Category: Special Moments Page 5 of 8

When you’re seven years old, you can’t imagine being anywhere without your mom can you? I remember being small and my mom saying something casually like ‘when you’re older and live on your own…’ and I was horrified!

‘But Mommy!’ I would protest, ‘I’m going to live with you forever and ever!”

‘Oh yes,’ she would say, smiling, ‘of course you are.’

And then lo and behold, you grow up.

Although your relationship with your mom changes, she is still massively important to you, and you’ll want to stay in touch, and do little things to show her that you love her, even when you’re not there in person.

We’re lucky that technology nowadays makes it incredibly easy to connect with people, but sometimes it’s nice to think outside the text message box. To get you started, I’ve come up with seven cute ideas for thoughtful ways to show your mom you love her, even when you’re not there.

Write your mom a letter

A proper one – not an email! This will be fun for you, as well as a lovely thing for your mom to receive, as it gives you the perfect excuse to buy some new stationery! (As if you needed one.) If you’re not quite ready to go for a full letter then even just sending a postcard when you’re out and about is a lovely way to show your mom you’re thinking of her.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BTYLD52ALhr/

Song request

Does your mom have a favourite radio station that she listens to all the time? If so, get in touch with them and request a song or a shout out. How cool will it be for your mom to suddenly hear her own name read out on the radio?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BT1lr9nA6GM/

Photo frame fun

Get your mom a Nixplay Wifi digital frame for Mother’s Day this year and you can send her photos all year round – it really is the gift that keeps on giving! It’s a very natural way to stay in touch, and can be fun too. My grown up daughter loves to send pictures of herself to my frame at home, ideally doing ridiculous things like eating chips or hanging socks on her washing line. (Simple things, simple minds…)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BR1C73ABudU/?tagged=nixplay

Turn a photo into a work of art

My mom loves a good puzzle, so I was very pleased with myself recently when I found a website that turned family photos into jigsaw puzzles – how cool?! You can have photos made into virtually anything nowadays – puzzles, posters, canvases – you could even get your own face on a baseball cap for your mom! She’d find it hard to forget you then.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BTYUvaaFAOC/?tagged=puzzle

Make a mix tape

Okay, so it might not be an actual cassette tape, like the good old days, but nothing says you care like putting together a thoughtful mix of someone’s favourite songs. It’s pretty easy to put together a CD mix or, if your mom is a bit more technologically savvy, you could even set her up a Spotify playlist.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BTYHT1JjPVo/

Start a souvenir box

If you don’t see your mom very often, how about putting together a souvenir box to take with you when you visit? In it you can collect little mementos from your day to day life – ticket stubs, postcards, funny pictures, anything you like. When you see each other, the box will act as a prompt so that you can fill your mom in on everything you’ve been doing since you last saw her. It should be fun for you too to look back at everything you’ve done and probably forgotten about!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BRGtZ_RFroY/

Beatrice Bisais

Bea is Nixplay’s Social Media Manager. She enjoys drinking coffee, reading about wars, and writing stories. Send her a message at beatrice.bisais@nixplay.com.

Mother’s Day brunches, breakfast in bed, and flowers are all lovely ways to celebrate mom on her special day.

But how about celebrations that include the whole family? After all, a little quality time is always in order – especially if mom or dad has been especially busy with work or other obligations recently. Mother’s Day is the perfect time to put away all other distractions and focus solely on what matters: family.

Here are a few ideas for ways to celebrate Mother’s Day as a family.

Declare a screen-free day. 

Most of us know by now how detrimental screen time can be for growing brains. But our electronics in general are pulling us all away from each other, and cutting into time that families used to spend together.

Enjoy some real quality time together by having everyone in the family take a break from their phones and tablets. If you can make it a full day, go for it! If not, shoot for a full morning or afternoon, and use that time to play a game together, get outside, or do something else fun as a family.

Host a casual Mother’s Day get-together for a few families. 

If you have other families that you and your kids are close to, why not share the love and host a little get-together to celebrate all the moms?

