Over the short span of 4 years, Lynda Dunham-Watkins has become a nationally recognized sculptor.  The Texas Commission on the Arts chose her to be a Texas Original Artist. She’s got a hand-painted tree ornament hanging in the House chamber of the Texas capital of Austin.  Lynda’s won every category she’s entered in the International ProSculpt competition; first place in 2006 in the Beginner category, first place in 2007 in the Intermediate category, and first place in 2009 in the Advanced category. She’s represented by two galleries. The Philbrook Museum of Art has invited her for two years running to display in their prestigious Festival of Trees.

Now she’s turned her attention to one-of-a-kind jewelry utilizing her hand created/painted/sculpted beads of polymer clay, and wire.

If you want a truly unique piece of art for someone special on your list this year, purchase something of Lynda’s.  She’s on the designer fast track. Anything of hers will be a better long-term investment than the stock market.

If you have questions of her, or see something here that’s already sold when you get to her website or Etsy store, email her at: wtklnsbl@sbcglobal.net. She’ll make you another one (they’re all handmade so it’ll be similar but not identical) in a heartbeat. Right Mom?

Her Website, Expressions in Clay: http://www.lyndawatkinsartdolls.com/index.html

Etsy StoreFront: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=vl_other_1&listing_id=34079085

Blog: http://www.claymama1.blogspot.com/

Oh, I know!! I know. This is not nearly as practical as the post for the Ameribag gift idea. These items are strictly pretty. And they have absolutely nothing to do with road trips, other than you can wear them on a road trip and look H.O.T. And I must defend the two items I’ve featured from Anthropologie as being travel related. Check out the items’ names. See?  Travel related.

A guy friend asked me what it was about Anthropologie that so appealed to women.  The only thing I could tell him was their stuff is cool.  It’s no different than shopping for cool photography equipment. Cool stuff is appealing. I realize that’s less profound than much of what I write, but alas, we are discussing shopping. I must add a LOL on all that BS.

In addition to their stuff being cool, I love the dream-scape layouts in the catalog.  THAT is probably the reason I associate all their merchandise with “cool”.  So whatever they’re doing, it’s worked its magic on me.

The Havana Sweater Coat

On The Road Boots

The Havana Sweater Coat is $198.  Here’s the link if you want to go straight to it, and not shop around.

The On-The-Road boots are $328. Here’s the link for those.

If you order anything and enjoy interesting, dreamy, sometimes whimsical fashion photography, be sure to sign up for a catalog.

It’s heeerre!  No matter how hard you try not to think about it, it’s not going away.  With every passing day the pressure of holiday shopping becomes more and more crushing. Or if you’re one of those who love the shopping part of the season, more and more exciting. Me? I’m already 3 inches shorter from the crush of it all, and it’s only November 3rd.

I’m going to help both of us through this trying time by featuring various gifts over the next six weeks - most travel related, some kinda travel related, and some not travel related at all.

These posts will be along the lines of: here it is, check it out, buy one.  I’m a decent writer but I cannot offer you the entertainment of J.Peterman when it comes to describing inanimate objects.  Besides I lack the same incentive.

If you’ve yet to check your calendar, Christmas falls on Friday, December 25th, and Hanukkah starts Saturday December 12.

I own one of these. So this post will be of no help to my husband.  My Ameribag is six years old and has been all over the world. Well, maybe not ALL over the world, but it’s seen a lot of planes, trains, buses, taxis, one tractor, and a rickshaw.  It looks brand new. I don’t travel without it. Ever.

Pictured above is the small sized, classic style. Mine is a medium (classic/leather). All the styles come in extra small, small, medium and large. Personally, I think the extra small and small would be useless, but that’s just my opinion.

The bags are attractive, tough, have tons of pockets both inside and out, come in several styles and fabric choices, and they’re ERGONOMIC, which means they lie nicely in the small of the back when slung over your shoulder.

Ameribag's Baby Bag, the HB2

The Sport Ameribag - Helixx

I cleaned mine out so you could see the inside pockets.

Here’s their website: http://www.ameribag.com/home.php

The most expensive bag I saw  on the site was $232 for a large, classic in leather.  The medium sized microfiber is $79 (a VERY nice choice). Other bags were listed for less than $60.

The photos that look like they’re from the Ameribag website, are. The other one, isn’t.