Thanksgiving is next week.  Yikes!  Do you have a whole slew of activities that you can do with your grandchildren?  If you don’t, here are a couple to help you out.

This little fellow (picture to the left) is a delightful turkey made from fingerprints.  You can find directions how to make it on DKL’s Site.  Thanks DKL for such an easy, fun idea.

Another fun idea from DKL is the handprint turkeys.  I know that you will probably be busy (read that mean ‘to be stressed out to your wits end’) in food preparation for Thanksgiving.  Simple activities are a blessing for grandmothers.

Kaboose has some great crafts, decorations, and printables that grandchildren can do.  I especially like the hands and feet turkey (What would Freud say about my fixation on hands/feet turkeys??) and the finger puppet pilgrims.  There are tons of ideas on this page so make sure you take plenty of time to check them out!

You also might want to check out some of the games and activities that I wrote about last year:

• Thanksgiving Activities Part 1
• Thanksgiving Activities Part 2
• Thanksgiving Activities Part 3
• Matthew, Mark, Luke, John

You might also want to check out the darling Oreo turkey.  (I wrote that post before I actually made these turkeys.  When I got around to making them, I struggled.  I had a challenge to keep the cookie upright while the frosting was hardening.  Maybe your hands will be more talented than mine.  I’m not very crafty and I even have problems with ‘food’ crafts. . . .)

By having fun Thanksgiving activities to do with your grandchildren (besides having all of that yummy food to eat) you will be strengthening your relationships with them. And, that’s FAR more important than the food you serve.

Yesterday we celebrated Veterans Day.  My thoughts were on my father who enlisted in the Marine corps during WW II when he graduated from high school.  That turned out to be just a few months before the war ended.  This was a blessing for us.  If he had enlisted a little bit earlier, he might have been in the forces that landed on Iwo Jima.  Thank goodness, he wasn’t.

Yesterday, I watched a powerful video called A Pittance of Time.  It got me thinking about the responsibility that we grandparents have to our grandchildren in preserving the memories, the stories, and the histories of our family members — especially of those who have served in our country’s military.  The numbers of the World War II veterans are slowly diminishing.  This great loss to their families could be compounded if their experiences are not captured and written down.

I know that for many it is difficult to talk about those experiences.  My heart goes out to them for all of the horrors that they experienced.  Hopefully, through kindness and softness from family members, they may decide to share their experiences for their posterity.

This sharing of experiences is vital regardless of which war our veterans have fought in.  Family members will treasure those stories forever.  I strongly encourage all of you grandmothers to reach out to the veterans in your family to see if their stories are written down.  If they aren’t, see if there is a way for you to capture those stories.

Then, in a quiet moment, draw your grandchildren around and tell them these stories.  Help them to understand the sacrifice and commitment that was given in serving our country.  Help your grandchildren learn their heritage of what their family has done to keep America free.

Here is A Pittance of Time.  It lasts 5 minutes but has a powerful message.  You might want to share it with your grandchildren.

Ever heard about cake pops?? Supposedly, the idea has been circulating out and about the Internet for the past year.  I just learned about them. (My kids tell me all the time that I am S-L-O-W . . .)  These are pictures that Bakerella has taken of her divine creations.  Aren’t these pops just the cat’s meow?

Bakerella has got to be one of the most creative cake pop creators in the universe.  She has also made the cutest ever reindeer pops,  wedding cake pops, rabbit pops, spring chick pops, turkey pops, and voting pops. Why just this very day in honor of Sesame Street’s 40th anniversary, she has shared her Elmo (and friends) cake pops.  Boy howdy!  If you made these for a grandchild’s birthday celebration, you’d be his most-est favorite grandma ever.  I think I’m going to have to retire right now to spend all of my time (trying) to make these fun cake pops — and then eating them.  (I’m sure grandpa would help me out — especially the eating part.)

(We pause here for a commercial break:  You’ve got to check out those little gobbling turkey pops.  Fun, fun fun!!  They would be a hoot to make around Thanksgiving time with your grandchildren.  But, they call for the brown version of candy corn.  Last year when I was looking for some around Thanksgiving, I had a hard time finding any.  So, you might want to start checking out your local stores now so that you will have it on hand for when you need it.  We return you now to our regular scheduled program.)

