A Mother's Day bonus: Her bow is a bouquet!

Add some extra thoughtfulness to your Mother's Day gift this year with a few posies.

Once you wrap Mom's gift, stick a few flowers underneath or entwined in the bow for a unique presentation.

Preparation

After wrapping the gift, tie on a pretty ribbon and then simply tie, glue or wire a blossom, spray or small nosegay to the top or side of the package. On most packages, it will be easy to slip the flowers under the ribbon or tie them in the bow.

For our Mother's Day gifts, we added a fresh baby's breath nosegay to a shiny pink bag tied with white satin ribbon, a dried hydrangea under a soft blue tulle ribbon and a fragrant white gardenia to the top of a pretty blue box.

Tips

To keep them fresh, wait until the last possible minute to add the flowers. At home, moisten a few paper towels with water, lay the flowers on the towels and keep them in the refrigerator until you're ready to present the gift.

If traveling, keep them in a cooler in the car. If topping a larger gift, insert the stems into a water tube filled with water and floral preservative. If the gift is large enough, try to hide the water tube under the ribbon and flowers.

Remember to match the size of the flower to the gift. Use larger flowers or make small nosegays for larger gifts. Single blossoms and miniature arrangements look lovely on little packages.

If the stems of the flowers show, wrap them in white florist tape or ribbon to match the ribbon used on the package. We used white floral tape on the hydrangea stem and the baby's breath nosegay because we liked the more feminine look on the white and pink packages.

We left the daffodil and pansy stems uncovered when we attached them to the black-and-white gingham purse and the black box.

Cost

You won't need many flowers, so look to your yard for a few blossoms such as tulips, pansies or lilies.

If you don't have luck in the yard, browse your supermarket or farmer's market for a few sprigs of baby's breath, miniature carnations and other flowers. The gardenia was the most expensive at $5.99. You can also buy a premixed bouquet and pull a few flowers out to adorn Mom's gift, and place the remaining flowers in a vase to enjoy.

Budget Bouquet is an occasional feature in digs.