Mum's 65th/Mother's Day - help!

booter

Hi - I've been racking my brain (what's left of it) to try and come up with an idea of what I (along with 2 sisters) can get our Mum for her 65th on the 19th March. I think we've already done all the "days" she enjoys, she's got a house full of rubbish/valuable mementos(!) and she's VERY MSE - so no "waste of money" items!

Anyone got any ideas - please???

Forgot to mention - budget is probably max £40 each, so £120 total

mr_knight

I had the excat same thing with my mum. She has taken up archery as a hobby so we put some money towards a bow. It was something she is interested in but wouldn't perhaps get herself.

What about paying for her to do an adult education course or something (just an ideas as you have done all the days out) which she would enjoy.

Would she liked to be pampered? What about a charm bracelet where each birthday/xmas/mothers day you could all add a new charm? Not the most original ideas

missworks2jobs

What about some lovely memory boxes or a collection of photo albums - then you can all sit together and put all those photo's she'll have scattered all over the place in various boxes into some nice albums. Or there's a gadget you can buy - websites like firebox and play.com have them that you take your old photo negatives & pictures and it scans them and turns them into digital photo files so she will forever have all her old photos on pc/digital pic frames even if they start to age and fray. I think they're about £100 so you could all group together.

mr_knight

Miss we bought one of those. They are fantastic. Like a mini scanner and it doesn't take any time at all. My hubby did loads. I am hoping to steal some from my mum and do her a photo book for xmas.

That would really surprise her if you could do that. You coould also do a photo show on a big screen if you have access to one of course

PhilipP_2

How about a day at the spa with a massage and a facial? Women love it, don't they?

DaisyMoo

How about a memory journal that family members/friends write in. You could have
Different sections with questions like "favourite memory" etc. You could fill it with pics
Sort of a cross between a scrap book and a photo book.
Hth x

booter

Thank you all so much for the replies. I really appreciate it!

mr_knight - We have bought her a charm bracelet before & it's now full! However, I like the adult education idea - I'll have a look to see if I can find something I think will interest her. She's expressed an interest in yoga, so maybe that's a possibility.

missworks2jobs - I like this idea too - any idea what the gadget's called? The only down side to this idea is that she's quite well organised and all the photos are in albums. And there's thousands! I don't know how I'd get on trying to smuggle them out the house to "scan" them and I don't think she'd appreciate the gadget as a gift (although Dad might.....mmm, something to think about there!)
We did something like this for her a couple of years ago - I transferred all the old cine films to DVD. She got very emotional, looking at footage of her "babies"!

PhilipP - yes, we'd thought of the pampering/spa day - it's being considered by the sisters as I write! The down side to this idea is that we don't want to send her on her own, so we'd go with her and total cost for all 4 of us in my area would be around £200 :eek: (Then again, we're all worth it!)

DaisyMoo - I love this idea, it's cheap (!), personal, and it would definately make her blubber. I hope we've got enough time to do it, but if it doesn't pan out, I'm putting this on the list for their Pearl wedding anniversary next year!

I was talking to a friend of mine last night, and he said "why not send her on one of those mini cruises to Iceland?" I looked at him and said "why Iceland?" - he replied "Isn't that where Mum's go?"! Now, she'd appreciate the humour in that - anyone seen any cheap mini cruises to Iceland (the country, not the supermarket!)

mr_knight

Hello

Just so you know you scan the negatives and not the photos so you wouldn't need to take the photos out of their albums. Our scanner is a Veho professional imaging scanner VFS-008. This is it. I think the picture makes it look complicated but it isn't. You literally put the film in the case pop it in the scanner and save. It doesn't even need to be connected to the computer so you can do it whilst you wtach the TV. I think in the end we didn't even put the negatives in the case we just popped them in. Can't reccomend ours enough but there are lots of differnt versions.

I have never seen a cheap mini cruise to iceland. Not really a mini cruise. Only cheap ones I've seen are Amsterdam and Bruges. You could book one of those and make a joke of how mums go to iceland but as she is so special you booked her somewhere else?

booter

Thanks mr_knight for the link - that's great! I love it! I can't see Dad keeping his hands off it though (it's a gadget!). I found out this weekend that their passports need renewing, and they say they're not going to do that until later on in the year, so it looks like anywhere outside the UK is out. But I like your thinking!