Mothering Sunday this year falls on March 14th, so we’re sharing our five favourite Mother’s Day handmade hacks for you to explore in good time. We want to inspire you to get creative and make something special and unique for the one you call ‘mum’ or the person who has been like a mother to you.
We know all families are different and no ‘mum’ is the same so that’s why we’re encouraging you to make use of those uni-ball pens to whip up individual gifts made with that special someone in mind. Many of these selected Mother’s Day handmade hacks can be whipped up during a lovely crafternoon with little ones so they are a great way of involving the whole family in getting creative.
1 Create a pretty artwork
This is one of our favourite Mother’s Day handmade hacks. It’s artistic but you don’t have to be an artist to make this look good, or indeed spend loads of time on it, even though it appears like you have.
Do you know what? The canvas artwork pictured above only took about 30 minutes to create, yet we think it looks really impressive and would make an original and thoughtful gift for a creative mama. All you need is a canvas, a sponge, some water, 8K or 5M POSCAs in your favourite colours, a white POSCA 1M a pair of compasses and a pencil.
First, apply your 8k or 5M colours to the canvas. While the pens are still fresh, use a damp sponge to mix and blend your POSCA shades. Layer your colours and keep sponging to increase the intensity. Once you are happy with your base colour leave to dry – this should take about 10 mins.
After the canvas has dried and you have a blended, dreamy, colourful background you can use your compasses and pencil to draw out a mandala design (check this mandala tutorial here for basic instructions). Once you’re happy with it you can go over the pencil design with your white 1M POSCA marker.
If you don’t fancy making a mandala you can use the blended canvas technique and overlay with some simple text as seen below.
2 Design a gift box
Why not make even the smallest gift special by presenting it in a box customised with your own hand?
In one of our standard Mother’s Day handmade hacks, we’ve taken advantage of the uni-Eye’s range of colours to create a little floral-themed number for mum above. Of course you can also select from POSCA’s extensive range of shades to whip up a collection of personalised boxes with floral designs to create individual boxes for all the special care-givers in your life.
3 Make a collection of coasters
Practical and creative, a set of customised coasters is a great gift for any loved one and one of our go-to Mother’s Day handmade hacks.
Above we’ve used an intense purple uni PAINT marker over a plain wooden disc, waited for it to dry then overlaid with a fine silver PAINT marker using a star-themed design. This is a really good option if you don’t want to do anything to twee or floral.
PAINT markers work so well on wood as they go on like a dream without having to prime the surface. The colours sit beautifully on this medium and we think the richness of the purple looks so good contrasting with the metallic, shiny silver overlay. But why not use a selection of PAINT marker colours for your base then keep consistent with sliver star overlays to make a collection?
4 Personalise a mug
This is one of our best Mother’s Day handmade hacks. We’ve all got random plain mugs in the back of our cupboards and, because POSCAS paint on ceramic, these mugs needn’t be plain anymore! This simple up-cycle project is great for a beginner and brilliant to try with little ones.
You make a simple heart-shaped stencil with a sticky note and then apply dots with different sized POSCA nibs around your shape. We used shades of pink and red with 5m and 3m POSCA markers but you can use any colours or nib sizes you like! Once you’re happy with your various-sized spots use a fine 1m POSCA pen to draw in a simple initial on the mug. Then fill a paper bag with sweets or other treats and place inside the mug.
It would make a beautiful Mother’s Day handmade gift idea, treat for guests at a party or something special to greet someone on a birthday morning. You can wash the POSCA off to re-use or to make permanent you can put in the oven at 160 degrees for 45 minutes and spray with varnish.
5 Customise a cosmetics pouch
This is one of our fun Mother’s Day handmade hacks and again, it’s another lovely one for little ones to try.
Simply take a plain fabric bag or purse and give it an update with POSCA in a design of your choice. You can adorn the plainest of pouches with your designs and fill with mini toiletries for a charming pampering gift.
We’ve made the most of our sparkly POSCAs here as they work so brilliantly on fabric. To really ramp up the glamour we drew a vibrant peacock feather design on a plain cotton bag, what design will you go for?
More Mother’s Day Handmade Hacks
Need some more ideas? No worries we have plenty of Handmade Hacks on our YouTube and Pinterest channels. Check out this cheeky Mother’s Day hack video below…