white and colour.
I added a caption onto the mouse mat "Always my Mum...Forever my friend" which sums up our relationship perfectly. I was able to play with colours and fonts, but decided to keep the colour scheme simple, so as not to distract from the wonderful old photos I had chosen to use.
A matching notebook, featuring some of the same photographs used in the mousemat, completes her gift. The note book can be filled with plain or lined paper and is ring bound. I love how a practical gift can still be so personal and hold so many wonderful family memories. I hope she is going to love both of her photo gifts.
For my mother-in-law, I made some gifts using a set of photo booth photos of her and my father-in-law taken at the beginning of their fifty year relationship back in the 60's! They are just such brilliant photographs that tell a story of young love. My MIL's shy and wistful smile and my FIL's sudden attack of the giggles is beautifully captured. So my gift to my other mum this year is to immortalise this moment from her romance that lead to her marriage and becoming a mum to my own wonderful husband and his sister.
I chose to make an 8 x 10 collage photo panel and an 11oz mug. I am so delighted with the results. Using the black surrounds on both gifts fits with the black and white photo booth effect. The photo panel is made of high gloss acrylic and has an integral stand in the back for easy display. It looks classy and is a great way to preserve photographic images as pieces of art for the home.
Notebook £6.99, Collage mug £7.99, Collage 10 x 8 photo panel £17.99, Collage Mouse mat £6.99.
Claim a FREE Mother's Day card in Truprint's Mum in a Million campaign
Truprint would like to make
a million mums smile by giving away 1 million personalised Mother's Day cards. Visit www.truprint.co.uk/mday15, create a card for your mum and simply use the code MUMINAMILLION at the checkout to claim your free card.
T&Cs
Awards one free 7x5 folded card
Standard P&P charges apply (99p)
Ship to recipient not available
Complete with envelope
Code is One time use only
Strictly one code use per household
I have worked in collaboration with Truprint on this post but have retained all editorial control.