Art/Craft Therapy for Pain Management, AKA What I've Been Doing for the Last Month

I had the best of intentions. I was going to post fun photos of the things I'd been making. Funny how life stepped in and slapped me around a bit! Ok, I'm exaggerating quite a bit, but the last six weeks or so have been really, REALLY unpleasant thanks to changes in the medication I take for fibromyalgia.

Let's start out with the flowers. See, I have this bizarre need to make things, especially pretty things. For whatever reason, I had an epiphany in the middle of the WalMart scrapbooking section. I found the cutest little flower punch in their $2 bins, and realized I could make cute cute mini flowers, then emboss them with my dotting tools.

This is a closeup shot of my flowers.
They're all about dime-sized. Cute, eh?

Of course, once I had them punched, I realized I could use my gel pens and hand sanitizer trick to add some shading and dimension to them. I did, and would up with quite a few really pretty flowers.


What will I do with these? I have no idea... I figured maybe I'll throw them on eBay or Etsy or something. I'm sure someone could come up with cute uses for these!

This isn't all of them... one of the little guys ran away when I was
photoing the group. Oh, and one found a home before I could
get any photos of him. Weenie.

I've also been having a lot of fun making stuffed animals. Would you believe all of these are hand-sewn? They are... and I think that's one reason they help distract me from my pain. I get so focused on each stitch that the pain signals just don't seem to be as noticeable.

I'm not sure which of them is my favorite. I like the big purple guy in the back. He's made of flannel baby blanket with felt details, and he's super snuggly. I also love the stripey guy on his left... I spent almost as much time on that heart detail as I did stitching his body, arms, and legs!

This girlie isn't finished, obviously. I was experimenting with making hair for stuffies that would be a bit more flexible, and less tedious than hand-tying each strand of hair. I've done that before, and it gets old QUICK.

I also had fun shading her lips. I started out with a basic hot pink felt, then used Sharpie markers to add shadows, and a Liquid Paper correction pen to add some highlights. It's kind of awkward looking, but I like it.

Oh, and her head is sitting on a coffee container. I'm going to make a body for her eventually, I just haven't gotten to it yet. What can I say, I get distracted easily!

Moving on to what might be my favorite stuffie dude?






This guy was a total experiment, but I like how he came out. Adding the pink details at his horns was an attempt to cover up a sloppy join, but instead it looks like a design element instead. I like that!



The heart detail on his chest is made from 3 layers of felt, decoratively stitched and lightly stuffed so that it's three dimensional. He's definitely a huggable stuffie!







Then there are the adipose babies. These guys are based on a Doctor Who monster, and they happen to have been on one of my favorite episodes! These two are made of white flannel, so they're super soft and snuggleable. What can I say, I like things I can hug!

I'm not so sure about the one on the right... I used safety eyes on him, and while they're cute, their placement is just a bit off to me. Still, they're handmade, so they don't have to all be perfect... right? :D

Let's not forget my socktopuses. I can't even begin to explain how happy these little guys make me. Then again, the octopus is one of my favorite animals! They're so bizarre, and so fascinating! In my mind, the guy on the left is a boy socktopus, and the one on the right is a girl. They're not dating, though... they're just good friends.

What, you don't give your stuffies background stories?

Finally, a couple of shots of me! My husband and I went to the updated Red Stick festival last week, and I had to share these with you. We started out getting lunch at McDonald's, and after we ate, we had to play with what was left of our food. I would love to introduce you to our french fry guy- isn't he cute?

And yes, I carry a bunch of sizes of googly eyes with me everywhere I go. I also carry a glue stick, and up until recently I carried a pair of scissors with me. I never know when I'm going to get the urge to make something, you know?





While we were there, I was feeling very frustrated with my fibro. It sucks when there are things I want to do but can't because my pain level makes it almost impossible.

So, I pulled out my gel pens and did some lettering. I don't know why it helps, but it does...

Most of the time when I'm drawing on napkins I'm leaving a happy note for the people who work wherever we happen to be. That day, though, I was seriously overwhelmed by pain. Still, it made me laugh, as did this photo!





Once at the festival, we found a dalek! How many of you could have found a dalek and not taken a photo with it??

I have to admit, no one even batted an eye when I did this. It was loads of fun... I'm hoping the festival gets bigger and bigger. I really miss it.


Finally, I'll leave you with this close-up shot of my cutie-patootie. I don't know why this photo makes me smile, but it really does. Hopefully it makes you smile too!

