I never go Martha Stewart’s website.  Never.  I am so not a Martha Stewart.

But for some reason (maybe it is my sinus stuffiness that made me do it. . . ) I went there.  And saw an absolutely adorable Crayon Hearts activity.  Basically, you melt crayons between two pieces of waxed paper.  When it’s cooled, you cut out heart shapes and make a mobile.  The picture that they had was very attractive and made me want to make one.

This would be an easy activity to do with grandchildren.  It wouldn’t be expensive.  It wouldn’t be time consuming to prepare for nor time consuming to do.  That’s my kind of activity!

Then there was the Hearts and Blocks activity.  You cut out a heart shape and block shapes from white art erasers.  Then, using pre-inked stamp pads you stamp heart shapes and block shapes on different colored paper.  Use the paper for Valentine’s cards.  Again, I was suckered in by the pretty pictures.

Older grandchildren could cut out the shapes while younger grandchildren would probably need you to do the cutting.  (But they could give input to the design of their stamp.)

You can also find directions on making heart shaped soap, bath fizzies, miniature Valentine’s Day gift bags (with download-able template to print and use), and romantic candles. Any of these activities would be fun for a Valentine’s Day party with the grandchildren.

Bonus!  Bonus!  Bonus!

I thought I’d share the conversation candy heart box idea with you, too. This site has a pattern for a candy box like the ones you buy in the store.  The pattern has conversation candies on it.  You can right-click on the picture to save and print  to make your own candy box.  Then, fill with the conversation heart candy.  (Why make  your own box when you can buy them in the store?  It’s all about doing something fun with your grandchildren!)

Hope you have fun celebrating Valentine’s Day with the little Valentines in your family!

Are you familiar with Grandparents.com?  If not, I recommend that you take some time to check out the site.

They have a couple of fun Valentine’s Day crafts that you could do with your grandchildren.  One is to make a Valentine Posy out of lollipops.  The one (that I really like) isto make a Valentine Place Mat.

Basically, to make the place mat, you need clear contact paper and various flat Valentine decorations.  You’ll cut pieces of contact paper to the size you want.  Place one piece sticky side up.  Place your decorations  — doilies, hearts cut otr of construction paper, pictures cut out of a magazine, letters cut out to spell words like love — on the sticky side.

Place the sticky side of the second piece of clear contact paper on the sticky side of the first piece and voila! You have a place mat.  (You’ll probably want to read their directions. . .)

It would be a fun tradition making these with your grandchildren.  Then, keep their place mat from year to year.  You could see the artistic development over the years.

You could make one and send it off to a grandchild that lives far away.  But you’d better hurry.  Valentine’s Day will be here soon!

Over the week-end, I met Grandma Julie.  Such a delightful person.

I asked her if she would tell me something that she does with her grandchildren that I could share on my site.  She immediately said, “Make sleeping bags.”

Oh my!  Sew adventurous.  (Get the pun?)

If you’re a sewer, I think you’ll be able to follow the directions she gave me.  She puts some quilt batting between two pieces of fabric and sews a couple of rows of stitching to keep the batting in place.  Then, she sews in a zipper.  She makes it sound so easy.  But for all of you seamstresses out there, I’m sure you could figure out how to make a sleeping bag.

She also makes a matching pillowcase.

She has all of her grandchildren over.  They put the sleeping bags on the family room floor, pop popcorn, and watch a movie. Then they sleep on the family room floor.  (She admitted that she slept on the couch.  Good for her!  I certainly would.  My old bones would complain if I slept on the floor.)

Did I tell you she had 10 grandchildren?  So she has made 10 sleeping bags.  Wow!  What a nice grandma.

If you’re not much of a seamstress, you could probably just sew a velor blanket together (probably without a zipper would be okay) and then be done with it.  You could probably get several bags out of one king sized blanket.

Or, you could take the easy way out.  Just watch the sales and buy some sleeping bags.

These are the toys that our grandson, Spencer always heads for when he comes for a visit.  Antique toys.  Ones that my husband played with as a child.  So what does that say about my husband?

I share these pictures because I recently became aware of Back to Basic Toys that has classic toys that you and I played with as children.  I took a look at some of the toys they have and was delighted to find some of my favorites.

Remember Tinker Toys? Ahhhhh . . . I had so much fun with them as a child.  I thought they were the best ever!   A set is only $36.00.  (This seems rather steep to me.  How about you?)

They also have Lincoln Logs (which are on sale for only $21.49 which is much cheaper than the $43 they are originally priced), the Fisher Price Corn Popper (my kids had this, not me) and the Fisher Price Chatter Telephone (again, I didn’t have this but my children did).  I wonder whether or not our grandchildren will even recognize this chatter phone . . .  You can read here about our grandson’s experience with a land line phone . . .

I think that I’m going to have to get some of these old-fashioned toys.  I think that our grandchildren will love them like I did.  (Hear that Spencer, Natalie, and Simon?  You WILL love them . . .)

Check out Back To Basic Toys. They just might have some of your favorite toys that you would like to get and share with your own grandchildren.