For those who are passionate about knitting and crocheting, you already know how important it is to properly store all of your yarns and supplies. When thinking about storage options, you need to think about the room you will be storing them in, the amount of space you have to work with and what kind of storage item you are looking for.

Here are some creative ways you can store all of your knitting and crocheting supplies.

1. Canvas Laundry Bags – Look for washable bags with a drawstring closure to place all of your yarn in. If you have a lot of yarn…buy several in a variety of colors to color-code your yarn storage.

2. Plastic Linen Storage Bags – Every time you purchase new comforters or bed linens, save those clear plastic bags with zipper closures and use those to store your supplies in. What is really nice about these bags is that you can see what is inside them and they slip easily underneath your bed or in a closet if you are limited on storage space.

3. Plastic Storage Totes – A variety of plastic manufacturers make plastic storage totes (Rubbermaid is one of them) which are good for storing your knitting & crocheting supplies in if you have a lot of storage space to work with. Although this should not be your first storage choice option…it is an option to consider.

4. Over-the-Door Shoe Storage Bag – Have you all seen those shoe storage bags that fit over a closet door or on the back of a door? If you have a lot of little yarn balls or work with small amounts of baby yarn…these shoe organizers could be a storage option for you. With that said, most will not hold large, full-size yarn skeins, so keep that in mind when considering one for your storage options.

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Kids love making craft projects out of foamies. You can find them for almost any holiday or occasion. Watch for them on sale after holidays, one container can last you for several years! Joann’s and Walmart usually have good selections of them.

We had fun making crafts with our Easter foamies last year, and there were still enough left over to play with this year. I got out some Easter pictures from last year I hadn’t scrapbooked yet, and came up with a couple of cute layouts using the Easter foamies.

For these scrapbook layouts, you will need a container of foamies that includes alphabet letters. The Easter set I found had a bunch of pastel letters to spell out the word “Easter”, so that worked out perfectly.

Supplies:

Easter foamies
Eight family Easter photos
12×12 sheet of pastel, solid-colored scrapbook paper
2 12×12 sheets of coordinating spring or Easter patterned scrapbook paper
Scrap of white scrapbook paper
Paper cutter
Glue stick
Coordinating pastel brads (optional)

I created two different layouts for these sets of pictures. The background papers are the same color but a little bit different pattern, and then I used one sheet of solid-colored paper for matting for both layouts.

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Kids love to make a mess and assemble their own crafty creations. However, guess what Grandma…YOU can be included in their little world too! Be frugal and creative at the same time with a few recycling craft ideas.

It’s a shame throwing little things away such as; old towels, clothes, glass jars, stale bread, blue jeans and old tin cans. How’s that for a combination?!

So, save up the above items for some fun crafts you can do with the grands. You will have tons of fun with them and you will also be teaching them a little something on how to be frugal. Don’t throw these items away, save them for a fun-filled day!

1. Old glass jars would make excellent gifts filled with the recipient’s favorite things. It could be homemade candy, peanuts, sea shells, cookie dough mix, rainbow -colored sand, and potpourri. Use your imagination with this idea and fill jars with any number of old favorite things. For the finished touch, tie a festive ribbon and bow around the rim of the lid.

2. Old towels, tablecloths and children’s old clothes is another excellent crafty idea. Have your grandchildren gather up the cloth items. With each grandchild’s guidance on clothing item choices, you can make a quilt, pillow case or scarf out of them. These items would also be cherished memories for your grandkids.

3. Food tin can wind chimes is another fun craft activity both Grandma and grandchild can enjoy together. However Grandpa would have to make the wholes for the string cord. Another job for Grandpa would be sanding down any rough edges of the cans to avoid injuries. Once the cans are sanded, have the grandchildren paint them any color they choose. Have them make them as multi colorful as they wish.

4. Make pot holders out of your grand’s blue jeans. With this, you could also attach small buttons to the finished work. Colored jeans make the most fun and festive pot holders. This would be one of the easiest craft ideas for Grandma to make.

5. Now stale bread may not be crafty, however, it can teach your grands some culinary and fugal skills at the same time. With stale bread, you could get your grandchildren cooking with you. You can make french toast, topping for tuna and other casseroles, stuffing, bread pudding, and other goodies.

With the spring season coming up, pick some rainy days and have some craft, frugal fun with those grandchildren. They will remember those days for a long time to come.

You can find more craft and grandparenting articles and tips from Tammy at Grandparenting Articles and Tips

Tammy also offers freelance writing services at freelancewritersdesk.com.

These cinnamon stick ornaments are really easy to make and they smell fantastic hanging on your holiday tree. You can purchase cinnamon sticks at your local grocery store or craft supply store.

If children are helping you to make these ornaments, I recommend using all-purpose craft glue and not hot glue. You can make several of these ornaments up in only one afternoon.

Supplies Needed

1 Bag of Cinnamon Sticks (measuring 3″ in length)
Hot Glue or All-Purpose Craft Glue
1 Spool of Gold Metallic Ribbon
Faux Mini Pinecone and Berry Floral Picks
Scissors

Tips: I find that hot glue and a glue gun work best for this project but you can certainly use all-purpose quick-drying craft glue. If your cinnamon sticks are longer than 3″ in length, you can easily cut them down to size using scissors or wire cutters.

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If you’re a fan of free cross stitch patterns but you’re not all exactly an online guru or a technical computer genius, then there’s no need to worry. The internet is a wonderful place and literally you can find anything you want on there if you know where to look and how to look for it. You must also be careful though, because a lot of websites out there were designed to harm your computer or steal information from you, but they’re not hard to spot.

