Leanne Shawler, Artist

I suspect most of you who read my blog have found this already.... Amy Powers' "inspired ideas" Check it out.

When I've travel, I try to take some small art kit with me. For an event like Silver Bella, one basically packs a suitcase and then some, but for non-art-centered trips, what I take is much smaller. And this is the smallest I've got so far. In addition to the supplies shown below, I took my Moleskine journal and a sketchbook (for practicing drawing for the Suzi Blu class I'm doing). The white bag contains snippets of paper, stickers, tags, paper punches (as in already punched out, not the device itself obviously), a bit of ribbon and other ephemera. And this is what's in the blue pouch: gluestick (yes, it has a Disney princess, Cinderella, on it), washi tape (orange/brown print and gold stripes), tape measure (for measuring faces that I'm practicing in my drawing), eraser, embroidery scissors (get through security!), white gel pen, Pitt pens of various hues: sepia, black, greys, "landscape", some purples, glitter pen, mechanical pencil. And that's all...

I haven't uploaded any photos (or scanned in any journal pages), so here's a link to the most gorgeous bed scarf I have ever seen. I could never figure out the point of bed scarves, but then, they had never been as pretty as this. I am in total awe of what Gabrielle's created.

It was quite the small field so the odds were pretty good for all who entered. Here's the number sequence random.org came up with: Random Sequence Generator Here is your sequence: 6 1 5 Which means the winners are: Paper ("too much old paper") Relics, Lotus ("too many pens") , and Sandi ("too much lace and notions")! Gals, I'll be emailing you -- and hope to get the prizes mailed by next Monday. Thanks to everyone for entering!

I am back from my trip (more on that later when I get the photos transferred from the camera) so I just wanted to remind you that today's the last day for my giveaway. There's only 4 entries so far, so your chances of winning are pretty good! Leave your comment here .

I won this book from Linda Jo ! It's called "Nature Inspired" by Traci Lynn Huskamp. It came prettily wrapped in this luscious crepe paper sealed with an old stamp! (All carefully peeled apart before I stopped to think I should take a photo!) Thank you, Linda Jo! I am hosting a giveaway of my own .... any commenter could win!

A whole weekend ago, my hubby and I did our usual getaway. We stayed at our favorite bed and breakfast. The sense of humor in decorating always tickles me. We were staying in the Rosebud Cottage and they have this outside: The most amazing part of the whole weekend was discovering a swarm of hummingbirds. One of the stores in town had a bunch of hummingbird feeders. We saw them fly around the parking lot and went to investigate. There had to have been at least 30 hummingbirds swooping around. The photos aren't great because the sun was setting and we got a lot of silhouette shots. We must have sat there for at least 10 minutes, just enjoying them. Don't forget to enter my giveaway I started last week. Three prizes to win!

This time it's me who's doing the giveaway. No special reason beyond the fact I think I actually have too many books to use in collage. I'm sure y'all are going to tell me that's not possible, but my storage is limited and variety is good. I'll send three people one volume each from this "Pulpit Commentary" series. All you have to do is leave a comment by September 20 (closes at midnight PST) and tell me what one art supply item do you have too much of, and why? Blog about this giveaway and comment again (with a link to your blog post) and you get another entry!