My mother was the same nightmare to buy for!!For her 60th we got gorgeous A4 papers from Daintree on camden st - there was a mix of some with flower petals in them and lovely textures as well. We got a load of old photos from her past and printed them on on the paper using our printer at home. We then put them into a nice photo album ranging from when she was a baby through to now. We wrote little comments through it and stuck in tickets from days out and things. She absolutley loved in and thought it was great, she forces any visitors to read through it when they are in the house!!