Mother’s Day Cards DIY – Print Flowers: Adventures in Kid-Art

As May rounds the midway corner we are reminded of the people who molded us, instilled our work ethic, and passed down the ability to persevere through anything that life throws our way: our mothers.

For those of us who have accepted the torch of motherhood ourselves, the holiday is two-fold. We are both recipients and givers of thanks.

Being a new mom has given me a much greater understanding and appreciation of what it means to bring another person into this world and help them grow up. My kiddo turned one last month. I can’t believe I’ve been a parent for over a year!

Until little Luke arrived I didn’t fully understand the love that a mother has for her child, which in turn means that I never understood all that my mother had done for me. I wasn’t aware of the long sleepless nights or the waves of ultimately unnecessary, but also unmitigated, worry that being a parent entails. I didn’t know what it felt like to share in every joy and every sorrow your child expresses.

When Luke stood on his own for the first time, my own face mirrored his pride. As he discovers gravity I find myself in awe of a force that I’ve long taken for granted. At the same time, I share his surprise and hurt when an object he thought he could lean on turns out to be less sturdy than it appeared.

This mother’s day I find myself imagining my relationship with Luke as a mirror of what my relationship with my own mother must have looked like some thirty years ago. I image her holding my hands so I could take my first steps across the room. I see her cuddling up with me in her bed when I can’t soothe myself to sleep alone in my baby room. I see butterfly kisses, personalized song lyrics, and plenty of shared giggled. The last thing I want to do is give her a generic card from Hallmark or a package of chocolates that she could easily purchase herself.

My answer this year was kid-produced print flowers. These cute DIY Mother’s Day Cards are easy to make, the definition of personalized, and fun for the whole family. I must admit that they would probably be easier to do with an older child, but Luke enjoyed the errors as much as the outcome!

The general idea is to get differently colored hand and footprints from your little one. Cut each one out. Then, using glue and green straws, you can arrange the footprint as a vase and each handprint as an individual flower delicately arranged within the vase.

Feel free to throw some footprints in as flowers as well! I decided to make this the cover to a card, in which we wrote a Mother’s Day note to my mom, Luke’s Grandma.

What you will need for this project:

1. Scissors
2. Glue
3. Double sided tape
4. Pain
5. Paint brush
6. Green straws
7. White paper
8. Colored paper

Watch this video to learn how to make the cards.

No need to do yours exactly like ours! The brilliance of this project is individuality with no two prints being the same and no two print-flowers coming out identical. It needn’t even be a card. A simple frame, for example, could easily turn this project into a displayable work of kid-art.

Whether you’re making a gift for your wife or for your own mother, they are sure to love it. After all, those teeny tiny fingers and feet won’t be teeny tiny for all that long!

Please SHARE this Mother’s Day Cards DIY with everyone who would like to offer something unique to their mom.

Enjoy, and feel free to share how your Mother’s Day card turned out in the comments. We’d also love to hear about your own Mother’s Day creations!