Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Top 5 Gift Ideas for a Magical Mother's Day

We've been working on some great Mother's Day ideas over at the Mickie Mueller Studio! Here are our top 5 gift ideas using pretties featuring magical art handmade by Dan and I and a few creative additions to turn a simple gift into a magical Mother's Day celebration!

Everyone knows moms love gifts from the heart, how many years did she get breakfast in bed that included burnt toast, runny eggs, and maybe a salad or peanut butter.  She's received bouquets of dandelions, hand painted rocks, candles made from a whole box of crayons, and she loved every single one of them.  But we've all matured a bit and now our gifts from the heart may have become a bit more sophisticated, but they still have just as much heart!  We'll help you make a lovely gift basket Mom will just love, we can provide magical gifts from our studio, just add a pretty basket and a few other inexpensive items to create your own hand crafted gift basket.  It's not burn toast, but she'll love it all the same!

1. Tea For One Gift Basket
You can get one of our lovely Café Style Tea for One teapot and teacup sets from our Etsy shop. This all porcelain set includes a 20 oz. teapot with a dome shaped lid and a 12 oz. tea cup. The tea-for-one set is perfect for enjoying two generous cups of tea. Add it to a decorative basket and include some fancy teas, a tea ball, and some chocolates, cookies, or biscotti. How about adding an electric candle warmer, they work perfectly for keeping your teapot warm. Mom will have a perfect excuse to relax with a cup of tea or two any time.
Gift Set Inspiration: Tea for One Celtic Fairies set from Mickie Mueller Studio, Goddess Tea Ball from Amitea Organics, Tea from Celestial Seasonings and Traditional Medicinals, Dark Chocolate Coated Butter Cookies and Hazelnut Chocolate from Aldi, antique silver spoon, thrifted

2. Goddess of Beauty Set
We put these goodies in a star shaped bowl we had around the house, get creative with containers, you'll never know what you'll find. This set was inspired by our matching Triple Goddess compact mirror and crystal glass nail file. With Triple Goddess art heat pressed right in our studio onto a sublimation insert mounted on top of this beautiful compact,she'll really make a statement while checking her hair or makeup. This crystal glass nail file is the ideal tool to keep your smooth and flawless manicure. These files are gentle and don't leave rough edges on your nails. Crystal glass nail files glide across the nail sealing the tip as they file. This crystal glass nail file is also Eco friendly because it never gets dull and ends up in a landfill. After use just run this little gem under water, and it's good as new!  Add a couple bottles of nail polish and some lip gloss. I included a pumice stone, pedicure kit, and one of those cool stick-on nail polish kits too.  She'll feel like a pampered Goddess with a set like this!
Gift Set Inspiration: Triple Goddess Crystal Glass Nail File and Compact mirror from Mickie Mueller Studio, Nail Polish Wet n Wild Fastdry, Sally Hanson Salon Effects Appliques, pumice and pedicure set from a local Dollar Store.

3. Gardening Momma Set 
If you have a mom that loves to garden like I do, our travel mug is a perfect inspiration for a gift set. I know, she's gardening, not traveling, right?  My mom and I love using these travel mugs to help us stay hydrated while working in the garden, the little top slides open and closed with ease keeping dirt, bees, and stray ladybugs out of your drink.  I packed it up inside a fancy carved and hand painted gourd, but a garden planter would also be nice.  You can include Mom's favorite seeds, garden markers, a trowel, cultivator, some fresh new garden gloves, and maybe some individual flavored drink mixes.  She'll thank you every time she's working in the garden and enjoying her bug-free beverage.
Gift Set Inspiration: Polymer fairy art travel mug from Mickie Mueller Studio, seeds from Lowes, Crystal Light Pure drink mixes acquired on clearance at Town and Country grocery store, the local dollar store was the mother-load, I found garden gloves, trowel, cultivator, and some outdoor led firefly lights.  Oh, and a little pot of flowers found on the clearance rack at Lowes.

4. Shield Maiden Jewelry
Perhaps your mom is a shield maiden or a history fan, so many of us are! Kick ass ladies need some kick ass jewelry, so we created a set of mother of pearl earrings and a pendant featuring a Vegviser Viking Compass. The Viking compass is a magical symbol for protection while traveling, it can be used for both literal travel, or figuratively, as we travel on our journey through life in uncharted waters. This shimmering natural Mother of Pearl amulets pearlescent surface lends itself particularly well to this magical art. The image was hand drawn at my old wooden art table, then we print the image using dye sublimation ink right in our studio and then heat press it onto the surface of these specially coated shells, the iridescence is lovely on this amulet can be seen through the art.  They're great on their own, but I though for a gift what they really needed was a box.  This fancy gift box, yep it was only $1.00!  I found a box meant for gift cards, I pulled out the insert, put a few perfectly placed holes in it and it was magically transformed into a lovely presentation box for this cool jewelry set.
Gift Set Inspiration: Vegviser Viking Compass earrings and pendant, sold separately at Mickie Mueller Studio, gift box, found at my local dollar store, it's a gift card box with holes added by me to display the jewelry in style.    

5. Mystical Cat Coffee Mug Bouquet
You've seen these at florists both brick and mortar shops and online. They're not cheap, and the mugs, well, they're ok, but you could make your own bouquet for a fraction of the cost in a magical mug that she'll treasure long after the flowers fade. All you need is a little floral foam, an inexpensive bouquet of flowers, a bit of moss, and a coffee mug, I suggest, The Cat (The Fool) from Mystical Cats Tarot this is one magical mug! Mom will enjoy her coffee or other brew of your choice in this generous 15 oz ceramic coffee mug. This design is printed right in my studio and hand pressed permanently into the surface of the ceramic mug. Yep, it's both microwave and dishwasher safe. We've had many proud owners of these mugs praise how beautiful they are and well they heat up drinks in the microwave without the handle getting hot. We hate when that happens, so we LOVE these mugs! Here's how mine turned out, be sure to check out the easy directions below...
Mug Bouquet Inspiration: "The Cat/The Fool" from Mystical Cats Tarot Mug available at the Mystical Cats Tarot Etsy shop, more mugs can be found at Mickie Mueller Studio.  Floral foam and moss came from the local dollar store, the fresh flowers were from Aldi 

I thought you might want to see the step-by step on this one...
Make sure your floral foam is the kind meant to be used with water, it will say "wet" on the package.  Trim the foam with a knife so it fits in the mug and soak it in water for a couple minutes.  Fill the mug from top to bottom with  a couple chunks of wet floral foam. cover the top with a bit of moss.  Trim your flowers and be sure to strip off the leaves from the bottom of the stems.  Start poking the flowers into the foam in an eye pleasing design until you have it nice and full.  
I hope you enjoyed these ideas for jazzing up magical art gifts and making them even more awesome by adding your own touches.  I bet you could come up with some great ideas in addition to these. If you need more inspiration, drop by our Etsy shops and see what comes to mind.  Don't forget, Mother's Day this year is Sunday May 10, 2015.  Mom will feel very special with her magical and thoughtful gift from the heart, and maybe these ideas will give you some inspiration for other gifts throughout the year.

Links to our Etsy shops:
Mickie Mueller Studio
Mystical Cats Tarot 
Voice of the Trees

Blessed Be!

Mickie Mueller