Mother's Day Update + Card and Gift Tutorials and Ideas!

Mother's Day celebration is usually a yearly affair with my family and we celebrated with mum's side of the family over a barbecue this year as well.

Many things have happened over the past year, and I feel like I've grown and matured a lot. So much so that I know I've not been that good a daughter to my mum and my godmother. It's especially hard when I am not one to be super affectionate or good with expressing my feelings.

I didn't prepare any flowers this year since APEX ended just a day earlier and by then it was almost midnight and I couldn't get flowers anywhere. And well, I slept in late the next day well until a few hours before the barbecue started hahahaha. But I did started preparing for the presents much earlier this year, and I certainly put in much more effort. So I guess that makes up for the lack of flowers?

Well, let's just get right into the cards and presents ideas.

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I decided that I wanted to gift my presents in a box since I have in mind to gift more than one present. I have also always liked the idea of opening up a gift and finding multiple presents inside. It's like you're receiving five presents at once hahaahahha.

Anyway I headed to Daiso at Plaza Singapura after Apex meeting since it was the one closest to my school. Daiso is a really awesome place to find boxes and storage/organisation solutions since they are only $2 each. Their food section also sells soba and condiments at $2, which is really cheap and yummy. 

I ended up finding these really pretty and feminine floral boxes that has a vintage feel to them and decided immediately I was going to get them. 

I picked up two of the largest sized ones I could find. Because hey, bigger is always better right. And you do get more bang for your buck! Hehhe.

For the card, I started out with a standard portrait card base of 4½ by 5¼ inches made out of pink cardstock. I then set about finding a background for the card which matches the pink on the box and ended up with the distressed pink patterned paper from Glitz's Pretty in Pink Collection. (Yes I know it is a really old collection from 2012)

I wanted the card to center around an embellishment and thought it would be nice to bring in the floral design from the box. After looking through my stash I managed to find these flower diecuts which look almost exactly the same as those on the boxes. They are from Crate Paper's Portrait collection, (Yes another old 2011 collection) and I used the yellow and red flowers.

I then started to slowly piece everything else together. I know that I wanted to play with the words placement and typography and hence wanted each word from the phrase "Happy Mother's Day" to be a different medium, colour or font. 

In the end I stamped out "happy" and embossed it, before cutting the paper into a banner design. "mother's" was put together with some alphabet stickers and finished with glossy accents so they don't look as flat.

I got stuck for a day at the "day" portion though (no puns intended). Couldn't really figure out how I wanted the day to be positioned and whether I should go with similar sized alphabets or smaller ones. In the I decided on peachy words for the card with the yellow flower and a dark lime green for the card with the pink flower.

And... here's the final product! I added some gold spray at the bottom right corner also. However I still wasn't really satisfied with the 'day' word, but well it looks pretty decent if I may say so myself.

To package the gifts, I lined the bottom of the box with some white and pink tissue paper which you can also find at Daiso. Next I just started filling the box up with the gifts!

First up is a Arabica Coffee Scrub I got off Amazon.

I decided to get it because:

1. It has really good reviews
2. Doubles as both a face and body scrub
3. 100% natural and no artificial ingredients
4. Cruelty free and not tested on animals
5. It claims to help with cellulite, stretch marks, spider veins and wrinkles.

I guess the last point is really a plus if it works and seems really suitable for mothers. It also smells really good when I first got it (one of the bottles leaked a little). Kinda like Starbucks haha.

Next up I got the SK-II Pitera Essence Set that is kinda like a trial kit containing their signature Facial Treatment Essence, Facial Treatment Clear Lotion and one Facial Treatment Mask. 

It is a great gift for mothers to try out SK-II products and if they like the products you can purchase the full sized as gifts in the future. It would also be a really good gift to pamper your mum with. 

Mine was the Sakura Limited Edition one which I don't think is on sale anymore. But you can still purchase the normal set at Sephora or at Zalora which is carrying the Red Butterfly Limited Edition version.

The next item I included in the box was the Vaseline Lip Therapy in Rosy Lips. 

I thought it was a cool alternative to the usual lip balms and the fact that it is a tinted version is also great because mums usually don't have time to put on makeup and well, this would be a subtle and also protective alternative to lipsticks. It is also small and really cute hahhaha.

I don't think Singapore sells the Rosy Lips version yet but I'm not too sure. You can definitely check out drugstores or even supermarkets. But if you're like me and prefer to shop online, I got mine from Amazon. 

They have 2-pack, 4-pack and 8-pack versions and also sells them individually. But seriously, just get the 8-pack because it is more value for dollar and it is really handy to have these small items around that you can throw together to make an awesome gift.

I also bought the Shiseido Senka Aging Care UV Sunscreen but it didn't arrive in time for the Mother's Day barbecue TT

I was deciding between the Shiseido or Bioré one, but decided on this because it was 'Aging Care' which I find would be more suitable for my mum and godmother since they're not that young anymore. Singapore's sun is brutal and it is really important to protect against all the harmful science-y rays that I have no idea about. But hopefully they would start using this since I bought it for them to prevent the onset of more sunspots.

I bought mine from Qoo10 which offers really good deals from time to time and you can also use coupons and Qpoints to offset the price. There are also a few other shops that sells them so you should definitely compare to find the lowest price since deals and discounts changes from time to time.

For Amazon buyers, they also sell it here, so definitely do check it out.

Finally I finished off the packaging with a cream bow. Apart from acting as an embellishment, it is also great if like me, all your pressies can't fit into the box lol. So having the bow helps to hold the cover down and prevent anything from falling out!

If the receiver is not sure about how to use the items, it would be good to also include a small note detailing what is item is for and when they should be used. This is definitely helpful if the words on the packaging are too small or if they are in another language.

Well that's all for now! I hope whoever, if anyone who is reading finds the post helpful (: