You'll always be your mom's little one, and there's nothing more sentimental than homemade Mother's Day gifts, regardless of your age. Whether you enlist the help of your kiddos or craft up a keepsake on your own, discover these homemade gift ideas just in time for Mother's Day.
   

1. Baked gifts

Use your mom's favorite recipes to bake up cupcakes, cake pops, brownies or cookies for a nostalgic gift on Mother's Day.

2. Breakfast in bed

Keep a Mother's Day tradition alive by having your kids serve your mom breakfast in bed, even when you've left the nest!

3. Homemade soap

Have your kids help combine glycerin with natural ingredients such as oatmeal, honey or blades of grass to create unique soaps.

4. Homemade candles

Simply jazz up plain pillars with decals or specialty candle paper for gift candles almost too pretty to burn.

5. Homemade trail mix

Fuse granola and dried fruit to create a homemade gift of trail mix that is personalized to please her palate.

Whip up these 20 edible Mother's Day gift ideas she'll gobble up >>

6. Homemade flower hair clip

Turn simple silk or paper flowers into pretty hair accessories when glued to alligator clips to present on Mother's Day.

7. Homemade spa gifts

Sugar scrubs, bath soaks and face masks can be made from ingredients in your own kitchen, but take mom far, far away.

8. Embellished sleep mask

Give a plain sleep mask some flair with rhinestones, jewel glue and glitter slick paint to help moms get some well-deserved slumber.

9. Candy jar

Top a canning jar with Mom's favorite candies, glue and then seal goodies with clear acrylic paint and fill jar with the same treat to share with her grandkids.

10. Personalized stationery

Homemade stationery sets are a great Mother's Day gift idea and can be assembled and personalized easily by tearing edges, having kids stamp or by monogramming in Mom's favorite hues.

Let me know what you think about these ideas!  If you have some ideas, please comment below!

 

Brrrrrr!!!!  February has been buried!!

This was taken on a Saturday morning.  We had just been hit with a good snow early that morning and my hubby's parents water line burst.  We were headed to fix that for them.  Not long after I took that picture, there was an SUV on the other side of the four lane headed in the opposite direction.  But what caught my eye was that it was on FIRE!  Yes, driving down the road ON FIRE.  I told my husband to turn around (in snow and ice and FAST) and I immediately called 911.  By the time we got back to that vehicle, it was in flames.  I knew the young lady that was driving the vehicle.  She had just bought the Jeep and was headed to work.  I also knew her boss, so we called him and let him know what was going on.  Within minutes the vehicle was engulfed and the battery and various engine parts had exploded.  She lost everything except herself and what was in her pockets.  The fire department arrived just in time before the flames hit the gas tank.



 She was safe but lost her belongings in the vehicle as well as the vehicle.  Not long after this day,a good friend went missing while heading to work.  She was found 10 hours later, stranded in her vehicle that had slid off the road.

Its been a very Dangerous month here in Tennessee!  But alas, it has been beautiful.  Here a few pics of the last snow that we had.

Tell Me:  How has the weather been your way??

Lately, I have been on the hunt.  The hunt for the perfect planner for work and life balance.  With all the things that I do, I need a lot of space and particulars in my planner.

What Areas of my Life that I need to cover:

• Work: I work in the medical field and I have to follow a load of federal, state, and company guidelines.  I have very specific time limits for records.  And in order for the office to run smoothly, I need to be organized and run like a well greased wheel.
• Web Design: I build web sites on the side and when I have a project going, I can get lost in the minor details.  You would not believe what actually goes in to building a website.  There are facets that have time limits and items that can NOT be completed before other items.  Lack of organization can cause the build to slowly creep or come to a halt. 
• Crochet: All crochet items take quite a bit of time.  I like to track when an order needs to be done, when it needs to be mailed/delivered, how many rows I need to accomplish per day to finish it on time, etc.  
• Blogging: Like web design, there are many facets to blogging.  Tracking, posts, ads, comments, actual writing time and concepts: these are just a few of the areas.  To be organized is to be successful.
• Home/Personal: We all need a little organization in our personal lives.  I see my home as a personal hotel.  There has to be planning and prepping for it to run smoothly.  Laundry has to be done at a certain time so that I am SURE that everyone has a nice bed to sleep in, fresh towels, clean clothes for the next day.  Also, no one wants to be sick and face to face with a dirty toilet bowl!

