Custom Mother's Day Gifts Made From A Photo

Flowers are the default for a reason. They are easy, they are never wrong, and they say the right thing on the day. They are also gone within a fortnight, which everybody involved knows while they are being handed over.

Mother's Day sits in an awkward place. The gesture matters more than the object, so people reach for something safe, and safe things do not get kept.

What actually stays in the house

Look at what has survived in any mother's home from twenty years of presents. Photographs, and things her children made. Not candles, not jewellery she does not wear, not the second dressing gown.

A photograph printed on something she can pick up sits in exactly that category. It lives on the chair she actually sits in rather than on a shelf she has to dust.

It is allowed to be silly

Not every Mother's Day present has to be earnest. A printed cut out of her adult son's face, given by his sister, is a perfectly good Mother's Day gift and it will get shown to everybody who comes round.

Her children, cut to their outline

One child or all of them, cut around the figure rather than left as a square. It reads as the children rather than as a cushion with a photo on it, and it is visible from across a room without glasses.

A drawing one of them made

Cut to the shape of whatever they drew, with the wobbly lines kept exactly as they are. This is the version nobody argues about, because it obviously came from the child rather than from a shop.

First Mother's Day

A photograph of the baby, usually bought by a partner on behalf of somebody who cannot hold a pen yet. It is one of the few Mother's Day gifts that is genuinely about the day itself.

The family dog

For mothers whose children have all moved out, the animal in the house is frequently the one she talks about most on the phone.

Her own mother

An old photograph of the two of them, or of a grandmother who has died. If it is a memorial piece, say so in the notes. It is handled personally rather than through the usual queue, at no extra cost.

Send the original from the camera roll. Not a screenshot, not something pulled out of a family group chat, not an image saved from social media. Each of those compresses the file and throws away detail that cannot be recovered.

Mothers are often missing from the album

If you want a photograph of her rather than of the children, expect to hunt. She is usually the one taking the picture. Ask relatives, and look at weddings and holidays where somebody else had the camera.

Children's drawings

Photograph the drawing flat, in daylight, with the phone held directly above it rather than at an angle. Shadows across the paper are the only real problem. Wobbly lines are kept exactly as drawn, because those are the entire point.

Old prints

A photograph from decades ago, rephotographed properly on a phone, usually prints better than people expect. Reflections and shadows cause more problems than age does.

Mother's Day falls in May in the United States and in March in the United Kingdom, so work back from your own date rather than from a banner on a website.

Production is three days, counted from when you approve the preview rather than from when you order. Approving is usually same day. Shipping is added after that and depends on where it is going.

• Two weeks ahead is comfortable for any destination
• Inside a week usually still lands, but the courier is the variable rather than the workshop
• Late is survivable. Nobody minds a present that was clearly made for them arriving on the Tuesday

Send it straight to her

Put her address at checkout instead of yours. If you live in a different city or country this removes a second leg of postage and several days, and it is how most of these orders go out.

If siblings are splitting it

There is no bulk tier, so three costs three times one and there is no quantity to reach. One person orders, everybody sends their share, and the photograph can come from whoever has the best one.

• Cut to an outline. Follows the shape of the subject. Best for one child, or for a drawing. This is the version that reads as a person rather than a cushion.
• Square cushion. The right choice for a collage of several photographs, and it sits on a sofa without needing explanation.
• Full length. 150 cm. Ordered by people whose mother lives in another country, or whose child has just moved abroad.

Size

The middle size sits on an armchair and gets used daily, which is what you want for anything sincere. The largest is a statement and needs a room that can take it. The smallest works on a desk or a car seat.

The back is free

Both sides print at no extra cost on every format. The children on one side and the grandchildren on the other is the most common pairing for this occasion, and it costs the same as printing one image twice.

• Personalised gifts for grandma, if you are buying for a grandmother on the day
• Custom gifts for her, the year round version of this page
• Custom family gifts, for fitting several people onto one layout
• Custom shaped pillows, for turning a child's drawing into the shape they drew
• Custom photo pillows, including how a nine photo collage is laid out