Before you visit garage sales, thrift stores, flea markets, antique malls, estate sales and auctions for pieces to transform, clear out your own spaces to see what you can discover.

Start a mosaic tile treasure chest with the "bits n' pieces" you already have. Save broken dishes, jewelry, keys, small toys, game pieces and glass figurines.

Trying to regain our creativity can be somewhat difficult as we get older. Our childhood days of writing, singing, dancing and making up wild fantastic stories have been pushed to the wayside. Our time is now filled with housework, family obligations, bills and the like.

Creativity is basically making something out of nothing, and unless creativity is actively nourished it can't present itself. If we could just reach back into our childhood and recall some of the fearless skills we all once had, we could begin to develop our creativity and weave it into our everyday lives.

As of late, we have had a number of loved ones leave this planet.

When these unexpected things happen we may not be prepared for what we must achieve to celebrate their lives.

Organizing our memories from boxes of photographs can be very healing and stressful at the same time. Often we may know the people and locations in the photographs and what they were doing at the time. From experience I can tell you that it sure helps if the names, dates and locations are noted on the back of the photos.