Mutual Idea: Secret Grandma's Party

Here is more information on the Secret Grandma's Party that was briefly mentioned at the Stake Auxiliary meeting. This was organized by Sis. Shaw in the Manchester ward.

Secret Grandma Party
Purpose: Increase unity in our ward, reach out to the older women in the ward and improve homemaking skills.

Overview: The young women picked out a "secret grandma", made her 3 different gifts, and had a party for them. We just played 2 get to know you games, but it was a blast. From the sounds of it, you would have thought it was a group of 16 teenagers! I was so happy with the girls for choosing this activity and really loving these women. It was my favorite activity EVER! It was such a great way to build relationships within the ward and share our love with the women in the ward.

Details:
We made 3 crafts for the Secret Grandmas.
1) Wire Pendant Necklace: We didn't do BFF, but the girls did things like hearts, birds and the word "LOVE". I just looked on Pinterest and found a ton of ideas for the girls to look at. I put the pictures into a word document, printed out a few copies, and let the girls go to work. I also used a thicker gauge of wire (found a t Joann’s). I bought 2 single rolls of wire for about $3 each. I think that took care of 10 pendants, including mess ups. Try to bring wire snips/needle nose pliers for each girl. For the necklace, we used hemp, but I later found that you can buy chain with 4 different clasps at WalMart for $3. Basically, it's a long strand of chain that you use wire snips to cut the chain to length and then attach the clasps. I would just divide it into 4 equal parts.
2) Sugar Scrub: We made these the same night as the pendants. We just used the large size baby food jars. I wish we would have had time to spray paint the jars a bright color, but it still looked cute. I also printed off some labels for the top of the lids.
3) No-Slip Handtowel: I directed you to this blog because I wanted you to see how we did the towels. We only did the strips of fabric at the top, where it ties, like in the blog. This was all we did for this activity, as it easily filled up the entire time.

At one of our planning meetings, I had the YW pick the Grandma they wanted to have. Then, we planned the next 3 class activities and the YW combined activity. Each Sunday after making a gift, I delivered them to the Grandmas at church to keep it anonymous. We saved the pendant necklaces to give to them at the end of the party. The Grandmas all LOVED the necklaces and wore them at church the following Sunday!

Here's how we arranged our activities:
1st: Hand Deliver invitations. (We all went to the door and gave then the invite, rather than ding-dong-ditch. We didn't want to scare them!) I made sure to put directions to my house on it in case they weren't familiar with it. Also, I glued the white paper on top of a black paper to make it stand out. I also put magnets on the back for the refrigerator.
2nd: Make Pendant and Sugar Scrub
3rd: Sew Hand Towels
Then, for our next YW combined activity, we had the Secret Grandma Reveal Party that you saw on FB. SO MUCH FUN!
Our party was super simple. I had it at my house to keep it closer to their homes, since they would be driving in the dark. We played 2 simple "Getting to Know You" games. We just had 3 little buckets of getting to know you questions that they pulled out as they needed. I was amazed at how quickly the conversations and the laughter built. This game lasted about 30 minutes. Then, we had the Grandmas all write down something they thought no one would know about them. I read the cards to everyone, one at a time, and the girls guessed who it belonged to. The grandmas were encouraged to throw the YW off, which made it really fun. Just those 2 games and refreshments (cookies and water) took almost 1 1/2 hours. Even then, everyone was shocked to realize it was time to go. It was so amazing to watch.