Toco Touch™: Mother's Day 2013 Interactive Google Doodle Lets You Craft 27 Cards

Ever wanted to craft art on Google's homepage? Today is your lucky day – if, for some reason, your mother really likes Google's logo.

Google celebrates Mother's Day 2013 with an extravagant interactive Google Doodle that lets you craft, print, and share a total of 27 different logos, and then add one of three different borders, thanks to a card-building machine.

Once you press the play button, Google's card building machine comes to life, letting you "draw" Mom or flowers, or create a special "hand-made" gift.

Further steps will let you decide whether your mom appears as a bird, stick figure, or bear, for instance (Google's Android mascot checks in with an appearance as a mother and child in one of the cards). Other options include making your craft appear as if it were drawn with crayons or markers, or using materials such as pasta, string, construction paper, buttons, or beans.

Finally, you'll pick a frame for your click-made Google Doodle.

After you're done with your first creation, you can start over 26 more times to see all the combinations yourself (or you can just see them all compiled below). Google also gives you the option to print your artistic masterpiece or share it by giving you a customized short URL.

The complex machine was designed with the idea, what "if Google the Search Engine had a mom of its own and wanted to make some artwork for her," explains Doodler Mike Dutton. The Mother's Day logo appears on Google's homepage in more than 50 countries today.

Enjoy All 27 of Google's Mother's Day Cards

Here are all of the 27 different cards you can create in today's interactive logo:

Here's to the Moms

Today's Google Doodle wasn't the only way Google marked Mother's Day. Beneath the special logo, Google posts a simple message to all the Moms: thank you.

Clicking on the "thank you" will take you to its Here's to the Moms page, a portal to all sorts of Google products. Highlighted on that page is a Mother's Day video that will tug at the heartstrings of people everywhere:

The video is just one of many emotionally charged ads Google has come to be known for. In fact, last month, a Google exec revealed to Business Insider just how they come up with all those creative angles.

Also on the Here's to the Moms site, you can:

Schedule a Google+ Hangout with mom.
Browse Google Shopping "shortlists" custom packaged by themes like coffee, fitness and more.
Find a flower shop near you on Google Maps.

But I think my favorite option is sending a "tech support package" to mom from Google'sTeachParentsTech.org:

And in even more ways to celebrate Mother's Day with Google, you can visit the hashtag#HeresToTheMoms on Google+ to share the love (or humor) centered on your beloved mum. Here's one post that's circulating:

Shopping and Spending Trends on Mother's Day

Consumer spending is forecast to be up 11 percent this year for Mother's Day, showing an average of $168.94 spent in celebration. This, according to research by the National Retail Federation and BIGinsight:

iCharts

Electronics are a hot-ticket item for mom this year in particular. From NRF.com:

The survey found 14.1 percent – the highest in the survey's history – of shoppers this Mother's Day will spend more than $2.3 billion on electronics, up from $1.6 billion last year.

NRF also reports consumers plan to spend $2.3 billion on flowers. A quick search on Google Trends for "flowers" shows in the past 30 days, people are increasingly on a mission to fulfill that forecast.

Yahoo also shared its data for last year's Mother's Day to put spend and shopping behavior in perspective.

Last year, 47 percent of Yahoo visitors searched online for Mother's Day gifts. Forty-four percent spent more than $50 on a gift, with a total of $160 million reportedly spent in celebration of mom.