When the time comes to buy a gift for mom, everyone goes all out and nutty to buy the best mother's day gifts that are out there. The flower shops, the gift basket stores and the crafts stores probably see an avalanche of people come though their doors because they sell the highest in demand mothers day gifts. Dedicated saving moms and frugal lifestyle advocates not to mention all the people who insist that mothers day is just a Hallmark holiday set to their computers to advocate for home made mothers day gifts or for the boycott of this greeting card holiday. Mothers day being a day to celebrate and appreciate mothers means that people are more likely to celebrate it than not to and even more likely to express their sentiments with a gift. For most people the gift is flowers. Flowers are the typical gift for mothers day but if you think about it, flowers are an also the typical gift whenever a woman is on the receiving end a forgetful last minute gift buying guy is on the sending end. Flowers are a part of mothers day but they're better off on the complimentary side than in the main picture. An increasing number of people make their mother's day gifts at home or try replicating something they've seen in shops and that raises the question of 'home made' vs. 'Store bought'. One of the most notoriously replicated mothers day gifts is gift baskets. People insist on making gift baskets at home and more than often go for the spa theme which is a bad idea on a lot of levels. If you start to fill a gift basket with spa themed items, it's going to cost you a lot more than it would have if you'd decided to buy one from a store. The theme however should still be abandoned for a more practical one. Edible gifts are always a great idea so its best to give the gift baskets a food theme.
To make one of these food themed gift baskets at home is cheap but you have to have excellent culinary skills if its going to be home baked goods and you need to find a way to keep it all from crumbling which means that at least half of your gift basket will be filled with straw or other stuff meant to cushion cookies and marmalade jars. Gift baskets are best bought in stores where they've packed everything nice and tight. There's little risk that the goodies inside will be damaged so you can ship them off to your grandmother or your sister or an aunt for a special mothers day surprise without worrying about a trail of crumbs. As far as crafts are concerned, they are what it takes to make ordinary household things into gifts or to tie in a home made gift with your intended recipient's interests. e.g. let's say your mom likes to go to the movies and someone tells you to make her a gift basket in an extra large sized pop corn bucket, crafts are what you're going to use to make a pop corn bucket look nicer than a pop corn bucket. Crafting is only a good idea if you're making collages or photo frames but these aren't what a lot of women have in mind when they think of mothers day gifts. No matter what women say, they want to be appreciated for their role as mothers. It's the one holiday when you know it'll be worth what ever you spend and when buying a decent mothers day gift like a fruit bouquet over making your own fruit basket is a good idea. and before you guilt yourself into thinking that store bought mothers day gifts or mother's day gifts bought online are the easy road, think again. My secret weapon to home run mothers day gifts are 'fruit bouquets'.