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5 Mother's Day Gifts To Make With Recycled Materials

Keep the kids busy, declutter and make Mom smile.

It’s always amazing to receive a homemade card or gift and see the thought and care that has gone into it.

This Mother’s Day, many people will be DIY-ing their offering out of necessity too, with stores being closed and budgets tight, during the COVID-19 crisis. Making things is also a great way to keep kids busy and give them the chance to explore their creativity.

Here are five beautiful homemade Mother’s Days crafts for inspiration. They all use recycled household materials or found objects, so no need to shop.

A muffin wrapper daffodil

This simple and beautiful flower card just requires basic cutting and glueing skills, so it’s suitable for supervised preschoolers, as long as you have safety scissors at home. You’ll need a paper muffin case too, so be sure not to use all yours up with pandemic baking! “This was a good fine motor activity as he carefully held and manipulated each piece. We talked about the different parts of the flower before we glued each piece to incorporate a mini science lesson,” wrote educator and stay-at home mom Lauren Deutsche on her Instagram account.

Toilet paper tube tulips

Toilet paper hoarders: You kept the cardboard inner tubes, right? They can easily be snipped, painted and transformed into an adorable 3D bouquet of tulips. We love this spring floral tribute to mothers, from crafty mom Tracey Radford, who lives in the U.K.

A bouquet of balloons card

You could use construction paper scraps, recycled wrapping paper or magazine pages to make this sweet card. Just cut out paper hearts and transform them into a bouquet of balloons, by glueing string, wool or ribbon beneath them, on a pretty card or paper background. The idea comes from the teachers at a British school, Corringham Primary, and their Instagram page is full of fun activities to do at home with kids.

Wine cork kitties

A cute way to celebrate Mom or a passive-aggressive way to say, “Maybe the wine o’clock Zoom chats are getting out of hand?” You decide, kids! Nine corks are glued together to make the cats’ bodies, then googly eyes, cocktail-stick whiskers, cardboard ears and noses, and pipe cleaner tails are attached to complete the project. This sweet DIY sculpture is brought to you by Jamie Anderson, in Hawaii, and she took her inspiration from the website Free Kids Crafts.

Mom Rocks

A smooth pebble or rock can be a blank canvas for a kid’s artistic homage to their mom. The younger the kid, the bigger the surface should be, to make it easier to get some kind of likeness! Kids can draw the lines with pencil then finish their mom’s portrait with paint. Water-based paints can be coated with varnish for protection. This is also a great activity for using up leftover wall paints, if your kids are older and less inclined to make a mess. This sweet example is from New Zealand artist and rock painter Mari B Demz.

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