There’s no need to get elaborate. You can host anything from a simple cook-out outside, to an ice cream sundae bar or dessert hour. A fun idea for moms with daughters is a fancy mother-daughter tea, complete with finger sandwiches and petit fours.

Go through your photos together.

Have a whole stack (or folder on your computer) of family photos that you haven’t looked at in a while? Gather together as a family and go through them, reminiscing or telling stories about the pictures you see.

If your family is into arts and crafts, you could take some of the photos and make a family collage. You could also put hard copy photos into photo albums, or organize your digital photos into playlists on your Nixplay WiFi Cloud Digital Frame.

Visit a museum, park, or garden.

Chances are there are a lot of fun activities to do in your town or a nearby city that you may not have experienced as a family. Museums, parks, botanical gardens, a zoo or aquarium – there are all kinds of places that are just a little bit special and make for excellent family outings.

Write a story or paint a picture together.

Indulge your creativity as a family and create a work of art together! The kids will get a kick out of being creative with mom, and you’ll get to enjoy the freedom of being a kid again.

If you want to write a family story, start your kids off with a simple prompt – “It was a dark and stormy night…” always works – and take turns adding elements to the story. Write it down or record it with your phone so you can all enjoy this moment again years down the road.

Painting, coloring, or drawing together can also be great fun. You can work on your own individual works of art if you like, but consider making a collaborative painting or drawing, too. These can not only foster a greater sense of togetherness, but they’re also a unique way to teach kids about teamwork.

Mother’s Day is about mom, of course, but it’s also about family. Celebrate the beauty of family together this Mother’s Day – for more ideas, read “5 Surprises for Mom This Mother’s Day.”

Beatrice Bisais

Bea is Nixplay’s Social Media Manager. She enjoys drinking coffee, reading about wars, and writing stories. Send her a message at beatrice.bisais@nixplay.com.

Dyeing Easter eggs can be a great family project, but it’s far from the only way to decorate them this spring.

Maybe you’ve got very young kids who want something a bit more hands-on than just dunking an egg into a cup. Or maybe you want to create a more grown-up version of the Easter egg – one that will look beautiful nestled into an Easter-themed centerpiece.

Whatever you’re looking for, take a look at this list for some fun alternative ideas to dyeing Easter eggs!

Painted eggs

Young children may enjoy painting eggs more than dyeing them, as it allows them to exercise their creativity and use bolder, brighter colors.

If you’re painting eggs, all you need are a few hard-boiled eggs, paintbrushes and some kids’ fingerpaint, tempera paint, or watercolors. You can also use sponges to create a more textured look. Children may also enjoy placing stickers in the shape of birds, flowers, etc. on their eggs and painting around them. After the paint dries, remove the stickers and you’ll have a design in white relief.

Glittery eggs

via CraftaholicsAnonymous.net

If you’re ready to get a little bit messy, glittery eggs can be tons of fun!

One method of creating sparkly, glitter-covered eggs is to first dye the eggs and let them dry. Then, mix together Elmer’s glue and whatever color glitter you want to use, and paint the eggs with the mixture. Since the glue will dry clear, all that will show up is the glitter.

Another way to create glittery eggs is to simply paint them with Elmer’s glue, sprinkle some glitter on a piece of paper, and roll the eggs through the glitter.

Black-and-white doodled eggs 

via Paper & Stitch

Create striking Easter eggs with nothing more than a Sharpie.

Sketch out a pattern or design you want to create on paper first, so you have an idea of what your finished product will look like. Then draw that design onto a hard-boiled or blown egg. Geometric patterns, floral designs, and other repeating patterns will look best.

Pressed flower eggs 

via The Magic Onions 

If you have time to press some flowers before making your Easter eggs, this can be a wonderful, unique project.

About a week or so before you want to create your eggs, pick a few flowers (make sure they’re clean and dry) and press them in a flower press. If you don’t have a press, simply line a book with parchment paper, sandwich the flowers between the paper, and weigh it down with a heavy encyclopedia or other book.

Fabric-dyed Easter eggs 

via Better Homes & Gardens

One interesting way to create unique dyed eggs is to wrap them in a textured fabric, like lace or tulle, and dip them into Easter egg dye.

