Reusable Grocery Bag

I am part of a swap on Swap-Bot where you either make or buy a reusable grocery bag and send it to your partner with 2 other kitchen items. I looked up a couple patterns for reusable bags online and decided to try to make my own instead of just sending a premade one from the store. Here are the results:



It holds a gallon of milk, 2 bottles of wine and a box of oatmeal very easily (not recommended for a meal)! And here it is on my hook by the door ready to be used!


I realized when I was making the bag that next time I will use a more light weight fabric because you are supposed to be able to fold up the bag into the little pocket on the front, but since I used 2 heavy weight fabrics, it wouldn't fit. So I think I will keep this one for myself and make another one tomorrow to end up sending to my partner, hopefully!

I also started working on my painting for my Dad today, but I don't want to post photos until it is all done so that I can post all the photos sequentially as I painted it. Plus, right now I am not really liking how it looks but I know it will get better as I go along.

Painting for Grandma

A painting I recently finished for my Grandma. It's about 20"x20" and painted in oil. The birds are called Orange Chats. I gave it to her yesterday and she loved it! It took me about a month or so all together to do, from beginning to end, though I did take a few big breaks while doing it.

I started out with a kind of rainbow of colors sunset type background but I didn't like how it was turning out so I had to wait a few days for it to dry enough that I could paint over it. I think the purple background came out a lot better also. I wish I had gotten a better picture of it besides from photobooth on my computer, but I forgot to take one with my real camera before I gave it to her! Doh!

Now I am starting a painting for my Dad. I went over to his house and helped him look up online photos of beach scenes he liked, and he ended up picking out something he liked. So far I have just sketched it out on the canvas, but I plan on starting the painting of it tomorrow. I'll be sure to take photos of it as I go and keep track of the progress here.