As Mother’s Day approaches, you might be wondering what to get for your mom for the special occasion this year. If you want to have a gift that is more personal and thoughtful, why not DIY some gifts for her? Here are five best DIY gifts that you can easily make within a short amount of time to give your mom as warming Mother’s Day gifts.

DIY Bath Salts

Bath salt is one of the best thing to gift to your mom, as there are many benefits of using them to enhance a bathing experience. It helps relax your muscles, detoxify your skin, and improve your mood. It will be the perfect gift for her to relax and unwind at the end of a tiring work day.

Making your own bath salt is easy and fun. You only need a few ingredients that you can find online or in your local store. You can also customize your bath salt according to your mom’s preference and needs. Below are some choices of ingredients and their benefits.

Dead Sea Salt: Helps with allergies and skin conditions.

Pink Himalayan Salt: eases swelling and stress.

Celtic Salt: anti-inflammatory and good for the brain.

Epsom Salt: Releases magnesium and sulfate ions, which can relieve muscle tension and joint pain.

Lavender Oil: Promotes relaxation and sleep.

Rose Oil / Rose Hip Seed Oil: Uplifts your mood and nourishes your skin.

Peppermint Oil: Stimulates your senses and clears your sinuses.

Lemon Oil: Cleanses your body and boosts your immunity.

To make your own bath salt, simply mix the following ingredients (or your customized ones based on this measurement) in a big bowl before storing them into glass jars and gifting them to your mom!

2 cups of Epsom salt

½ cup of coarse sea salt

¼ cup of baking soda

10 - 15 drops of essential oil (or a blend of oils)

Optional: dried flowers or herbs

Violet Syrup

Violet syrup is a sweet and floral syrup that you can make from foraged violet flowers, which are in season and blooming everywhere right now! Why not make your mom some violet syrup, so she can use it to flavour drinks, desserts, yogurt, pancakes, or anything else she might enjoy!

It has a lovely dark blue colour that turns purple when you add a few drops of lemon juice in it, just like magic!

Foraging for violet flowers is easy and fun. You can find them growing wild in shady, moist areas such as woodlands, meadows, lawns, or gardens. Here are some tips on how to identify the type of violet flowers you will need for this recipe.

Flowers: Purple/blue in colour. The flowers slightly droop, and have an inner white area.

Leaves: Violet leaves are palmate, alternate, and are oblong heart shaped. The leaf margin is toothed and they do not have hairs.

Height: Anywhere from 15cm - 25cm tall, although depending on their environment, they could be on the shorter side.

Edible Parts: Violet flowers and leaves are edible with the leaves having a high level of vitamins A and C. Aside from using their flowers to make syrup, they can also be used in salads or cooked as greens.

Here are the steps to make violet syrup:

You will need approximately two cups of violet flowers.

After gently washing and rinsing the flowers, soak them in 1 cup of warm water (note: you do not want to soak them in water that’s too hot, as it burns away their colour), leave them overnight.

Strain the water out, add to a cooking pot, and add 1 cup of sugar to the cooking pot.

Stir over low to medium heat until the sugar has dissolved, then remove from heat. You do not want to overheat the pot, as it can burn the violet colour.

Pour into a sanitized glass jar.

Add three drops of lemon juice to the mixture and stir well to make it purple!

Homemade Lip Balm

Homemade lip balm is a simple and fun DIY project you can do with just a few ingredients and tools. It helps moisturize, protect, and heal the lips. It can also add a subtle shine and scent to your mom’s amazing smile! You can customize your lip balm with different oils, fragrance, and even flavor based on your mom’s preferences and needs.

For this project, you will need:

A double boiler or a glass bowl over a pot of boiling water

A whisk

A funnel (optional)

Empty lip balm tin

Some beeswax pellets or shavings

Some coconut oil

Some carrier oil of your choice (sweet almond oil, grape seed oil, olive oil)

Some essential oils of your choice (refer to DIY bath salts recipe for choice of essential oils)

Optional ingredients: honey, food colouring.

Here are the steps to make violet syrup:

Melt the beeswax and oils in your double boiler, combine one part beeswax and two part coconut oil over low heat until completely melted.

Stir in three parts your choice of carrier oil, and whisk until well combined.

Stir in ¼ teaspoon (per ounce of lip balm) of honey for a touch of sweetness and extra moisture.