Cut a square of your chosen fabric, wrap it around the egg, and secure it with a rubber band. Then dip the egg into your dye, allow it to dry, and remove the fabric. You’ll end up with a beautiful egg covered in an intricate design.

Sprinkle eggs 

via Studio DIY

Somewhat akin to glitter eggs, sprinkle eggs are easy to make and especially fun for kids.

To start, pour some pastel (or any color you like!) sprinkles into a bowl. You want your egg to have plenty of room. Paint your egg with glue (something a bit stronger than Elmer’s will be necessary – Studio DIY suggests tacky glue) and then press the egg into the sprinkles in the bowl.

To cover the rest of the egg, spoon the sprinkles over it and firmly press the curved part of the spoon onto the egg to help the sprinkles set.

Easter is the perfect time to create original egg decorations that are a bit more out of the ordinary than your typical dyed eggs. For more creative springtime projects, take a look at our post “Take Incredible Springtime Photos with These Photography Tips.”

Beatrice Bisais

Bea is Nixplay’s Social Media Manager. She enjoys drinking coffee, reading about wars, and writing stories. Send her a message at beatrice.bisais@nixplay.com.

It’s amazing how much time business travelers have to spend waiting: waiting in airports, waiting for taxis, waiting for meetings to begin…the list goes on.

But thanks to technology, there are plenty of ways to use that time more productively. Here are 5 ways to make the most of your business travel hours.

Make some phone calls

When you’re waiting for a flight, you don’t always have a long span of uninterrupted time. However, you can almost certainly count on having 5 minutes, and that’s about the perfect length for a quick phone call.

An article in the Harvard Business Review recommends keeping a list of short phone calls you need to make, and making as many as you can in a row while waiting in airports (or train stations, or hotel lobbies, or wherever you may be).

You might need to check on a supplier, or touch base with a client – whatever it is, as long as you’re fairly certain the call won’t take an extensive amount of time, it’s a perfect way to spend some travel waiting time more productively.

Learn something through a podcast or audiobook.

Podcasts and audiobooks are great – and hands-free – ways to learn something on the road.

You can listen to both through any number of devices, including your phone, so you can check your boarding pass and travel documents, even grab a coffee while you listen. Whether you’re hungry for some professional development, want to learn something new, or just want to be entertained, there are plenty of options in both the podcast and audiobook formats.

Organize your digital photos.

If you have an extended period of time – if your flight is delayed, for example – you may be able to break out the laptop and organize your photos.

This is a good task to get to while you’re traveling, if only because it’s something most of us put off. It’s hard to reconcile ourselves to spending three hours of family or leisure time organizing the hundreds, even thousands of images many of us have.

If you’ve got a Nixplay WiFi Cloud Digital Frame, you can use the Nixplay app to organize your photos into playlists and share them with friends and family. It’s a great way to stay in touch with loved ones while you’re traveling.

Work on projects for which you don’t need an internet connection.

When you’re traveling, WiFi isn’t always a given. Planes don’t always have it, and even airport WiFi can be spotty.

To make the most of your time, whether you have internet or not, make a list of projects that you don’t need internet for – formatting a presentation, writing an article, or consolidating your business contacts list, for example – and have it ready for when you have some internet-free downtime.

This will keep you from getting too far behind at work, and let you stay productive throughout your travel time.

Enjoy yourself with some pleasure reading or tech-free time 

You can just as easily get burned out on work while you’re traveling as when you’re in the office. It doesn’t make sense to exhaust yourself by spending every minute on business. If you’ve got a long wait in the airport, take a little time to read that thriller you’ve been eyeing, or indulge in an entertaining magazine.

Not only will it give your brain a rest, but you’ll be doing your eyes a favor too by taking some time away from screens – which most of us professionals use for far too many hours a day.

For more on how to make your business travel a little more enjoyable, read our post “Traveling for Work? 4 Ways to Stay Connected to Family in Style.”

Beatrice Bisais

Bea is Nixplay’s Social Media Manager. She enjoys drinking coffee, reading about wars, and writing stories. Send her a message at beatrice.bisais@nixplay.com.