Sometimes the simplest things can be healing.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Drawing is wonderful for pain management!

You know, I'm dreading winter. If I'm flaring like this when the weather starts changing, I'm in for it. But hey, maybe this will be the winter that doesn't hurt me as much, right?

In the meantime, I've been doing lots of drawing and doodling. The above image is a background I painted, but the text was done in Photoshop. I have some more images too... enjoy!

Be aware, this is graphics-intensive. The images are optimized to load quickly, but there's still a ton of them.

Dealing With Difficult Times

Blah, this has not been a fun week. Long story short, I was prescribed a new medication around 6 weeks ago, and I seem to be having negative reactions to it. You know, the kind that show up in the pamphlet that comes with your medication under the category "Contact your physician immediately."

That's always fun. Comes with lots of unpleasantness that doesn't need to be dragged out on the blog. Let's just say it sucked, we figured it out, and now I'm moving on.

However, whenever I make a post about fibromyalgia, I almost always get comments about how helpful people find my suggestions on coping with chronic pain. So, let's check back in for another installment of How Laynie Keeps From Pulling Her Hair Out From Chronic Pain, shall we?

YouTube tends to help me manage pain in several ways. There are art and craft tutorials that are inspiring, music videos that can transport me to a different mental place, and cat videos that are just... well, cat videos. Seriously, we all know what those are, right?

But there's another category of videos that can make me laugh and forget just how much I hurt. I may have mentioned this once or twice, but I absolutely LOVE babies. Happy babies, silly babies, toddler walks, baby laughs, chubby baby thighs and happy baby smiles. I am that lady who goes completely mental in the stores when she sees a cute baby, and will often have entire conversations with a pre-verbal baby. Yes, people stare sometimes, but I think most people understand what's going on, and if they don't? They should figure out how awesome babies are and join in the fun!! :D

So, in the spirit of sharing videos that help me get through painful times, enjoy this absolutely adorable baby. Yes, the videos are vertical, but the baby is worth it.

Man, I WISH someone would pay me for this post. ;)

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Crafting as Pain Management? Sign me up!

I've gotten several people asking if I'm doing ok, since the blog is being neglected a bit and I'm not quite my usual bubbly self. While I can't say the last few weeks have been super-awesome happy fun time, I'm actually doing pretty well at the moment. I had a few situations come up that would have been annoying on their own, but when they all happened together turned out to be downright difficult to get through.

For example, the weather has been yo-yoing back and forth between 80s and 20s. I'm not exaggerating- it will literally be 83 one afternoon, and 27 the next night. Weather changes make my fibromyalgia grumble, and the more dramatic the change, the more intense the symptoms. I also ran into some problems with one of my daily medications, which led to me being out of it for several days. That made the fibro grumble too, as did coming down with a general crud. Cold, flu... something. It's been loads of fun.

So now the fibro is in full flare, meaning I'm very limited in what I can do and how much energy I've got. It's improving lots now, but it's been hard to be upbeat the last few weeks. However, I'm thrilled because I've found several new things that help manage the fibro pain.

I've shown you some of the drawings I've done lately. However, I've also found some other things to distract myself from the icky fibro bits. If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen some of these. If so, you'll see 'em again. :D

I've been making barrettes. I'm using snap clips, which seem to work nicely in my hair and are easy for me to find. I found several tutorials that showed people covering them with various materials, and one night when our power had gone out I decided to figure out how I was going to accomplish it. Turns out it's easy, even though I didn't save any of those tutorials!

I made my own simple pattern and have been experimenting with various ways of fastening the covers. I've made several types of barrettes: embroidered felt, zipper roses, and cute skully barrettes on ruffles or felt circles. I'm in love with the skullies. They've made me giggle, and I have several more skully patches to use for various designs.

I'm imagining more skully barrettes, skullies with tiny pink bows, skullies on big bows... I absolutely love skulls, and these are the perfect size! I'm thinking I'm going to wind up with an enormous pile of barrettes if they don't sell on Etsy.

That's right- you too could own a Layniefingers original! *giggles* I haven't decided on prices yet, but I've had several friends tell me I HAVE to sell these, since they're so darned cute. We'll see, right?

Till next time!

Snap clip image from Thaicraft.com.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Pain Management Using Art

I'm sorry, guys. I know I haven't been updating much lately, and when I do, my posts have been a bit lackluster. I'm in the middle of one heck of a fibro flare, so doing much of anything is rough.