What I am currently using to plan:

• Work: I have a small planner that I carry in my purse that I jot down the hours that my honey and I have worked.  Then I also have a folder at work that holds various printed emails and hand written notes to remind me of certain things.  Then I have a LARGE desktop calendar to track holidays as well as drug rep luncheons, etc.  Pretty much I am all over the place.
• Web Design:   I have about four spiral bound notebooks that I do nothing but jot down various information in no organized way.  Its all random, not even written straightly on the lines (most of the time it's written diagonally across the page in the middle of a blank notebook and on the half of the page that has not been ripped out).  Needless to say, this area is a mess.
• Crochet:  Most of the time I do NOT have anything written down and wing it all.  Any information that I do need is stored online or written on the pattern that I need (or have written).  No organization in finances (other than just keeping everything in a folder).
• Blogging:  This is the biggy!  I have been researching and hunting.  Right now, I'm just winging it.  I have jotted various things down on scrap papers and online.  This is where I found out that I am a pen and paper girl.  Doing my blog planning on my blog back office or online is NOT helping keep me organized at all. 
• Home/Personal: I have a big black notebook calendar that I keep at home.  The small one that I keep in my purse. A journal that i keep at home. Various and numerous notebooks that I hot down in. My cell phone that I keep things up with. Numerous failed attempts at printing and trying to use others planners as well as online programs for planning.

Currently, I feel like I am all over the place!  I saw a great ad for a planner that was called The Passion Planner.  But, when I clicked the link, they weren't doing calendars until March of this year.  That's not helping me at the moment.

This is what I am looking for:

• A single place for everything! Oh how wouldn't that be nice.  All the planning in one single place. One planner to track everything.
• Work and Life Balance.  Make sure that I am balancing out my happy things with the things that I have to stay on top of.
• Time Management. I will be able to see where I am spending most of my time. As well as, seeing where I am wasting most of my time.
• Task Planning.  This is a nice little thing that I came up with.  Where I plan my tasks to avoid time wasting.  For instance: I do all my errands on one day and strategically plan my trek through the different places in town without back tracking or running like crazy all over the place.
• Brainstorming.  I want to be able to track ideas and random thoughts that I have.  I have tons of random thoughts LOL  Hence all the notebooks that I have around the house that have completely random things written randomly throughout the pages HAHAHAHA

This is what I have decided to do:

I have decided that I just want to create my own!!  Once I get it put together I will most likely be sharing pages on here.  The objective here is to see if I can put together what all I want in a single planner.....maybe offer it for sale when it is good to go and I use it well.  Right now it is time to plan and then on to trial and error.

Do you have any ideas for the planner?  What would you like to see in your work + life balance planner? 

Today, I went to work with a full heart and a big smile.  Last night, I had accomplished a lot of revamping my blog and rebranding the site.  I felt like I had taken strides!  I knew that I would get off early from work today, so my mind was at home, already browsing Pinterest.  LOL I know!  My love for Pinterest is disgusting.  I got home shortly after paying a few bills and running errands in town.  Now the real work begins.

I have spent pretty much the rest of the working day and the evening organizing my thoughts for the blog.  This is what I have accomplished:

• Finding multiple blog planners
• Downloading said blog planners
• Printing my favorite
• Finding a completely digital blog planner that I liked more
• Browsing Pinterest
• Writing this post
• and getting Writers Block (WTH?! Already?!)

   So, I did what I do best......I skipped the glass and went straight for my favorite bottle of wine.  I sat back with a notebook and pen.  I journaled my frustrations on a few sheets of paper.  I laughed with my man and then laid down for a nap.  How was that for progress?? LOL

When I got up, I knew that it was time to get to work.  More time on Pinterest and making myself think long and hard about what it is that I have decided to do.

I now have a game plan, an empty notebook, a full (working) pen (which also happens to be my ABSOLUTE favorite!!!  hmmmmm.....idea for blog post?), and my honey is making some grub for us to eat.  Time to brainstorm and create a HUGE list of ideas!  Ready, set, GO!!!!
 



What do you do when you want to write?  Give me ideas on how you unwind.