This week's projects

I don't know what I'm going to do if and when my creative juices stop.  I'm always thinking about making something or actually doing it and, I might add, loving every minute of it.  Yes, sometimes I turn out flops and sometimes I ruin the materials I purchased for said flops, but I still enjoy the adventure.  As I have mentioned before, it's not the money that I might make from any sales, but the sheer joy of keeping myself busy (and happy) in my retirement that keeps urging me on.

Here are a few of the little projects that I have been working on since my last post......

Cushion covers which I painted with sprigs of holly, just perfect for Christmas and the winter season......

I'm hoping to sell these in my Boutique.

Here are some wooden items that I have refinished.  Hopefully they also will sell in the Boutique......

Before

After



And a sample of the many scarves I have made, priced very reasonably and looking for a pretty neck to adorn and keep warm this winter.....



I took some more photos of my Boutique this afternoon - I think it's looking pretty good, considering I am no professional and this is the first time I have put together a room in which to show off my crafts.....

Well, back to the drawing board, as they say.  I have so many new ideas going around in my head and I am eager to begin a new one, even though I haven't quite finished the ones I was working on this evening, but to do that, I need to purchase something from Home Depot.  Must not forget a pic of the grandkids.......

Have a wonderful week and I will hook up with you later.   Oh yes, we have snow!!!  Yuck - probably stick around for the next five months.  Hugs,



Church Street Boutique

Well, the last few days sure have been very busy for me.  We, that is myself and my two partners in crime, decided to split up the room we have rented and named "Church Street Boutique", into three equal spaces so that it would be fair for all of us.

To do this, I had to go out and purchase three unassembled shelf units and with the help of my eldest son, lugged them over to the boutique and there I spent hours assembling and arranging them, creating a nice warm area where, we hope, our clients and friends can come and shop, especially now that it is getting closer to Christmas.  Here are a few photos I took today.  I think I will probably leave it like this for a while, unless I find that I need another unit.  Trouble is, I have so much stuff and can't stop creating and/or shopping, LOL

So, this is my side of the room ........... looking good, I think ......

Today, before I went to the Boutique, I had an appointment with an eye specialist to check to see if the medication I was on for Lupus has damaged my sight.  I am very pleased to report that apart from some evidence of beginning cataracts, my sight has not been damaged permanently and as of last week, I have ceased taking it.  My blood work is holding it's own but the arthritis is no better, it's getting worse as I get older, and I really felt my age when I was kneeling on the hard floor following the confusing diagram - sometimes you just have to rely on common sense, LOL

Here are a few paintings I have acquired the last week or so, spruced them up a little and am now selling them in the Boutique for a few dollars (hopefully).



I picked up this gorgeous window style mirror at a local thrift store recently.  My son Dave has a few larger ones in his home and I have often admired them.  I wasn't very taken with the colour of the wood, so, me being me, I painted it, but wait for it, not cream but black - wow, the sky will surely fall now, LOL  Here is the before picture and then the after.  It wasn't very easy getting photos of it without getting myself in it too, so they really aren't the best, but you will get the idea.......

This is a Christmas wreath I made for my apartment entrance.  Cute little fellow on the top.

And to finish off, I leave you with photos of my sweet grandchildren.................

Super Rhys getting his boots on

and the beautiful Katherine

I can't believe that a week has gone by since I last blogged - where on earth does the time go?  It won't be long before the snow is here to stay and when that happens, believe me, I won't be trotting the the mall two or three times a day.  Being a non-driver makes a big difference to my mobility during the winter months.  Just have to grin and bear it and keep myself busy in other ways.  Talk again soon.  Hugs,



Movie night with the girlfriends

This evening Helena, Janis and myself did the girls' movie night out.  This time it was to celebrate Janis' retirement from the Library (where I also worked until last year).  Helena, love her little heart, still is imprisoned there for a few more years.  We were anticipating a delightful evening with pizza for supper and chocolate treats inside the movie theatre as we settled down to enjoy ourselves.  Helena and I had bought Janis a gorgeous Pandora ring called Liquid and everything was in place for a most enjoyable time.  Right!! The movie was the most complicated one we have ever been to together and for three hours we sat and asked one another "What's this about", LOL  None of us would recommend this to anyone, but I'm sure there are some science fiction/futuristic fans out there who will think that it is a fabulous flick.  Anyway, the cast contained many a famous name and we expected much.  At least we enjoyed being together and having a good laugh.  I told the ladies that I would pick the next one, so I'm hoping for a good mystery or thriller.

The official synopsis for Cloud Atlas describes the film as:

An exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution.

The film consists of six interrelated and interwoven stories that take the viewer from the South Pacific in the nineteenth century to a distant, post-apocalyptic future. Unlike the original novel, the film is structured, according to novelist David Mitchell, "as a sort of pointillist mosaic: We stay in each of the six worlds just long enough for the hook to be sunk in, and from then on the film darts from world to world at the speed of a plate-spinner, revisiting each narrative for long enough to propel it forward."