If you want to add some scent to your lip balm, add a few drops of your choice of essential oil, and stir until mixed well.

Pour into the container and let it set. You can fill about 10 tubes or 5 tins with one ounce of lip balm. Let them solidify and cool down completely before putting on the lids.

Now your homemade lip balm is ready to be gifted!

Homemade Scented Soap

Homemade soap has many benefits, aside from moisturizing to cleansing, it is also a great addition to your mom’s washroom for Mother’s Day. This is an easy project that you can do at home with limited resources and tools, with a lot of space to customize it according to what your mom enjoys.

Here are the basic steps on how to make your own DIY scented soap for Mother’s Day:

Choose your soap base: You will need a soap base that you can melt and pour into molds. You could buy ready-made soap bases online or in craft stores, or you can make your own from scratch using oil and lye. Some common types of soap base are goat’s milk, shea butter, olive oil, or coconut oil.

Choose your scent: You will need some essential oils or fragrance oil to add scent to your soap.

Choose your colour and shape: You will need some colorant to add colours to your soap. For natural colorants, herbs, spices and coffee grinds are very useful.

Steps to make the soap:

Cut the soap base into small pieces and place them in a microwave-safe container. Cover the container with a lid and microwave for 30 seconds at a time until fully melted.

Add the essential oils of your choice and stir well.

Add the colorant of your choice and stir until the colour is even.

Carefully pour the soap mixture into your mold, tap the mold gently on the counter to remove any air bubbles. Let the soap cool down in the mold completely.

Your homemade soap is now ready to be packaged and gifted!

Plantain Healing Salve

Ever notice small cuts on your mom’s hands because she is always taking care of house chores? Make her some healing salve to solve that problem!

There is an abundance of plantain in the city of Toronto growing in parks and lawns everywhere. What’s often overlooked is that they are a great natural source of antibiotics, which is quite helpful for small cuts, insect stings and bites, or skin irritations.

This project is a little more work than the previous ones we introduced in this blog, but it’s worth the effort! Not only do you end up with a useful herbal remedy, it also gives you a chance to be the one who takes care of your mom.

To make this healing salve, you will need:

Foraged plantain leaves (or you can buy ready to use dried plantain leaves from your local herb stores or online)

Double boiler or glass bowl on top of cooking pot

Olive oil or another carrier oil of your choice

Beeswax

How to forage plantain:

The plantain used for this recipe can be either broadleaf plantain or ribwort plantain, both have interchangeable healing properties that work well for this recipe. Although broadleaf plantain are more commonly found in downtown Toronto. Broadleaf plantain has ovate shape leaves with deeply ribbed veins, and produces flower stalks once mature. The young leaves are tender and succulent.

How to make healing salve:

Dry your freshly foraged plantain leaves in the oven on the lowest heat setting. Leave the oven door slightly ajar to let out any moisture. If you have a dehydrator, feel free to use that instead.

Crumble the dried leaves into a clean mason jar, and cover them with olive oil, or another carrier oil of your choice. Place the jar in a small pan of cold water, low to medium heat to give the water a gentle simmer. Cook slowly for 2 hours, and don’t let the water reach a big boil or get water into your mason jar. Once ready, remove the jar from hot water, pour the contents through a cheesecloth to strain out the leaves. When it is cool enough to handle, wring the herbs out and extract as much oil as you can.

Measure 100g of plantain oil and 15g of beeswax. Combine the two into a double boiler, or use a glass bowl over a cooking pot of boiling water. After the beeswax has fully melted, whisk until well mixed.

Pour into small tins and wait till they are completely cooled down to place lids on them. Your healing salve is now ready to be used or gifted!

Twist Gallery wishes all mothers and grandmothers out there to have an amazing Mother’s Day weekend in advance! And hope that everyone will have fun with making these DIY projects!

Images Cited (In Order):

https://www.thisdoctorskitchen.com/diy-rose-bath-salts/

https://www.feastingathome.com/violette-syrup/

https://www.iamcountryside.com/canning-kitchen/viola-violet/

https://www.sustainablecooks.com/my-name-is-sarah-and-im-chapstick/

https://www.newlifeonahomestead.com/how-to-make-soap-at-home/

https://practicalselfreliance.com/plantain-salve/

https://dspermaculture.wordpress.com/2015/03/28/broadleaf-plantain-plantago-major/

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