Have you seen the "mice" cookies made out of stemmed maraschino cherries dipped in chocolate with Hershey Kiss heads resting on half of an oreo cookie? They are soooo cute and everybody who sees them, raves about them. You take the top off of an Oreo cooke and save the white frosted part to use as the base. Dip a stemmed cherry in melted chocolate and lay on the white frosting with the stem facing backward like the tail of the mouse. Place a dab of chocolate on the base of the Hershey Kiss. Use 2 sliced almonds pressed into the chocolate as ears and press against the cherry. The base of the kiss goes against the cherry with the almonds in between as the ears. Use green frosting gel and place 2 dots on the Kiss as eyes. Place a red hot or cinnamon candy on the center of the white frosting by one side of the mouse and pipe green gel leaves on either side of the red hot. It is just a green squiggle on either side, but it gives the effect of holly. You could also use a dot of red piping gel on the tip of the Kiss as a nose, but it isn't really necessary. When done, the mouse faces sideways with the holly in front! They take some time, but aren't that expensive as the cherries usually come in a jar with a large number of cherries, and probably 3 bags of Oreos would give 100 bases. I always get people raving over them when I make them for my Christmas Open House. TTFN, Candy

I used to baby-sit an 8 year old and he loved making things out of bread dough. I suppose air dry modeling clay works just as well, but I think children like the idea that they can take everyday household things and turn them into something else. Bread dough is simply one slice of white bread (is it good for anything else anymore?), with the crust removed (You can use the crust to feed the birds, or for stuffing recipes). Pinch it into tiny pieces and in a plastic bowl, add one tablespoon of tacky glue, plus a bit of acrylic, or craft paint to color it. Mix well with a plastic spoon, or use your hands. Kids seem to like using their hands. The 8 year old loved making green dinosaurs and I let him paint in the eyes, or use moving eyes you can buy from a craft store. With the tacky glue, you can also glue just about anything to the bread dough before it dries. If your granddaughter has a doll house, she could make bread dough items for her doll house, like plates, platters, bowls, faux lamps, etc. She could also make Christmas ornaments out of the bread dough, like gingerbread men, flat round balls, and decorate with paint. She could even use cookie cutters to cut out the different designs. If she has a miniature Christmas tree, she could make miniature decorations for her tree out of bread dough, too. Another Christmas ornament idea: Toothpicks, sweet gum balls, paint, and a bit of ribbon. Have your GD glue the toothpicks to the sweet gum ball to represent a star. She can paint them with acrylic gold, or silver craft paint, or you could spray paint them gold, or silver, for her. Be sure to seal them with the appropriate sealer (oil, or water based sealer, depending on what paint you use). Glue on a ribbon to hang from the tree. I did an entire tree with these once, along with lace bows. It looked great! Another idea: Copy pictures from coloring books and let her make paintings out of them by gluing dry foodstuffs, or glitter onto the picture to add color and texture. Besides glitter, you could use colored pasta, rices, couscous, dried corn, dried wheat, dried things you collect from the woods, etc. Not only does she get to create a 3-dimensional painting, but also gets to spend time with you collecting materials from the woods and kitchen. You really need to find something that sparks her imagination, making her look at the world in a whole new light. Something that she can use, or display, that she can be proud of. What interests her? What does she play with the most? How can you expand her interests? Here is a link that might be useful: Bluebonnet Craft Network

I miss Aleene's but also Carol Duvall and all of the craft shows on "The Home and Garden Network" that appeared in the early 2000"s. Before the DVR I taped them and watched them over and over again. I was visiting my cousin the other day and she had her fall decorations out and I admired some pilgrims and she said, "you made those and gave them to me". It took me back to those days. I still love crafts and make an effort to balance work with crafting and art. I know my daughter's generation would watch and enjoy a Craft Network for their creative time with my grandchildren.

The past three years my nephews were all given money for Christmas. The first year, I glued a stack of 50 brand new crisp $1 bills together to create a book out of them, just like what was mention above. The second year, I did the 2-liter bottle thing. I pit a slit in the plastic, crumpled up the money loosley then applied a new, personalized label when the original label would be to cover up the slit I made. To make it more difficult for them to open the bottle, I glued the cap on. Because the money was loosely crumpled, it took them a bit of thinking before they found out how I got the money in there in the first place. Now that I think of it, I should have done some sort of origami folding of the money so they would have really been scratching their heads. I finished off the bottle with curling ribbon around the neck Last year, my mom rolled the money up in toilet paper (still on the roll of course) then wrapped it in various boxes from around the house (Mac n' cheese, pop tarts, etc.) This year, I plan to do something different; different than I've done in the past and different for each nephew (5 of them). In the past, since they all got the cash in the same way, once one of them opened the gift containing the money, the rest of them were not as surprised. I have to say that the money pad was by far the biggest hit. My son didn't want to spend which I was happy he was saving it but on the other hand he didn't want to put it in the bank either. Oh well, at least he didn't spend it foolishly, right. Lastly, if you are going to gift money, plan ahead so you can get brand new crisp bills. If the bank does not have any/enough, I'm sure if you ask them to "order" you some they will do it. New, crisp bills makes for a better gift! For this year I am for sure going to do the cold hard cash and the umbrella ideas....now I just need to find 3 more and I'll be set!