Last year, I showed how to make a woven heart for Valentine’s Day. (See the picture shown here.) When I transferred my grandmothering ideas from my other hosting company to this one, that information got lost in the transfer. So, I thought that I would post it again this year.

Here are the directions for the woven hear. It is a PDF file that you can print up and follow to help you make your own.

I have also seen some pretty heart shaped boxes that I think would be fun to make with your granddaughters.

	Go here to make this ‘modern day’ keepsake box.
	Go here to make this Victorian looking keepsake box.
	Go here to make this heart shaped box covered with colorful tissue paper. (Scroll to the bottom of the page for the directions.)

I hope this gives you a couple of ideas of fun activities you can do with your granddaughters. Throw in lots of hugs, kisses, giggles, and of course conversation heart candies and you’ll create memories that will last a lifetime.

Happy Valentine’s Day,
Digi-Gram

Since Valentine’s Day is coming up, I created a little Bingo game to play with your younger grandchildren. (If your older grandchildren are good sports, you could maybe play it with them!)

Here is a Valentine Bingo master so that you can print out the sheets to use as your Bingo cards.  There are 4 cards that have different pictures on them so you could play with up to four grandchildren at one time.  I recommend that you print them on card stock and then either laminate them or cover them with clear contact paper.  They’ll last longer that way.

Here is the master Valentines callout sheet for whomever is calling out the Bingo squares.  I suggest you print this out twice (on card stock and laminate).  Cut one of them into the individual squares.  Whoever is the caller can pick out one from the pile, show it to the other players, and then place it on the master call out sheet to keep track of which Valentine ‘figures’ have been called out.

It would be fun to use the Valentine candy to use as markers.  Be sure that you have extra to munch on while you are playing!

Happy Valentine’s Day!
Digi-Gram

To know me is to know that I love technology.  Not the bits and bytes that make my computer run.  Not the variables, the semi-colons, nor the pesky if-then statements of programming.  I love the fun things that you can do with technology and the fun places on the Internet.  Wordle is one such fun place.

Wordle is a site where you can generate word clouds (groups of words) from text that you provide. Words that you enter in more frequently are displayed more prominently (bigger).  You can tweak your cloud with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. Once your Wordle is to your liking,  you can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share online with your family.

Creating a Wordle would be a fun activity to do with your grandchildren.  Go to wordle.net.  Click on Create.  You will then get a text box where you can either copy and paste text or type in your desired words.  Take a few minutes to decide the words that you want to put into your word cloud.  It could be family names, friend names, hobbies or interests, names of your favorite movies or books, or things you like. Remember, the more times you enter in a word, the more prominently it will be displayed.  When you are satisfied with your text, click on Go (which is under the text box).  Have a little patience while your word cloud is created.

Now comes the fun.  You will see a menu bar at the top of the word cloud where you can play with fonts, color, and layout.  When you have tweaked it to your liking, you can then print it up or save it to the gallery.  If you print it up, you could frame it and give the framed artwork for your granddaughter to display in her room.  (You could also frame one for your home.)  Or you could save it to the gallery to share online with family members.

If you click on the thumbnail with this posting, you’ll see the one that I made . . .

Your granddaughter could make word clouds to give as gifts to friends or family members for birthday presents, Mother’s Day or Father’s Day gifts, anniversary gifts, or Christmas gifts. Or just for fun.

Have fun making word clouds!!
Digi-Gram