Looking for inspo beyond the usual flowers, chocolates, and fragrance for Mother’s Day? Serve up more meaningful gifts and extend their shelf life with these ideas.
All any mother wants is to be loved in return.
The best way to show love is by demonstrating that you really have been listening to her and occasionally doing what she asks.
Here are 9 ways to show love and give her a gift at the same time:
1. Light of my life
Show the north star in your family that she is, literally, the light of your life.
This red and white glass with marble base table lamp resembles an old fashion hardboiled sweet, the clove ball, but the warm glow emanating from it is like a mother’s hug.
The Cath Kidston design features its signature canopy stripe and will add ambience to a bedside table, a side table in a sitting room or a reading nook in a kitchen.
Standing 21.5 cm high with a width of just 18th it can illuminate small spaces.
It costs €65 through Next.ie
2. Forget cut flowers, gift a living thing instead
Watching plants grow and flourish is an everyday pleasure.
Present a meaningful variety of favourite herbs in a nice pot that she can show off. Serax’s Molly flowerpot, in chartreuse yellow, is gorgeously tactile to touch and will add a pop of colour to shelving or surfaces.
It stands 24 cm high and costs €79 at Ecru Studios.
3. Craft something handmade
A lop-sided pot made on a pottery wheel, a drawing or a hand-made piece of needlework or felted animal, these are the kind of things that make a mother’s heart sing.
Vibes and Scribes in Cork city has been crafting a sense of community for decades and stocks a wide range of sets and kits to help you get started.
Shown here is a decorative embroidery piece using a wooden Korbond hoop; prices range from €2.99 to €5.99. Buy it to make with your mother, or present it fully formed.
4. Private stuff
Designed by Piero Lissoni and made of white, high gloss acrylic, Alessi's Birillo bathroom organiser with lid is minimalist-looking despite its soft, round edges.
With a diameter of 18cm and a depth of 12 cm, the two-tiered tiffin-like box for bathroom accoutrements can hold tweezers, eyebrow dye kits, manicure tools, lip salve and medication.
It also has a plethora of other uses, too, for even mothers have secrets. It costs €90 from Finnish Design Shop.
5. Luxury but low-key fragrance
Galway perfumer and candle maker Cloon Keen’s Antique Library is inspired by the Long Room of Trinity College Dublin.
And its fragrance is as layered and historic as that space is.
It features incense, spicy nutmeg and leather on a base of ancient cedar and beeswax in its tribute to this historic space that inspired some of the interiors of the Harry Potter franchise.
You don’t even have to burn it to enjoy the discreet smell. Priced at €45, the glass receptacle also makes a great herb pot once used.
6. Retro vibe storage goals
For the stylish mam who has storage goals, Ikea’s Byakorre is a shelving unit that is a paean to modernism with its Bauhaus-inspired primary colour-edged shelving.
Its galvanised steel frame and five particleboard shelves could equally showcase books, objects, and family photos. It costs €150 and is part of the Nytillverkad collection, which reimagines classic Ikea pieces.
Designed by Niels Gammelgaard, it first appeared in Ikea’s catalogue in 1985.
Helpfully, it has adjustable feet, so that it stands steady, even on an uneven floor.
7. Refresh her sleeping quarters
Offer to make her bed and dress her in fresh covers. Switch up the mood with Foxford’s new linen range of duvet sets, which feel gorgeously weighted to sleep under.
The bedding is also really easy to maintain, for the relaxed wash sets dry in no time and need no ironing.
The collection comes in blush pink, cloud, which is a green-grey shade or white colour options.
A king-sized set, which includes a duvet cover and two plain pillowcases, costs €319.
8. Gift every day smellies
Who doesn’t love smellies you can use every day?
Ortigia’s triple-milled soaps are made traditionally, using olive oil from the trees of this beautiful island off the coast of Sicily.
Presented in a beautiful and easy-to-wrap gift box, its city soaps are a luxurious treat that should be used every day. Price €35 for a set of three from Bottom Drawer, at Brown Thomas.
9. Return the cooking compliments
Over the course of your lifetime, how many meals do you think your mother has shopped, prepped and cooked for you?
Try to imagine the bandwidth required to manage this, as well as the lion's share of the rest of the household chores and likely has to do her own job too.
Don't book a restaurant for lunch. Instead, say thanks by inviting her over and serving up a tasty brunch or lunch, stylishly dressing the table to help set the mood.
If you still live together and it’s brunch, start by bringing her a cuppa in bed in her favourite mug while you crack on with the cooking.
These pretty cotton napkins cost €19 for a set of four, the matching tablecloth, €49, the floral rattan placemats, €20 for two, and the tableware is part of a 12-piece crimped scallop dinner set, €78, all at Marks & Spencer.