I’m giving our daughter-in-law a baby shower this Saturday and I’m going to attempt the smiley face cake pops.  They seem to be fairly simple.  Something that I could manage.  Wish me luck . . .

Making cake pops would be a delightful activity to do with grandchildren.  Wouldn’t it be fun for you and your grandchildren to come up with your own designs that you could make together?  Kitchen krafts.  What a yummy idea.  Even if they didn’t turn out as elegant as Bakerella’s, I’m sure they would still be edible.

Maybe it’s a good thing that the New Year is just around the corner so that I can set a goal of losing all of the weight that I have gained just LOOKING at these cake pops . . .

Saturday my niece gave my daughter-in-law, Lisa, a baby shower.  There was a little craft project for the guests to do: put an applique on a onesie.  When the onesies were all finished, we gave them to Lisa so she would have them when her son is born in a few weeks.

I didn’t want my delicately unskilled craft hands to ruin a onesie so I thought that I would just sit by and watch.

“You can do it, you can do it, you can do it,” my niece said to me.  “Come on.  See?  It’s not hard.  You can do it.  Just take a deep breath.”  All that coaching just to get me to pick up a pattern.

I selected a giraffe design because I thought that it would be the easiest one to do.  The orange polka dot fabric spoke to my heart.  I love the color orange. Hot diggity dog! Within 20 minutes, I had a finished project.  It turned out pretty good, even if I do say so myself.  Here are some pictures of the other onesies.  (I think our son, Tyler, will love the hedgehog one since he LOVES hedgehogs.)  Click on the pictures to see a bigger size.

Here’s how to apply an applique. (Apply an applique –say that ten times really fast!)

1. Select a simple design for your pattern.  Cut out a paper copy of the design.  (See below on where to get patterns.)
2. Place the cut out design on the back side of the Wonder-Under (the papery non-bumpy side) and trace the design onto the Wonder-Under.  Be mindful of whether or not you need to put the pattern on the fabric so it is a mirror image of the design (so the design won’t be backwards).
3. Rough cut around the design (not cutting on the exact lines of the design but away from it 2-3 inches)
4. Put the rough side of the Wonder-Under to the wrong side of the fabric.  Press with a hot, dry iron for 3-4 seconds.
5. Cut exactly around the edges of the design.
6. Peal the paper backing off from the Wonder-Under.
7. Place the design with the fabric side up (and the Wonder-Under side down) on the object that you are applying the applique to.
8. Press 8-10 seconds with a dry, hot iron being very careful not to scorch the material.
9. Let the design cool.

If you are having any problems, feel free to contact me.  I won’t be able to help you any more than the directions you see here because I my craft brain is so inept.   But you’re still free to contact me!  Otherwise,  you can read what the Pellon Consumer Products page has to say.

If you are artistic, you can draw your own pattern to use. If not, you could use simple shapes from a coloring book or clip art from your computer. Or, you could use some of the free applique patterns from this site.

If you have grandchildren that are around eight years old or older, this would be a good activity to do together.  (You might have to supervise the ironing.)  Your granddaughter could give her project away as a Christmas present, birthday present, donate to a humanitarian project, or just keep it herself.  (I’m being sexist here to refer to only granddaughters.  Grandsons would enjoy this activity too if they were doing monsters, dinosaurs, pickup trucks or any design they consider to be ‘manly.’)

If you use the really heavy duty Wonder-Under, you’re not supposed to need to sew around the edges of the applique.  But I’ve read on the blogosphere how some  people have had to stitch around it.  Maybe by the time it starts peeling up around the edges, the hobo look will be in.

Here are some things on which you could put an applique:

• a baby blanket
• t-shirts
• little Levi hats for children
• coordinate appliques on a t-shirt and shorts or pants
• aprons (either for cooking or doing craft/painting projects)
• tote bag to carry their books to and from the library
• a skirt or dress
• pajamas
• pillowcase
• homemade bean bags
• personalized tooth fairy pillow
• dishtowels

I’m almost embarrassed to tell you just how excited I was about the little applique that I did.  Now I’m concocting all sorts of projects that I can do with appliques.  I’d venture to say that if I can get excited about doing this type of project, your grandchildren will probably enjoy doing it too!

(Now, I’m trying to figure out how to convince my husband I need a new Bernina sewing machine to make more appliques . . .)