My Top Ten Uncommon Gifts for Mom

Now that Easter is behind us (wow, was it late this year or what?) Mother's Day is quickly approaching and it is time to start thinking about ways to honor the mothers in our lives. Whether it is your own mother, your daughter, a friend that nurtures you or even yourself, it is always nice to shower those we love with a special gift. 

It can be a simple gift ... a photograph, a coupon for hugs, or a handpicked bouquet of flowers, but it is always the thought behind the gift that matters the most. 

My mom makes these handmade potholders ... they are the sweetest gifts from the heart.

I like to purchase gifts that help a cause, or give back in some way. A couple of Christmases ago, I gave these bird soaps out as gifts. They benefit the environmental clean up and care of the affected birds and animals of the BP oil spill in the gulf of Mexico. You can purchase them and read more about their story here.

Bowl with felt - handcrafted by Melissa Schooley at her barn studio in Ontario, Canada

Today, I am partnering with a long time favorite online store of mine, UncommonGoods, a company that puts a lot of thought behind their products. 

If you are not familiar with UncommonGoods, they are an online marketplace that sells unique and fun products. They carry a lot of  handmade, up-cycled and recycled products which I always gravitate to.  Not only do they sell unique products but they provide a platform for the artists and designers that create the products and they feature their stories in their catalogue, on their website and on their blog. I also value that they are concerned with environmental and social sustainability; their catalogues are printed on recycled paper (30% post consumer waste) and they donate a portion of each purchase to your choice of non-profit organizations like American Forests, Women for Women International, City Harvest and RAINN. In fact, they are one of just a few catalogues that I did not cancel last year when I was eliminating the dozens of mail catalogues I used to receive every week. 

Retired Wine Barrel Lazy Susan 

You can see more of their recycled products here.

They also carry fun and quirky products like one of my first purchases with them - this walking alarm clock which was an attempt to help my teenage daughter at the time wake up in the mornings. I also bought this shower squid for her a couple of years ago for to help her organize her small college apartment shower. 

So in honor of Mother's Day, I have put together my top ten "uncommon" gifts for mom under $150. If I am going to be completely honest here, I think I have to admit that the mom that I had the most in mind was "me".  I couldn't help but pick the things that I love the most. You can go onto the UncommonGoods' website and see even more wonderful gifts that they have curated for Mother's Day here. Did I mention that they also have a lot of personalized products? Check out some of their personalized items just for moms here). 

(Because being a mother is a huge responsibility and it can feel overwhelming.) 

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

I would love every one of those gifts (hint hint)! You can see even more uncommon gifts for mom here. Happy shopping everyone!

This post was sponsored by Uncommon Goods. I was compensated for my opinions but all the opinions are 100% mine.

The language of love

I had lunch last week with a dear friend. It was a birthday celebration long overdue. We drove up to Santa Monica and walked around the farmer's market and then had a lovely lunch at an outdoor French bistro on the promenade. 

This friend is a wonderful gift giver. What makes her a great gift giver is not that she spends a lot of money; it is because her gifts are always gifts of the heart. She listens. She takes time to make sure each gift is special to the person she is giving it to. She puts a lot of effort into her choices and, of course, they are always beautifully wrapped! And what is fun is that she loves to play along with the color of the year. In fact, you should look at what she did two years ago when the color was tangerine!

The card she made this year was from a photograph she took while vacationing in Hawaii last summer. It was one of those things you could not plan any better - and she didn't - it just happened that she had the photograph in her camera and when the new color "Orchid" was announced, she remembered she had it.

The card was gorgeous and so was the wrapping - every detail perfectly planned. But it was what she wrote inside the card that touched me the most ...

I am reading a book right now about blessing others. A line in the book perfectly describes my friend:

"Sometimes life's power shines through us, even when we do not notice. We become a blessing to others then, simply by being as we are."*

I am so blessed to have a friend like this. She speaks the language of love and is a blessing even when I am sure she has no idea. 

