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Portrait photography tips, in particular how to minimize eyes?

My mother used to be extremely photogenic, but unfortunately suffers from a sort of muscular degeneration which makes her unable to fully open her upper eyelids. Because of this, she's repeatedly commented that every picture of her from the past 15 years could scare a gorilla from the ugliness alone.
For a woman of nearly 60, she's otherwise very young-looking, and I was wondering if there was any lighting/angle I should consider to minimize the eyes, or draw attention away from them, so that she'd have at least a few pictures of herself that she'd like. I have access to a decent SLR (Nikon, if I remember well) and a Panasonic point-and-shoot, but no special lighting or studio, so I'd be working with regular decorative lamps and other stuff you'd find around a house.

Would you be able to use the liquify tool in Photoshop to open up her eyes more?

Other than that, try an angle from very low, and very close to her, looking up into her face. The danger with that is that we don't like to look up people's nostrils, but you fix that by having her "smell" a small flower (which would hide her nostrils). At that angle, it is natural for eyes to not be wide open.

Another angle you could try is from much higher up, looking down on her. I am picturing something very soft focus, with gentle light, with your mother cradling something special in her hands and gazing down at it, or perhaps looking at a book.

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