Busy making stuff in my workshop~

Call me cheap but I will be sharing with you gifts I am making that cost me next to nothing.  With my financials being the way they are I am having to really stretch my dollar this holiday season and use items I already have on hand.  The first gift I want to share cost me actually nothing to make because I salvaged the frame from the garbage and already had the chalkboard paint.  If you don't have any on hand Walmart carries it for under $5.00, or you could maybe get it cheaper with a Micheal's coupon.  I love this chalkboard paint because you can use on wood, metal, glass,  etc.

The frame is made from....you know I actually can't think of the exact name for it but a house marker where you put your street number.  I love how it turned out.  The natural patina on it is what made me love it so.  It might just be a gift to myself.

I am heart broken this week our shar-pei Mocha passed away.  She was 16.  Two more years and she could have contended with the oldest living shar-pei.  But she was so sick her liver, kidneys, heart.  Then yesterday she suffered a stroke and went paralyzed in her hind legs.  It was the most heart wrenching thing to witness.  Thankfully my mom and I didn't have any kids at the daycare when it happened so we were both able to go to the vet to be with her.  I am feeling so guilty on top of it because I went through the last two years of pictures and couldn't find a single one of her, none the less she was loved deeply.

I wish for everyone to have a beautiful weekend~

I found this picture while cleaning out my closet today.  It was probably taken in San Diego.  A couple of times when I was a child my dad took me down there to visit my grandma and grandpa.  I don't have a lot of childhood memories.  But I do remember some crazy times in San Diego......

1.)  Being chased down by a flock of geese.
2.)  Losing my favorite necklace in the sand... you know those ones from the 80's where you can link them together by pushing then into each other... it was a major tragedy back then.
3.)  Riding in the back of a taxi cab, when there wasn't any seatbelts.  The driver was driving so crazy and I kept flying everywhere as my dad was yelling profanities at the driver.
4.)  My grandma and grandpa lived on a boat and for some reason didn't have a toilet, so we had to use a bucket.  Another tragic event, I was so scared I was going to fall in.
5.)  Waking up alone on the boat while my dad and grandma went grocery shopping.  But we didn't want to wake you.   Yeah right
6.)  Picking up a bird because I didn't know it was dead.  My dad scared the hell out of me by smacking it out of my hand, spanking me, and yelling  "You're going to get diseases!" over and over again.  
7.)  Driving my grandma and grandpa's old toyota truck home to San Jose in the pouring rain with no wind shield wipers.  He was totally freaking out saying, "We're not going to make it" and I just kept saying, "it's going to be okay daddy."  and it was. 

That ride home made a major impact on my father's life.  After my parent's got a divorce when I was six, we saw each other on and off.  When I got pregnant at 19 he stopped talking to me and we would only see each other maybe once a year.  He would always tell me the story of us driving home in the rain.  My father passed away three years ago.  We had finally started talking only a couple of months before he passed.  While he was in the hospital I stayed there everyday telling him the same thing I told him on that ride home,  "it's going to be okay daddy".  Until it wasn't okay anymore.  I cherish every single memory I have with my father, as crazy as they are because they are all I have now.