*(Excerpt from My Grandfather's Blessings; Stories of Strength, Refuge and Belonging

by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., Riverhead Books, N.Y., ISBN: 1-57322-856-7 

page 195). 

Tangerine gifts & Brooke Shields

I had lunch with a dear friend the other day to celebrate my belated birthday. This is a friend who loves to get into the color of the year - not so much in decorating, (she is not in the design world), but in gift giving. She always has fun with it and is a great gift giver - which I believe is an art in itself.

This time I think she really outdid herself. Don't you love the houndstooth paper? I think it is amazing how she mixed the two perfect colors together. And the little tangerines on top.

What was inside the wrapping was even better. I thought she just picked the book because it fit with the theme but she said she had actually read it and that it was a great read. How fun is that? But that was not all ...

I didn't even know they made tangerine flavored Balsamic Vinegar.

I love a good Balsamic vinegar and this one is a good one! I know because I didn't waste anytime trying it ...

The bottle is such a pretty cobalt blue - it makes me wish I had more room to display my cooking oils and other pretty bottles in my kitchen ... like this idea in Brooke Shield's kitchen from this month's Architectural Digest:

Architectural Digest via

It looks like Brooke is loving the color of the year as well!

Presenting a hostess gift

A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to a dinner party by two of my clients. They had "won" a private dinner for six prepared by a celebrity chef at a charity auction supporting their children's school. The dinner was hosted by one of the couples but I really wanted to give them each a nice hostess gift because I was so touched that they would include my husband and I in such a special evening.

 Do you struggle like I do sometimes finding just the right gift for someone? 

{pottery barn}

I thought it was hard to find something that both couples would enjoy, not too much but just enough to show my appreciation. Until I saw these wine stoppers. I thought they would be just lovely for the holidays coming up.

I grabbed some wrapping paper that I keep on hand and some ribbon from my ribbon drawer and added a couple of inexpensive ornaments I picked up recently from Crate and Barrel. I love to tie ornaments on packages around the holidays and when I see ones that I like, I pick them up to have around when I need them. They are great to add a little extra glitter to a package or even a simple bottle of wine.

My favorite part were the tags that I downloaded from here.

{Jones Design Company}

Wrapping it up

I love presentation. I get as much joy out of wrapping a present as I do giving what is inside.
The first thing I do for Christmas is select the wrapping paper and the ribbon I am going to use. Before my youngest daughter went away to school, as soon as Halloween was over we would head over to The Container Store and select our wrapping paper. The paper we chose would set the color scheme and style for the rest of the Christmas decor. The last couple of years I have had to do it alone - so not as much fun. I have also had great luck finding nice wrapping paper at Target. A couple of years ago they had a beautiful dark aqua flocked damask paper that was to die for. For me, anything flocked or any damask has my name on it.

This was what I used last year:

Interestingly, it is very similar to what Wisteria is showing in their latest catalogue:



I don't know why that bugs me, but it does kind of. You know, you think you are being original ...
 Anyway, this year we are on a strict budget and I had to think a little more creatively.
I normally buy a lot wrapping paper but this year I limited myself to only four rolls. I also wanted to be able to use the many, many rolls of turquoise ribbon I bought earlier in the year when I went a little crazy for the new color of the year! There is a wholesale ribbon store down the road from my house and they sell rolls of ribbon VERY inexpensively and I kind of over bought!

MY RIBBON DRAWER

So, I went with some neutral colors that I could throw in some plain brown packing paper (super cheap) and it would still look pretty. It is hard to tell in the photo but the paper on the far right is a beautiful moire taffeta looking paper and the silver one is more 'leaf-like' and organic then it shows here:

My turquoise ribbon will look great on these! I will probably add some silver ribbon too.

I had a store credit at Crate and Barrel left from the wedding and found these wonderful little ornaments to either tie on a package or use them for the edible gifts I make. I wrap the cookies and candy that I make in cellophane and pretty ribbon and I like to tie a little ornament on it as well. I love anything silver (they are more silver than the photo shows) and 'leafy' so these will be just perfect ($3.95 / $2.50).