The six stories are:

• South Pacific Ocean, 1849. Adam Ewing, an American lawyer from San Francisco during the California Gold Rush, has come to the Chatham Islands to conclude a business arrangement with Reverend Gilles Horrox for his father-in-law, Haskell Moore. He witnesses the whipping of a Moriori slave, Autua, who stows away on Ewing's ship, and convinces Ewing to keep him hidden, then to advocate for him to join the crew as a freeman. Meanwhile, Dr. Henry Goose slowly poisons Ewing, claiming it to be the cure for a parasitic worm, aiming to steal Ewing's valuables. When Goose attempts to administer the fatal dose, Autua saves him. Returning to America, Ewing and his wife, Tilda, denounce her father's complicity in slavery.
• Cambridge, England and Edinburgh, Scotland, 1936. Robert Frobisher, a young English musician who is gay, finds work as an amanuensis to famous composer Vyvyan Ayrs, allowing Frobisher the time and inspiration to compose his own masterpiece, "The Cloud Atlas Sextet". Ayrs wishes to take credit for the piece, and threatens to expose Frobisher's scandalous background if he does not comply. Ayrs is shot by Frobisher in a confrontation between them, and Frobisher flees to a hotel. There, he finishes his masterpiece and shoots himself only moments before his lover Rufus Sixsmith arrives to save him.
• San Francisco, California, 1973. Luisa Rey is a journalist who by chance meets an older Sixsmith, now a nuclear physicist. Sixsmith tips off Rey to a conspiracy regarding the safety of a new nuclear reactor, but is killed by hitman Bill Smoke before he can give her the report that proves it. Isaac Sachs, another employee at the power plant who seems to find her familiar, also gives her the information, but he is killed by Smoke, who runs Rey's car off a bridge. With help from the plant's head of security, Joe Napier, she evades another attempt against her life, that results in Smoke's death, and exposes the plot to use a nuclear accident for the benefit of oil companies.
• United Kingdom, 2012. Timothy Cavendish, a 65-year-old publisher, has a windfall when Dermott Hoggins, the gangster author whose book he has published, infamously murders a critic and is sent to jail. When the author's associates threaten Cavendish's life to get his share of the profits, Cavendish turns to his brother Denholme for help. The brother tricks him into hiding out in a nursing home, where he is held against his will and treated poorly by the tyrannical Nurse Noakes. Cavendish and a few of his fellow "inmates" then plot a successful escape.
• Neo Seoul, (Korea), 2144. Sonmi-451, a genetically-engineered fabricant (clone) server at a fast-food restaurant, is interviewed before her execution. She recounts how she was released from her compliant life of servitude by Hae-Joo Chang, a member of the local Resistance, and other rebels. They reveal to her that fabricants like her are "recycled" into food for future fabricants, and hold off a brutal armed assault as she broadcasts this information to the world before her capture.
• The Hawaiian Islands on post-apocalyptic Earth (dated "106 winters after "The Fall", identified as 2321), a tribesman named Zachry lives a primitive life after most of humanity has died during "The Fall" and is plagued by visions of his people's perception of the devil, "Old Georgie", a representation of his guilt for not interfering in the murder of his brother-in-law, Adam, at the hands of the Kona Chief, leader of a tribe of vicious cannibals. He is visited by Meronym, a member of the "Prescients", the last remnants of a technologically-advanced civilization. In exchange for saving his young niece from a venomous bite, Zachry agrees to guide Meronym into the mountains in search of Cloud Atlas, an outpost station where she is able to send a message to people who have left Earth and now live on other planets. After returning, Zachry discovers the murder of his tribe at the hands of the Kona. After killing the Kona Chief and a number of his tribesmen, Zachry and his niece join Meronym and the Prescients in a journey to a new world.

A seventh time period, about 25 years after the Hawaiian one, is featured in the film's prologue and epilogue. In the prologue, a lone Zachry delivers a monologue, and his location is not revealed. In the epilogue, Zachry is revealed to have been telling these stories to his numerous grandchildren, with two moons in the night sky and Earth visible as a pale blue dot. Meronym emerges from their home and they embrace.
(Courtesy of Wikipedia).

This week is turning out to be a very busy one.  This morning I had breakfast with two other lovely ladies, Claire and Illa, then this afternoon I went and had a key made for another friend Carol and finished off with the disastrous movie.

Tomorrow I have to go and get my monthly back injections and attend a wake in the evening - this will be the first of two this week.  Before I know it, it will be the weekend again and I'll be at the Boutique again.  Retirement sure is busy.  Janis is going into her third week of retirement and she is absolutely loving it and has no regrets.

A dear friend, Dawn, asked me if I could paint a sprig of holly on a red cushion cover she was hoping to use this Christmas and even though I had never taken any requests for painting on fabric I decided to give it a try - she said that if it didn't work out she wouldn't be upset, so, pressure off, LOL  I think that it turned out pretty good and so did she..............

I've also started my own tool collection and one by one I am bravely trying them out.  These are the ones I have already.......

The only one I haven't tested out yet is the last one, the cordless drill.

I put together a few Christmas baskets which I hope to sell at the Church Street Boutique.  I'm hoping that "business" will pick up soon as I have put a tremendous amount of work into this new interest.  I can honestly say that it's not so much the money that I want from it, although lots of that would be very nice, no, it's having an outside interest, something which I have been toying with for a couple of years and which has recently become possible.  If it doesn't work out, then at least I have given it a "go".  Here are a couple of the baskets I made - there is quite a lot in them, including about six or seven items of my handcrafted jewelry...

As usual, I keep blabbering on, so I shall finish off with a couple of photos of my darling grandkids...............

My favourite grandson, Rhys

And my favourite grand-daughter, Katherine

Okay dear friends, I will say ta ta for now or as they say in good ol' U.K., TTFN.  Have a wonderful week and I will visit with you all again soon.