Leanne Shawler, Artist

Venice in Winter was the theme I came up with for my table's design at my church's High Tea today. hubby took this photo. He folded the napkins into bishop's hats too. Only fitting for a church tea! Although -- folks didn't take too close a look at the images to recognize that they were Venetian buildings. Only one managed to see it straight off and she'd spent time there. (*sigh*) I was telling my hubby I spent $30 on this (flowers and 4 napkins) -- but then I remembered that um, I bought the sea-blue lining and those clear beads on the table. So it's probably closer to $50. Much better than the year I bought plate chargers from Pottery Barn, that's for sure! seafoam-colored trim found at Paper Tales. I was going to cut out the windows but realized how much work that was going to be. I made the gifts (handmade books decorated with Ann Voskamp's "Journal in a Box" images) with stuff from my stash. I'll show the covers of th...

Merry Christmas all! I thought I would share images of my practice journal and my "for real" journal for Mary Ann Moss' Ticket to Venice class. I highly recommend the class. It is so much fun! (Clicking on the image above will take you to her blog for more info and to register.) This is the practice journal. This is the "for real" journal with some inside pages. It's a vicarious look at Venice as Mary Ann is keeping us up to date with her trip in Venice and I so want to go that this has become a planning/dreaming journal for a future trip. I had so much fun going through my stash and finding stuff I didn't know I had. Pages inside: And here's what I said on Facebook after I'd finished the "for real" one. I started journaling in this after I took these photos. So check out this class or one of Mary Ann's earlier classes.

Venice is at the top of my list for overseas destinations (other than Australia obviously). Preferably when the city isn't flooded due to one of the king tides, but any other time would be fine. (OK, except Carnivale, because crowds are not my thing.)  I drool over movies like "Casanova" which are set in Venice. (And "The Merchant of Venice" ) In fact, I even sat through that Angelina Jolie/Johnny Depp film set there. Truly, any movie featuring the gorgeous landscapes and townscapes of Italy has me sighing. Weirdly, I love the idea of getting lost in those twisting Venetian alleyways and the thought of coming upon some hidden from the tourists vignette. But as we just got back from Australia, an European trip isn't on the cards straight away. However ... Today, Mary Ann Moss opened up registration for a new class called "Ticket to Venice" . She's not only going to teach a new binding for the travel journal, but we'll be seeing Veni...