My sister is such a cow!!

It’s really sad that there are adults out there who will do this or think it’s perfectly reasonable. This explains why so many adults can’t get along with their siblings.
The book should be about her mum, not the OP telling tales because she’s under the childish illusion that it will win her mummy’s favour.

I disagree that she’s making a point. What if her sister changed her mind and wanted to add something there? There’s space for it. Maybe the mum would assume OP purposely excluded her sister’s contribution if it wasn’t there and there wasn’t space left for it. I think it’s a neutral action, provided she doesn’t say anything else on the matter, and it leaves it up to the mum to decide how she feels.

Exactly this, the mum probably has the measure of all her kids and won't be surprised either way.

I like how your sister did it @RedhairDL ,
No drama, just got on with it.

OP knows her sister isn't keen, yet keeps asking.

Even after it took a year for her sister to respond to the sewing project, a whole year of badgering asking!!

Seems OP cant take a hint, yet also says she's not surprised.

No I am not an only child. I have a difficult sibling. But I don’t make assumptions. Unlike you it seems.

Grow up.

If she does this, she’s obviously making a point about her sister and how she feels about her.

It’ not about the gift; it’s about trying to prove who’s the better daughter.

It’s pathetic.

It is a gift from the op. Its her idea and efforts mainly to get everything and put it together.. but what your point i have no idea.. picking at op calling it a gift because shes asked others to send a picture and a message. What else should op have called it.

@PIPERHELLO Next time make sure you get the dictionary out and use the correct word for what ever this thing is you are doing for your mum.

It's a gift that you are doing so your sister "opting out" is neither here nor there really I wouldn't have thought.

Unless you don't have access to photos or memories of you together at all?

Wow, straight to thinking of death and money, and you talk of being pleasant 😂.

Once again, you are ignoring the fact that OP took it upon herself to put this book together. No one asked her to do so. She asked her sister if she wanted to send something, and her sister - appropriately - declined. If there is a yes/no question then "no" is an appropriate answer. And her sister can have any reason or no reason at all for saying no. In this case the reason given is that the sister has already sorted out a gift and doesn't wish to partake in OPs project. Note: The sister didn't expect OP to join in with her gift idea - and isn't causing any drama at all. The OP is the one who has a history of unilaterally organising these craft projects and then expecting other people to do some of the work: that is inappropriate behaviour, and she knew from the last time this happened that her sister didn't like it. OP is causing unnecessary drama here and needs to stop making her mum's birthday about herself.

Speak for yourself - the OP already admitted that there have been disputes about this sort of nonsense in the past! Including when OP again took it upon herself to create some "joint sewing project" (again without asking others if they'd actually like to be a part of it) and then badgered her sister into taking part, and viewed her as selfish for not wishing to do so. OP is in her sixties - do you really think this is the first time she and her sister have had a disagreement??? You must be an only child to have that kind of view of what siblings are like.

I have to say the only unpleasantness I have witnessed is from op herself, with foul language, name calling and angry insults. Really discrediting her own case by being so deeply unpleasant.

It has left me pitying her poor sister on the receiving end of this bile.

This is going back, but it was my uncle’s 80th birthday. We are a close family and we don’t really compete at all. My sister purchased him a calendar, where every month had a few different family photos taken over the years. She’d included everyone on it, pinching photos off social media or just using what she had. As you looked through the pages, people in the photos were growing up and December had the most recent ages. She didn’t ask anyone to contribute and whilst it wasn’t my sort of thing, I thought it was a very well put together gift.
I purchased him a remote control helicopter and my other sibling purchased him a hamper of some sort with scones and preserves and other bits in it or similar.

You couldn’t tell what he loved the most. He loved it all. He scalded us all for wasting our money on him.

But…He played with that helicopter a lot and it was always charged up and ready to go. His calendar hung on the wall and the hamper was demolished.

I don’t think ‘momento’ gifts necessarily do make everything else look meagre, or low effort. If the person likes that sort of thing then lovely, but I think many types of presents can bring joy and looking back at my uncles gifts off the three of us, what a lovely range of things he had.

No, but nor does she need to draw attention to her spat with the OP through the medium of her mother's keep sake book. Nothing will convince me that it's acceptable for a grown woman to use her mothers birthday gift as a way of getting at her sister. Whatever the OP has done, it's not an appropriate thing to weaponise.

She has not been ‘really angry’ with posters. She was angry with her sister but seems to be more calm and accepting now.

Many posters are getting over excited and filling in the blanks with their own issues and unpleasantness. As per usual.

I feel sorry for the sister. If one of my children gave me something where one child hadn't participated I wouldn't wonder why. I'd think they weren't into it, had done their own thing, or whatever.

Or this mother may roll her eyes and think her one DD has tried to boss the other around again and she's said no, good on her. Or maybe knows the other DD isn't so sentimental, and that's fine. Mothers know their daughters and probably know what these two are like anyway.

My children are individuals, not part of a collective. As long as they show they care, the how or if they are missing from something doesn't matter.

Anyone really believe this is the first dispute of this kind 🤣

You seemed rather cocksure of yourself there.

I will leave this thread feeling very sorry for the sister. What an awful situation, and imagine not being keen or not having the time to look for photos for OP’s book and getting this hysterical overreaction?! I think op has some issues, nothing to do with her sister.

Exactly!

But you are badgering her, you've asked 4 times, and she's said no.

Her mum will have a present from the sister and presumably a card with a message, so she will know she is being thought of. The sister doesn’t also need to take part in the present organised by the OP to show thought and care.

Not really. OP us trying to do a nice thing for their Mum, giving the opportunity for her sister to participate, and her sister doesn’t want to. Those are the definitive facts of the matter, and if the gift reflects that… their mum can view it however she views it, whether that’s “one of my DDs couldn’t be bothered” or “She got me a nice gift; it’s okay if she didn’t have time to participate.”

Well, tbh you are calling your sister:
Cow, multiple times
Fucking selfish, again, multiple times
Bitch-nasty, not needed!
Jelous-really?
You keep saying your sister doesen't like you but can't help but wonder if is not the other way around. She didn't want to contribute as she said she doesn't have time, should have said ok thank you and get on with it, not coming on Mumsnet and calling her all kind of names. She sorted her own present, she doesen't feel the need to contribute. This is perfectly valid, no is a full sentence. It doesn't warrant name calling. About the sewing project...fuck me I would pass on that as well. You don't come across well, sorry, but because of the name calling I would listen her side of the story as well before agreeing with you!

This. Some of us can organise joint gifts without wanting the "credit". Op is just trying to do a nice thing for her mum. A memory book of family, friends and places, events she's been to. Better than bed socks she probably can't reach to put on.

This. I met my friend of 40 years on Friday. Whilst we were mooching she popped into a shop to get a birthday card for her father. Her comment was " It's difficult, because I just want a card that's okay and that says Happy Birthday Dad. So many of them say 'to a wonderful dad' and he just wasn't and I just can't say it, even in a stupid card". He left the family when she was 11 and the relationships with his 3 children never recovered . Were all in our 60s. I have a pleasant enough relationship with my mum but she can be utterly vile. If my brothers were making a book and I had to write something loving in it I would find that incredibly hard. "Love from Angelina' is all that goes in birthday cards.

I think people defending the sister aren't taking into account how upsetting it can be for parents when their adult children are in conflict. The sisters pettiness is likely to play out with mum asking "why isn't Brenda in the book?" Then OP has to say she refused, leaving the mum thinking she couldn't be bothered, or that she did it due to issues with the OP. Neither is great for a 90 year old woman in her birthday who probably just wants peace from the squabbles of a lifetime.