How to Make a Mother's Day Beauty Garden Gift From the Family

Mother's Day doesn’t have to be about lavish gifts; the value comes when it is a heartfelt experience. Enlist the whole family to make Mom a living "Beauty Garden." Here's how.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Raised garden beds, pots or a patch of real estate in the backyard
• Herbs and vegetable pony packs from the garden center
• Soil for planting
• Craft supplies to make plant markers and signs
• Farmers Market basket
• Grown versions to represent the vegetables and herbs you've planted
• Blindfold

1. 

   Gather the group together to discuss the beauty garden concept as your combined gift. Hand out research assignments to each participant to come up with the following:
   
   * Will raised beds, pots or a plot of land in the backyard be the best place for your garden?
   
   * What are Mom's favorite herbs, tea and salad ingredients?
   
   * What beauty treatments would Mom enjoy most; bath soaks, eye treatments, face scrubs?
   
   
   
   Google keywords "homemade beauty treatments" for recipes for homemade beauty treatments.

2. 

   Consider all the data collected and create a list of ingredients to plant in the beauty garden. Think lavender, lemon balm, aloe vera, basil, chamomile, thyme, rosemary, mint, cucumber and a variety of lettuces.

3. Help the kids make signs to plant in the garden. The following was inspired by the famous poem “Beauty Tips” by Sam Levenson (often quoted by Audrey Hepburn):
   
   For attractive lips, speak words of kindness
   
   For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people
   
   For poise, walk with the knowledge you'll never walk alone
   
   
   
   For Mom: The most beautiful woman in the world!

4. Fill the farmers market basket with grown versions of everything planted in the garden so Mom will know what you've designed for her along with handwritten beauty treatment recipes using the ingredients planted in the garden.

5. Refer to related eHows for step-by-step instructions on how to plant herb gardens and vegetable gardens.

6. On Mother's Day morning when it's time for gift giving, blindfold Mom's eyes and walk her out to the garden. Remove the blindfold, hand her the basket of herbs and vegetables and explain the beauty garden to her—because she is beautiful inside and out!

7. 

   For extra credit give Mom a special set of gardening tools and gloves so she can tend her garden throughout the year.

Tips & Warnings

• Make it a tradition to spend time in the beauty garden with Mom. Make it a Sunday morning ritual, then make breakfast together using ingredients from the garden—herb scrambled eggs anyone?