But I learned something a few days ago that has helped me immensely, so I want to pass it on to all of you. I've recently stumbled across an interesting drawing program called Zentangles, and they've done absolute wonders for my pain!

They're well-named. There's something zen-like in the repetition of the strokes, in adding color and shading and texture to make these drawings come to life. Unfortunately, while my pain recedes while I'm drawing, it tends to rush back as soon as I stop, so I've been drawing quite a bit over the last few days. I've pulled some of my better pieces to share with you all. Keep in mind how much time it takes to create these, and you get an idea of what my time has been like lately!

Also, I'm putting the majority of the pictures under a jump so I don't spam your feeds. Never say I don't love ya! Here's a taste of what you'll find under the jumplll

So, wanna see more? Come on in!

What I Did On Thursday, as told in pictures.

I did a silly thing today. I've been seriously fighting with pain for the last five or six days, and it's starting to get to me. So, instead of taking photos, I realized that although I have information for a blog post, I had absolutely NO images to share with it. However, my husband came to the rescue. He suggested I draw the photos for the post, and so I will now share my day with you.

This morning started out with tears, unfortunately. I've been having a lot of problems with my fibro because of a "perfect storm" of issues: my overdoing at the animation festival that happened over the weekend, the weather's jumping back and forth between hot and cold, and the fact that I seem to be coming down with a cold. Any of those have the potential to cause my fibro pain to flare up. Combined, it's been a heck of a week.

So, I've been running through my entire arsenal of pain management techniques: heat (warm baths, hot towels, heating pad, etc), stretching, exercise, massage, and of course my prescription medication. Even so, I've had several moments that were literally moment-by-moment, reminding myself that it will not last forever, and I am strong enough to push through this and let the pain do its thing.

I've been through this before, only I didn't have such a wonderful team for pain management, nor did I have the surety that the pain would ease eventually. Even though I get a bit wibbly now when things get bad, I still know that it's temporary and my doctors are only a phone call away. I'm lucky that way, and I cannot say enough good things about the support network I have. (That includes you guys reading this, too, for your information!)

So, as a way of trying to cope with the feeling that my body was trying to turn itself inside out, I turned to my favorite distraction- YouTube. I watched videos of Maru (the cutest cat on the internet), of SMBC theater (a crazy sketch comedy group by the guy who writes Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal), and videos of bronze and aluminum smelting.

But best of all, I watched something that made me almost cry with laughter. I watched videos of dogs wearing boots. Dogs don't like to wear boots, at least not at first. Sometimes they just stand still, sometimes they look at their owners as if questioning why they would be so cruel.

But sometimes they become acrobatic, kicking their feet up and shaking as if trying to dislodge the infernal demon latched on to their feet. They kick and jump and hop, whimper and moan, acting as if they're going to die if their feet don't get free. Then they begin to gallop, feet flailing wildly, and I consistently lose my shit every single time.

I laugh. Frankly, I'm not the only one. My friends have been sending me links to help distract me, and I think I received the link to Ally Brosh's latest Hyperbole and a Half entry at least six times. You have never seen laughing the way I laughed when I read this. I laughed until I cried, until I hurt, until nothing came out except a pathetic little wheeze as I tried futilely to refill my lungs. People, I almost passed out from reading this post. If you never click another link in my blog, please... click that link, and read about Ally moving, and her poor stupid dog who became a perpetual motion vomit machine. There are no words for how funny this is.

Thankfully, my pain broke around 3:30pm. I went from curled up and crying to smiling again, because let's be honest... things have to be pretty bad for me not to smile. Going from extreme pain to less pain is always a good thing too. So obviously, I felt a lot better once things started easing up.

At that point, my husband asked what I wanted to do: did I want to go to sleep, did I want to go walk, did I want to go with him to work and maybe work on my blog. I decided that even if the pain spiked again, I feel better when I can see/hear him, so I decided I'd ride along with him and work on my blog while he taught. It's the end of the semester, so everyone's working on their projects, so it's a quiet day.

But on the way, we stopped to walk a bit. I've been wanting to go to Family Dollar and see if they have any interesting cosmetics. No big deal, class didn't start til 6pm, so we had time to wander.

So, we get out, start to wander. We walked through the Christmas department which had some really cute stuff. I also wend through the stationery/arts and crafts section because I'm really looking for some glitter to use for various nail designs.

