Happy Valentine’s Day everybody! I hope you make it a great day.  (One with lots of chocolate or other sugar-laden goodies.)

Is it too late to share an idea that at first blush looks like it’s only a Valentine’s Day idea?  You’re okay with this late idea?  Good.  So am I. (If you stick around until the end, I’ll expand on this idea and take it to further horizons.)

If you are like me, you’ve got a grundle of old crayons sitting around the house. And, if you’re like me, you just can’t bring yourself to throw them out.  Well don’t!!  I have found a fun idea for using those old fellas.

This idea comes from Holly’s website Helping Little Hands. Holly is creative, Creative, CREATIVE!  That gal has talent — and lots of it.

See that picture above? (She graciously let me use it on my site.) That is her sample of melted crayon art. She simply held a crayon over a candle until the crayon softened and was ready to drip. Then she dabbed the crayon on a tile — leaving white space for the letter that she wanted to make. Trace a letter, melt, dab. That’s it — and you’re a van Gogh.

Check out her great Melted Crayon Word Art tutorial.  She has easy-to-follow step-by-step directions and fantastic pictures. Even a simpleton like me can do this activity! (At least, that is what I tell myself . . .)

She also has a terrific idea for a shirt for boys using a distressed freezer paper stenciling process.This would definitely be a hit for one of my grandsons who really loves cars.. She provides patterns and directions for the project. Be sure that you check it out.

You’ve also gotta see her Snowball Fight in a Bag tutorial. Young grandchildren would enjoy playing with these snowballs and older grandchildren would have fun making them. (They could make a set for themselves and maybe a set for a friend.)

Are you still reading?  Good!  I’m going to take Holly’s melted crayon art and make it a non-Valentine idea. (This activity will be especially appealing to older grandchildren who are capable of making more intricate designs.)

Of course  you can make shapes like hearts, stars, circles or diamonds with your melted crayon art. You could also do stars in a night sky, a landscape, or a self-portrait. Grandchildren could make a picture of their pet, a favorite toy, their favorite ride at Disneyland, or of Santa Claus. They are limited only by their imagination.

Your grandchildren could spell out their first name with the melted crayon art. Or their last name. Or, they could do a sign for a holiday (that says Valentine’s Day, Saint Patrick’s Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas). They could make a shamrock for St. Patrick’s Day, flag for Memorial Day or the Fourth of July, or a pumpkin for Halloween.

If you are one of those grandmas who have grandma camp for her grandkids, this could be one of your activities. You could do this at a family reunion. Or on a lazy summer afternoon. Whatever the occasion, simply bring out your crayons and let your grandchildren be creative.

Have fun!

My favorite word of the day: stumble.

Stumble is a verb that means to be on the Internet and click-click-click from website-to-website until you discover something totally amazing and  magical. (Ha! You were probably thinking it meant to stagger, trip, fall, or have difficulty walking. That’s because you were sidetracked by Webster’s definition. That definition is so pre-Internet!)

So, I have stumbled across a website with two fabulous Valentine’s Day ideas.  First, is making a scratch Valentine’s card. Watch this video to see how it’s done.  (She also shows another great idea in the video.)

You can read my post about making scratch off cards and Valentine’s activities for your grandchildren.

She also shows how to do screen printing with freezer paper.  I love, love, love the example using spray paint. Using spray paint is fun and so much easier that trying to control my klutzy fingers with a paint brush. (Makes me wish that I could spend all day spray painting designs on stuff rather than being at work.  Sigh . . .)

You can do this projects FOR your grandchildren. But I think it would be much funner more fun a great activity to do with grandchildren.

Don’t forget to enter my book giveaway!

Our youngest son was living in Belgium when he turned 21. That is a significant birthday, you know. It called for special birthday measures. So, I put on my creativity hat and came up with an exceptionally and extraordinarily normal idea. I took a picture of my husband and I holding a sign that said “happy birthday.” Then, I e-mailed it to him.

Fast forward several years. I am now the grandmother of four wonderful grandchildren. My memory of what I did for our son sparked an idea of something that I could do for our grandchildren — send them a digital Valentine’s Day greeting.

I had my dear husband take pictures of me and my little Valentine’s Day greeting.

Here are the pictures. (Don’t mind that the background lighting is different in the pictures. And don’t mind that my bangs are in a funky V-shape.  I should have fixed all that in Photoshop . . .)

So here are various ways that you could send a digital Valentine’s Day greeting to your grandchildren:

• Take pictures like I did and e-mail them to your grandchildren.
• Take every other picture of grandpa holding a Valentine’s Day sign (so there would be two pictures of you and two of grandpa) and e-mail the pics to the grandkiddos.
• Take one picture with both you and grandpa in the picture and e-mail it.
• Take just one picture with your Valentine’s Day greeting to your grandchild and e-mail.
• If you have a blog, post the picture/pictures on your blog and tell your grandchildren to read your blog.
• Print the pictures on paper and snail mail the pics to the grands.
• Insert the picture/pictures in a letter, print the letter, and snail mail it off.

Wanna see a blooper?  After my husband took the first picture, I reviewed it and deemed that he needed to take it again. So he did.  Here’s the second picture.  Notice anything different?

Oops!

This got me thinking. For older grandchildren, why not hold your message upside down? That would make it playful and fun. You might want to have your husband take your picture in the mirror. Then, your grandchild would have to hold the picture up to the mirror to read your message.

I thought that I would help you out a bit and make it easy for you to do this activity.  Here’s a PDF file with three Valentine greetings already created for you.  They all say the same thing but use three different types of fonts. All you have to do is print it up and use it for your little photo shoot.

Here’s a PDF file with Valentine clip art that you can print up and use for your own personal message. Here’s a PDF file with graphics that say Be Mine and a page with a Valentine border.

I hope you have fun creating your digital Valentine’s Day greeting for your grandchildren!

Valentine’s Day always sneaks up on me and catches me unaware. But I have a good reason.

When my children were growing up, my state-of-Valentine’s-Day-unawareness started with Halloween, ramped up at Thanksgiving, and kicked into a frenzy because of Christmas. Just a mere two weeks after Christmas, I had to put on a birthday extravaganza for our youngest son and then in a couple of weeks do a birthday bash for our daughter. And Valentine’s Day was 5 short days after her birthday.

So what’s your excuse now, bucko? Your kids are grown and married and you don’t throw them birthday parties anymore?

Hush yo’ mouth!

I decided this year that I would be ready for Valentine’s Day much sooner than 5 days before.  So, here it is — 20 whopping days before!  Aren’t you impressed? I thought you would be.

Two things.  As I was going through old V-Day posts, I realized that I didn’t post the Valentine’s Day bingo sheets under my free resources.  I made them three years ago — and had good intentions of putting them on my resource page.  Somehow, they didn’t arrive there.  Shame, shame, shame on me.  I’ve repented and have put it there now.  Or, you can get the Valentine’s Day Bingo here.

Second, since I have lots of new readers, I want to make sure they see this idea that Gramma Kathy had for Valentine’s Day mailboxes for her grandchildren. If you want to do something similar, you need to be looking for the items NOW! And that is the reason that I tried so hard this year to think about Valentine’s Day before February 10th.

Do any of you have fun Valentine’s Day activities you have done with your grandchildren? Please feel free to comment and share your ideas.