Our Tuscan Adventure

This is for Lizzy, but anyone is welcome to read this if you would like

We stayed in a villa sughera 8 the closest village was Pievescola which we happened upon when we were lost looking for our villa! This was a blessing though as we met a girl Ilona that spoke English, so a big plus. We would call into the local cafe/restaurant/bar/shop/ you get my drift, it was a bit of everything all rolled into one, every day after our day trips and the owner ( who could not speak English) would have a beer ready for the boys and me and Leanne would have a cappuchino. We used to keep the locals amused when we would go into the village to buy a few groceries trying to communicate. We also got invited to a Italian version of a barbecue at the local restaurant/cafe when Italy were playing Holland in the European cup for Soccer. Pizza, pasta & wine was plentiful. It was an experience witnessing them watching the game, as you know how passionate Italians are and they lost , not good. After the match the grapa came out, I stayed well clear of that, it smelt like fuel !

Ilona and her hubby and us, well not me, but the rest of us

Where we were situated was really good as we could do day trips to Sienna, San Gimignano, Volterra, Casole d ' Elsa and they were all beautiful. I would have loved to visit so many more but only so much time.

That's me walking down the gorgeous little lane at Casole d' Elsa

We also caught the train into Florence from a little town called Podgibonsi. This town drove me nuts as we seemed to drive around in circles trying to get to the train station.
Then buying train tickets from the machine was always a challenge when one doesn't speak the language. We went into a little newsagent that was at the station and somehow made the lady understand we needed help, she left Victor (my hubby) manning the newsagent ( Lord help him if anyone came into buy something) and she came to our assistance. With lots of hand gestures and the odd word we could speak   she brought our tickets for us :) all part of the adventure.
My main object was to find the Uffizi Gallery & the Accademia . It's funny how the Italians have these world treasures and don't make them that easy to find, but you walk around a corner and bang there it is!  Michael Angelo's David is breathtaking and I could have looked at it for hours, I also loved seeing Botticelli's  Birth of Venus, plus so many more beautiful works of arts by Da Vinci, Rembrandt, just to name a few. In Florence I also loved the Duomo, The fountain of King Neptune and the Golden Doors.

We only had the day in Florence but we fitted as much as we could in, a good part of it being in the galleries which we lined up for a quite a long time to get in to, but it was worth it. On returning to the village and telling Ilona about our trip to Florence she asked did we verify our train ticket, well no, we had no idea. You have to stamp your ticket in this machine or you can be fined, another lesson learnt.
Another interesting part of our trip was the tollways on the Auto barns, we learnt to look for the one that had a human being manning it where possible as we found that some would take some cards and not others, some would not take cash and a few times we would be sitting there trying all our cards, cars backed up behind us and of course we couldn't move, it became quite funny, all part of the adventure!
Hope I have wet your appetite Lizzy and not bored you to much
Chow
Mary x

Scrap that Song Challenge ~ Singing In the Rain

The challenge Annette set over at STS http://scrapthatsong.blogspot.com.au/ this month is to scrap a page using the words rain or cold in it. The songs that were coming to mind were all quite dramatic ( November Rain) and were not fitting with what I wanted to scrap. Then I thought of the song Singing in the Rain

If nothing else just watching this clip should bring a smile to your face.

I wanted to scrap this pic of my DD all rugged up when she was home last. As the journalling says around the edge of the page, she was actually shivering in the sleet!

This song also reminded me of when she was about 3 or 4 and had her brief dance career , the group performed to singing in the rain and looked so cute in their yellow raincoats and umbrellas

The little circles are scraps from a chipboard set, the little fence is from Twiddelybitz (It was actually a long fence and I have just cut it as I've wanted it), the wooden button is from Craftqueen.

Would love to see you join us in the challenge this month

Cheers

Mary x

CSI Case No 35 Challenge ~ Navutu I Heart You

Morning!

