Trials & Tribulations

Well, here it is the first of June and it's still not warm here in Michigan. It's only in the 60's here today! I'm getting more and more ready to move to Alabama! I'm staying pretty close to home this week due to oral surgery this past Monday (2 days ago). I awoke this morning with my face so swollen that I have a black eye and can see my cheek when I look straight ahead...not good. After applying ice for about an hour and taking some ibuprofen I can see a little better. Fortunately, there's not a lot of pain (unless I try to eat) so that's a good thing. Geesh, some people will do anything to lose a couple of pounds!!!

I decided I might as well take this down time to post some pictures of my crafts and stuff.

Here are a couple of Sassy Bags that I made this month. The first one is for me and the other one is the one that I made for Mom for her birthday last month. I think I like Mom's better but there's nothing wrong with mine either!

These are pictures of the Miranda Bag that I made for myself last month. I love it but sometimes it's just a little too big to carry for a purse. It works wonderfully though for a day bag when I'm going to be away from the house for the entire day. You just never know what you are going to need for the day so you can carry it all!

I got invited to a 50th BD party for a friend the end of last month so this is what I gave him as a gift. I put all this stuff together to tease him about his "old age" and then wrote a letter to him using the names of all this stuff. It was a real hit and I got commissioned to make a couple more for some twins that will be turning 50 in October. Sounds like a challenge, but I think I'm up for it. I won't make any money on them but it gets my name out there.

Following are some of the previous candy arrangements that I have made for gifts for various occasions. The pictures are not so good because I am not a photographer and I didn't have a really good camera, but they give some kind of an idea.

My son's BD arrangement from a few years ago. (Blurry but visible - somewhat).

Friend's daughter's graduation. The base is a box made from candy bars and the roses are tissue paper folded around money. The candies have computer made labels with some of them including a picture of the graduate.

My nephew's graduation the same year. The base is a can of nuts that I made a new label for on the computer. For this one I never received a "thank you" either verbal or otherwise. KIDS!!!

This one was for a neighbor boy's graduation the same year. Again, a can of nuts for the base.

These are so much fun to make and they all come out a little bit different. They are, however, quite time intensive and not really inexpensive to put together!

This is a picture of a wooden bowl that I painted for decoration several years ago for fall adornment.

This is an old bar stool that I had laying around the house not being used so I painted a picture of "Big Red" (a lighthouse/pier in a nearby town) on it to put in my home in Alabama. (I really don't like the way that the grass is painted, but by the time I got to that I was tired of painting this picture. It was pretty detail oriented)

Here's the other one in the set. This one is actually painted nicer (I think) but doesn't have the nostalgia attached to it that the other one does. Both of these are now sitting in my kitchen in Alabama.

Following are some pictures of the mural that I painted on my grandson's wall before he was born (2 years ago). Again, the pictures are a little blurry, but you can still see the basic image. (This was my first/only mural and I loved every minute of it)! I would love to do another one.

This is one of my favorite shots.

I just love this scene. The bee is another

one of my favorite things but I couldn't get a close-up of it with my camera. It always was blurry or washed out.

Well, that's about all for now. It's time to put ice on my face again and take some ibuprofen. My eyes are starting to swell shut again.