It’s been rainy, rainy, rainy where I live.  And I don’t live in Seattle nor Portland!  I live in a semi-desert state.  (The mountains are still getting snow.)  I have moss instead of hair.  Our driveway runneth o’er with water.

“All this humidity is making my hair frizzy,” I complained to my husband.

“All this humidity is called rain,” he retorted.

Still.  My dry hair doesn’t know how to behave itself when keeping company with high humidity.

All this lovely non-warm, high humidity weather got me thinking about indoor activities that you can do with your grandchildren.  Indoor activities that are cheap and easy.  When I saw these pipe cleaner critters, I was delighted.

Family Fun has directions on making pipe cleaner monkeys, dinosaurs, penguins, and monsters.  (The monsters are my favorite!  The penguins come in a close second.)  They even have directions for Peppy People.

Have you ever made fun pipe cleaner thingie-ma-bobs with your grandchildren?

Grandmas, are you prepared for having fun activities with your grandchildren during their summer break from school?  (It WILL get warm.  It will, it will, it will!  Maybe.  I woke up to fresh snow on the mountains this morning . . .)

I found a wonderful site that had some wonderful printable materials that you could use to have wonderful activities with your grandchildren.  (That sentence was brought to you by the word wonderful.)

FirstPalette has a wide variety of things to print up and make with your grandchildren.  Here are a few of my favorites:

Circus.  There’s a circus tent, animals, clowns, and masks.  I love the elephant coloring page and the monkey mask.

Masks and glasses. Chinese opera mask, monkey, bunny, Mardi Gras, and super hero masks.

Shapes and stencils. Butterflies, fish, bats, flowers, strawberries, hearts, and moons.

There are also Easter, Halloween, and Christmas ideas.  And ideas for greeting cards and learning the alphabet.

But that’s not all.  Oh no!  Here’s a great start of ideas of activities for grandchildren ages 9 and above:

• toothbrush painting (I’ll donate mine if anybody wants it . . . )
• sponge painting
• cute, cute, cute animal bean bags (I’ve just GOT to make me a litter or two of these!)
• stained glass bookmarks
• corn printed aprons (use this technique on paper, too)
• easy button rings (this is such a clever idea!)
• Egyptian hieroglyphics (see my husband’s handwriting for sample hieroglyphics — love you sweetie!)
• Jack-in-the-box
• Moai statues from the Easter Islands (I think grandsons would really like this!)
• paper-mache bunny
• stained glass jar

What fun summer things have you done with your grandchildren?

In my jaunts around the Internet, I have seen sites explaining how to make notepads.  I was intrigued.  Then, I was discouraged.  Those sites made it seem like such a laborious process involving pieces of wood and heavy metal clamps.  Couldn’t there be an easier way?

I came up with a lazy man’s method that is simple and doesn’t require those pesky blocks of wood and metal clamps.  I used small binder clips instead.  MUCH easier.  (Something my weakling grandma arms could handle.)

I created some designs where I could get 3 notepad pages per sheet of 8 x 11 piece of paper. I printed the designs on various colors of paper.  The Gingerbread Nook and Original Country Clipart by Lisa have such cute notepad templates that I won’t even post mine because I am so embarrassed by how amateurish they are.  Sigh.  (I wish I had found their templates before I struggled making mine . . .)

Then, I cut the paper and put them in stacks of 30 pieces.  I don’t know why 30.  It just seemed like a nice number. For the back of the notepad, I cut up some manila folders.  I used one piece to add stiffness for the one inch magnet strip that I put on the backside.  If you have lightweight cardboard, you could use that.

I clamped on two small binder clips — one on each side.  I used a very cheap paintbrush to brush padding compound on the top end of the notepad.  I didn’t put any clips on the top edge but if you have lots of pages you  might want to do that.

Note:  I bought some padding compound from an online company.  The compound cost $2.98.  Shipping cost $5.98!  The jar of compound was really small and I thought the total cost for it was rather expensive.  I did a trial run using Elmer’s glue.  That notepad seemed to stay together just fine.  So, if you don’t want to spend $9 on a small jar of padding compound, you could probably use Elmer’s glue and be just fine.

After letting the compound dry for a while, I put on a second coat.

Then, on some of the notepads, I decorated the top part of the notepad with stickers and scrapbooking paper.  (The lime green flowered pad on the far right in the picture below has some scrapbooking paper on it.)  I put a one inch magnetic strip on the back so I could put the notepad on my fridge.

This was a simple project to do.  You  might want to do something like this with your grandchildren after you finish eating your Thanksgiving meal while those testosterone-filled family members watch football games on TV and make their blood pressure go sky high.

Having a family Christmas party and need activities for the grandchildren? Will you be spending Christmas Eve with them and need something to help make the time go by faster for them? Here are three activities that you can easily do with them.

	Got old burned out Christmas light bulbs?  Light Bulbs — How to Recycle with Style shows how to make this cute reindeer, and also a Santa and snowman ornament. Make these ornaments with your grandchildren and let them hang the ornament on your tree — or take them home to hang on theirs. (There are also directions for an Easter duck and a Halloween pumpkin and witch.)  Cute and clever!
	Here’s another fun idea for making Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Something that even a fairly young grandchild can do.
	Make this adorable thumbprint reindeer card. Find the directions on Family Fun

Merry Christmas,
Digi-Gram

Grandma Ideas