SAN ANTONIO – Monica Saldana has put her creative juices to work this year to create a musical, mobile, light-up mum that she’s pretty excited about.
“I love to go big or go home for seniors. So I do everything I can to pop things out for them,” Saldana said.
Saldana owns Lucy’s Hands. She’s been creating mums for years and has seen the cost of supplies skyrocket.
“I’ve seen a ribbon go up from when it used to be like $3.95; they’ve gone up to like $8.95. Like a big hike in different prices over the years,” Saldana said. “Also, on the trinkets, they used to be like 30 cents, 40 cents. Now they’re a dollar, two dollars, three dollars.”
Saldana shops around and starts early, but she says the cost of mums will increase for families.
Rebeca Fox, a librarian at Taft High School, said students on campus were pretty worried about not being able to afford the high school homecoming tradition.
“We had a kid come in earlier this week, and he was very frazzled. He had worked really hard on making a poster to ask a girl to homecoming, and he knew what he was going to do, and everything was ready to go,” Fox said, in part. “But he had been stressing about the mum because he couldn’t afford it. He’d gotten quotes for like $100 plus and has an after-school job. He couldn’t have afforded that.”
With money saved from previous fundraisers, Fox purchased enough materials to help 60 students make a mum for free. Additional trinkets would be available at a small additional cost. She said it’s a way to make sure students are included.
Sign up for the Taft High School free mums starts on Friday. Fox said other librarians in the Northside Independent School District are offering similar services.
“This is one way that libraries are able to do that, to bridge that gap and to help our community,” Fox said.
Find deals if you’re making a mum
For those who want to make their own mum, Saldana has a few suggestions to help keep costs down.
“You can start out buying stuff from the Dollar Tree all the way to going to these different wholesales to buy the merchandise that you need to make the mum,” she said.
Saldana shops year-round for items for the mum, but she says the best sales are after mum season.
“Craft Depot sells a lot of good stuff in bulk. And they also have stuff ready, even Letty’s Party Supplies and Craft, and even at Janal’s Wholesale, they have a lot of braids,” said Saldana.
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