The challenge over at CSI http://csicolorstoriesinspiration.ning.com/ was perfect for scrapping a pic of our recent holiday at Navutu Fiji

The fonts for the title were silver, so I just painted them blue! Much better, and the See button and PP are from scrapfriends http://scrapfriends.com.au/

A few closies

The heart I punched out of canvas paper and painted with Glams Glitter Paint and I have mounted the words on canvas as well

The little metal frame I have had FOREVER was just the perfect colour to put a photo of the beautiful Eta in

A splash of yellow

Must run , get out of the pj's and get something done

Wishing you all the best weekend

Mary x

5c Buster and a Birthday Give Away at Scrapfriends

Howdy,

One of  my favourite sites to visit is having a birthday and to celebrate they are having A HUGE giveaway. Pop over to Scrapfriends http://blog.scrapfriends.com.au/ to read all about it and to see all the scrumptious goodies that you have the chance to win. This is just one of the three packs that are up for grabs

How super generous is that, and like I said there are another two packs, just as gorgeous. So what are you waiting for , pop over and join in the Birthday Celebrations.

This month Miss Annette has set a recipe challenge over at Orange Paperie http://orangepaperieandco.blogspot.com.au/ and we would love you to join us, if you pop over to the blog you will see what the requirements are.

This is a layout of my hubby and his dog Buster. A box of puppies were being sold at a fete and Buster was the last puppy that no one wanted so hubby's Grandmother gave him the 5c to buy Buster.
It has a bit of a sad ending though, as after my husband's Mum died and they moved to another house my husbands father wouldn't let him keep Buster :(

The pull out tag has the journalling on it

Anyway that's me for today, I hope I can find my mojo and get back into the swing of things
Love and Peace
Mary x

Toscana

Hello 

I have a layout to share that was from a build a page from over at the Boxx http://www.theboxx.scrapboxx.com/. It was always my dream to go to Tuscany and when my hubby decided we were going to go overseas I was beside myself. It was a trip of a lifetime and Tuscany didn't disappoint, it is truly beautiful.

I used the ink and salt technique and added texture with gesso and a crafters template. Prima packaging is far to nice to throw away, so I use it as well , a bit of stamping a little calico banner and a few bits and pieces. I had fun doing this layout, I enjoy getting messy :)
Thanks so much for popping bye
Hope you are all enjoying some warmer weather 
Mary x

Wicked!

Hello Friends,

I  wanted to do the challenge at Scrapfriends, http://blog.scrapfriends.com.au/  but I found the colours challenging this month ( I guess that's why it's called a challenge!). They are not colours I would normally use together and I scratched my head and kept coming back to look at it and thinking. 
 So This is the challenge

So I started looking through some photo's and found this one of when my husband's work took us to see Wicked. I love going to the theatre and musicals and Wicked was fabulous. I thought the colours would work with this photo and it was good to scrap a happy memory as well. I was really happy with how it turned out in the end

The strawberry flower and music brads arrived from Scrapfriends as I was working on my layout, so that was good timing :) The mauve flower was from the lovely
Lizzy Hill  http://lizzyhill12.blogspot.com.au/ Thanks Lizzy

Have a wonderful weekend, hard to believe it's Sept already. Makes one start thinking about..... shh......Christmas! oh dear
Wishing you all Sunshine and smiles
Mary x

Relaxation..... Yes Please

Hello lovely People,

I have finally scrapped a page since getting home a little over a week ago.

The challenge over at http://csicolorstoriesinspiration.ning.com/ was perfect for one of my holiday photo's. It is all about relaxation and boy did I relax on this holiday and my favourite place to relax was in my hammock, I so wish I had one of these at home, but alas nowhere to hang one and I certainly wouldn't have the view that I had at Navutu

and here is my take on the challenge

My beautiful view. I used to lay in my hammock of an afternoon and read, but I couldn't stop looking at the view. It was like I had to soak it all up, that it would be a crime to have this and not look at it  and appreciate it while I could.

The little bird is Prima which I got from scrapsanity http://scrapsanity.com.au/ the little wooden buttons are Prima also I believe and come from Craftqueen http://www.craftqueen.com.au/

The button is from Scrapfriends http://scrapfriends.com.au/

Thanks for calling by, would love to know you have been 

Cheers

Mary x

oh and this is a layout I can now share, I used a Stuck Sketches sketch http://www.stucksketches.blogspot.com.au/ for this and the photo was taken in Rome

A bit of texture

Flowers and twine are from Craftqueen

The photo was taken by my son

So yep thanks again for popping by

Love and Sunshine

Mary x