Have you noticed that it's getting harder and harder to find glitter these days? It used to be you could find glitter everywhere, from 7-11 to the big box stores. Now, though, all you find is glitter glue. I assume it's neater, but it doesn't do me any good! Hmmph.

Ah well, I digress. If you're a regular reader, you know I do that often. I meandered to the cosmetics department and suddenly perked up- holy mackerel, there was a lot of cute stuff here! There was a large selection of LA Colors products, including the palette to the right for a grand total of $1.50! Do you have any idea how hard it was to walk away from that??

There were also a variety of other LA Colors cosmetics, artificial nails (did you know LA Colors makes fake nails? I didn't!), and nail polishes out the wazoo. I was good, I'm still trying to mostly adhere to my no-buy (except for the Christmas/Hannukah stuff I bought the other day), but one thing caught my attention and I simply couldn't resist. I found the cutest set of decals by Fing'rs, and I'd never seen this particular sheet before.

Yes, my friends, it's another monkey & penguin set of decals!! Best part- it was $1!

I'm sure you can imagine what happened. First, I picked it up, surprised. It's actually a pretty big sheet, and it doesn't have all the other decals I didn't particularly want from the other similar set with these decals. (Can we say cheerleading, anyone? I'm almost 40, here!)

I put them back. I really did. I was trying SO HARD to be good... but no. The penguins sang their siren song to me and I was unable to fight it, unable to resist their pull...

That's right. Mama has new penguins now. Kind of amusing, since I'm still hoarding the first set. Maybe now I'll be brave enough to use them? Or maybe they'll go into my stash and only come out to be admired, like now. Who knows?

Whatever. I'm ok with it. I like just having them. Unfortunately, as we got back into the car, I realized that I had no photos of them, no camera to take a photo, no scanner to scan them with. This is when my husband suggested that I hop on the computer in his class and draw the pics to let you know about my adventures today.

I had to agree with him that it was a good idea. I like to draw, even if I'm not particularly good at it. Let's be honest... sometimes simple images illustrate a story better than complex ones!

And that brings us to where I am now- sitting in the computer lab, writing and drawing. What started as a crappy day has turned into a pretty nice one. I'm happy, I'm hurting less, and I've drawn lots of silly pictures. I can deal with that!

As for my nails, I've been wearing BPAL's Madame Moriarty. I can't even begin to tell you how much I love this color... a deep bloody red that's got a touch of jelly sheerness to it. I've been getting compliments on it right and left too, and it wears like iron! Definitely one of my favorite polishes ever.

BPAL's Madame Moriarty was provided by the manufacturer for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Working Hard to Get Better With Fibromyalgia

Oh my god, y'all. I have absolutely lost my mind. I'm accomplishing things, finally, and that's good, but oh my goodness this animation festival kicked my booty! I've been spending quite a bit of time sipping chocolate milk and watching brainless stuff on YouTube, waiting for this fun to pass, and then right as I started wondering why I was having such a tough time recovering from the weekend, I realized that...

Oh, yea. I live in South Louisiana. Even though it was in the 80s over the weekend, it's now freakin' cold. At least there's a reason I'm hurting- fibromyalgia tends to go nuts when the weather changes. Knowing that is a positive thing, because it tells me hey, there's a reason you're hurting. I figured since I'd figured these things out, I might as well share a few helpful hints in case any of you have fibro (or know someone who does).

One of the main ways I manage my pain took me the longest to figure out. It makes little sense to me, but when I'm hurting, I have absolutely got to get up and exercise. Stretching is good, walking is good... but I have to get off my butt and get my body moving. If I don't, I end up hurting even more, and for even longer. Exercise helps get the natural painkillers moving, and it helps my muscles loosen up and just stop hurting so much. It's a fine line between "enough" and "too much," but not enough will hurt me every time.

Also, a hot bath can do absolute wonders for me. Massage is good too, if you have someone who'll do it. Sometimes my feet and ankles get to hurting bad enough that I really need someone to rub them and stretch them- that's when my husband is even more indispensable than usual. After just a few minutes of intense stretching, it will usually take the pain down to a tolerable level.

But most of all? I don't know that I would be alive today if I hadn't found my pain management clinic. My doctors work with me to help control my pain, and they've given me back a large portion of my life. Don't get me wrong- you don't walk into pain management and say, "Hey, I've got this pain and I need uber-big painkillers." They'll laugh at you, and send you away. But if you're willing to work with them to manage your pain (see that bit about exercising?), then pain management can be the best thing you've ever done.