When you’re looking for free cross stitch patterns, one of the first places you probably thought of was Google. This is what’s called a search engine and there are plenty of these to go around, but the number one search engine is without a doubt is Google. A nice searching tip is to ask the search engines questions such as “Where can I find free cross stitching patterns?” or “Where is the best place to find free cross stitching patterns?” Of course those are just examples, but try to broaden your searches and you’ll find much more results in what you’re looking for.

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Spring is here! However, depending on where you live it may not look very much like spring outdoors. In our Canadian prairies spring comes late. Winnipeg still has lots of snow and here in Calgary it is still too cold to plant gardens outdoors. We are fortunate there are many ways to enjoy gardening indoors.

In this experiment we will learn what plants need to grow and be healthy.

You will need a collection of new plants and seeds, several small containers appropriate to be used as plant pots, and some soil, some sand, and some clay. You will also need some water and just a little bit of plant food.

Have fun planting some seed in soil, some in sand, and some in clay in the containers. Do the same with the plants. Give some seeds and some plants water while giving other seed and plants none or just a little. Put some containers in plenty of sunshine but others in little or none. Give some plant food and others not. If you are brave, damage one plant by mishandling it. I can never do this because plants are so special to me. Make a note of which seeds and plants you have watered and those you have not. Do the same with the containers you have put in the sun and those you have not and mark the plant you have been a little rough with.

Each day observe the containers and watch the seeds sprout and the plants grow. Compare the growth of the plants in different mediums and areas. What happened to the plant you damaged?

Did you discover:

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Children love turtles. This turtle paper plate craft is a fun, easy preschool craft project. To make this craft, you will need:

Two paper plates
Brown construction paper
Green craft paint
Google eyes
Scissors
Glue
Dried beans (optional)
Felt tip pen

Your child will need two paper plates to make one turtle. Have your child use the green paint to paint the bottom side of both paper plates. Allow to dry.

Next cut out the arms, legs, etc. Using the scissors and brown construction paper, cut out four small rectangles for legs, a small triangle for the tail, and a circle for the head. You can outline them first with a pen if you wish, but it isn’t necessary. I just cut mine out freehand.

Glue the edges of the arms, legs, tail, and head to the top edge of one of the paper plates.

If you wish you can put some dried beans onto the plate so that when you glue the plates together the turtle will rattle when your child shakes it. This step is optional.

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By the time your teen is in high school, you probably aren’t taking as many pictures of them as you used to. I have to keep reminding myself that I only have a couple of years left and no time to waste trying to capture fleeing teenage memories.

You might be thinking that I’m really organized to be already working on scrapbooking my daughter’s high school memories. To be honest, I have a shoe box full of pictures of my daughter waiting for me to get to someday.

But if I wait until “someday” to continue taking pictures because I already have so many pictures I haven’t done anything with, then my daughter’s teenage years will come and go while I try to catch up.

I don’t want to chronicle every detail of my daughter’s life (nor would she want me to!), but I was trying to think of some memories that she might want to laugh about and maybe even treasure someday. So how do you do that without ending up with pages and pages of memories?

I decided to do two large (12×12) pages (facing each other in the album) for each year of high school. I will challenge myself to use this space creatively to tell the story of each year. When I started thinking of all the the possibilities, it really inspired me to start getting organized and collecting some great memories. And don’t limit yourself to just photographs, your scrapbook pages can really be accentuated by other types of memories. Here are some ideas to get you started:

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Are you looking to get into Scrapbooking? If you have never scrapbooked your family’s precious photographs, now is the time to get started. Preserving your photographs now will ensure that generations to come will be able to enjoy them. When it comes to purchasing supplies, I will admit…it is an investment! You can buy inexpensive or expensive supplies, that is entirely up to you.

If you are just getting involved in this craft and hobby, here are the products I recommend to all beginners.

Scrapbook: I like the 12×12 size but you can purchase 8×8 or 6×6 sizes too.
Plastic Page Protectors – To fit inside your scrapbook.
Scissors – you will want an ergonomic pair that is made specifically for paper
Decorative Edge Scissors – You can pick up these type of scissors for about a $1.00 a pair
Self Healing Cutting Mat with Exacto Knife for cropping photo’s and cutting your paper
Clear Metal Edge Ruler
Adhesives – 2 sided tape, glue dots and glue sticks
Paper – Solid and printed paper and card stock (tip: watch craft store sales ads and pick them up for 4 sheets for $1.00 when on sale).
Brads and Eyelets (You will need an eyelet setter), Buttons and Charms (to decorate your pages).

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Toddlers and young children love to play games and make things. Not only is this good for their mind but it’s fun for you as a parent. There are so many things you can do things you have in your home right now. You won’t have to go to the store and make a purchase. Here are a few suggestions.

1. Boys

Boys love to race cars, so building things for them is pretty easy to do. For example, if they have you can take a cereal box that’s empty and create a tunnel. To do this, you’ll need to take the plastic out of the box and open both ends up. Another thing you can do is seal both ends and cut a hole in the center that goes all the way through. You can also create ramps with cereal boxes. Use DVD cases as the ramps and race the cars going up and down the ramp on the box.

Match box cars are the perfect size to go through a paper towel or toilet paper roll. These make great tunnels. If your son has larger cars they can be used for obstacles to go over like monster trucks.

2. Girls

Girls like to play dress up, play princess games, and have tea parties. These are all things you can do with things in your home. Dress up is one of the easiest things to do because you already have clothes she can use. Allowing her to put on your clothes and shoes is good, but it’s a good idea for you to set out the clothes she can use. It would be terrible if she got makeup on your dry clean only silk formal gown.

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