It's not too early to plan your Mother's Day gift

There are few if any people more important on Earth than your Mother. She raised you, nurtured you, supported you and loved you from the very moments your eyes began to soak in the sun's light. Really, there is no way to adequately express appreciation for the unconditional love and sacrifice spent over your lifetime.

The best gifts, I've found, have no cash value or cannot be bought in a store. The gift I'm referring to is time. Spending time - from a dinner and a movie to an afternoon hanging out just the two of you - is probably the most precious gift a child can provide to their mother; especially once you've reach adulthood and the amount of time spent with one another gets reduced substantially due to your newfound responsibilities as an adult, perhaps a parent too.

Another way to express appreciation is to tap into your creative self and invest some time, effort and energy into a specialized gift. This can be a difficult even daunting task especially in the day and age where many things are put off until the last minute. Counting on the two-day shipping of Amazon prime or the extended hours of many retailers to try and find that perfect gift among the thousands and thousands of options available can lead to finding that "special" gift. However, doing this seems to be checking off a box on a list rather than an expression of appreciation. There are other options.

Customized pictures, a thoughtful and creative way that will last beyond the moment. Another option is Plantopia - a wonderful DIY hanging basket. Plantopia makes creating a professional looking hanging basket an easy reality for even the amateur gardener. Imagine, spending the time to create a special, customized professional-looking hanging basket for Mom. She'll tumble over with joy - it'll bring back the nostalgia of hanging your old art projects on the fridge. She'll boastfully hang it for all to see and you would've found a way to really express appreciation through the time, effort and energy you spent into this specialized gift. 

How do you do it? Well, that's what You Tube is for. 

Here's a great video on how to use Plantopia: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUvcyKMhjPA

Now, where can you buy Plantopia? It's available on many e-tailers. Here are some options:

Wayfair

Home Depot

Hayneedle

How It's Made - PLANTOPIA

Plantopia Hanging Baskets are quality, durable plastic flower pots made from recycled plastic resins right outside of Chicago. Made using the injection molding process by G.A.I.M. Engineering - family-owned company manufacturing since 1989, Plantopia goes through a multitude of steps before being released into the market - either to a retailer or wholesaler, direct to consumer or to a grower.

The most important part of a plastic product is the tooling or mold as its called. Created from a block of steel by one of our local U.S. vendors, it goes through a rigorous creation process using a variety of high-tech and high-quality machines and tools to develop and create the final tool. All this is done after taking an idea or concept, creating blueprints and prototypes before finally being produced. This could take 6 or more weeks to finally have a tool ready to sample before production begins.





Once the tool is made, sampled and enhanced for production, it's time to make some parts! Pictured to the right is a lot of recycled resin used to eventually make a Plantopia flower pot. The resin we use is fed through what is essentially a vacuum tube which loads it into the injection molding machine (left). This puts the plastic resin into the machine automatically to increase production efficiency.



Plastic injection molding is basically the same process used to make popsicles - albeit at much different temperatures. To make yummy popsicles, add some flavored sugar water into some sort of plastic mold and put into the freezer. Allow it to freeze and voila! - an easy way to make a special treat. Molding plastic is similar. In this case, the injection molding machine heats up the plastic - usually over 400 degrees or more depending on the type of plastic - until it's a liquid. It is shot into the steel mold to take the shape of the part and then cools. Once cooled, the mold opens and releases the part. That's it. The whole process of injection molding a part can typically take anywhere from 20 seconds to 90 seconds depending on the part and resin being used.

"That's it," you ask. Well, not quite. Our next blog post will explain what happens after the parts are taken from the machine and put into the next phase. Check back here to see the completed process of how a Plantopia Hanging Basket is made! Post your questions or comments below.