Florence by Foot

Next stop on our trip was Florence. The Hubby and I had collected our car following the train ride from Cinque Terre into LaSpezia and the best thing we did was to get the GPS NeverLost upgrade.
NeverLost does lose its connection to the satellite once in a while, but we were still able to find our way around Northern Italy without too many problems, and wondered how we could have managed before GPS.
We dropped the car off at the Florence airport and then got a cab into our next hotel. We would walk everywhere from there.
Little disclaimer here. Be ready for a picture explosion. Not that my travel posts are ever short on pictures, but I'm just sayin'.

We headed out immediately on a walk along the east side of the Arno River to get oriented to the cities layout, and check out the bridges. My easy travel/walking gear always included reading glasses, camera, and side shoulder clutch sized purse. When I go shopping, or need other items, I put these original things all into a larger shoulder purse. I would find out in about 2 hours that I should've brought the larger bag with a couple of umbrellas in it, for it rained in a complete bursting of clouds for about 45 minutes in the late afternoon.

Calm before the storm. Still very bright sunny colors abound in the buildings and homes, just like the rest of Tuscany that we have just experienced.

This unique bridge is called Ponte Vecchio and has shops all along the sides of the medieval arched bridge. Apparently it was once a common thing to have butcher shops, and markets occupying this space. Now it is full of jewelry and touristy souvenirs instead.

The Hubby noticing the door type coverings for the shops. Half come down to connect with the half that lift up. They are ornately carved wood and we noticed the beautiful old hinges and locks that held them together. He bought me some cool jewelry of Rose Gold. (Thanks Hun)

This guy just looks perturbed. I wouldn't want to have met him in a dark alley, (or at the dinner table either, I suppose.)

Then we went in search of the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore. The marble exterior in greens, peaches, and whites is pretty amazing. The detail that went into this facade is incredible and we enjoyed seeing it both from the ground...

Pretty fancy Gothic Revival finished in the 1800's. The "Duomo" as it is called, was started in 1296 and we were able to go up to the dome (a few pictures down here.)

The David by Michelangelo was the most breathtaking piece of art I have ever seen. Its detail and the beauty of the human body, its capturing of the power, strength and innocence, the magnificence of the  Carrara marble, and the dome that was built to house it all add to its beauty. I was truly amazed that I was so moved by it as I was.

You see him holding onto a rock and sling which goes up his back and across his left shoulder where he is holding the end of it in his left hand. Apparently Michelangelo wanted him to look strong, yet have the strength manifest in his intellect. It worked. Completely.

End of story.

But there was more to see in this old art capital.

Lots of plaster pieces that were studied by various artists and marked in specific areas to measure distance when the sculpture was being carved. I guess they take calipers and angles to make sure they are as close as possible to perfection.

How about these streets?  Crazy European streets. I guess a horse and carriage never has to pass another horse and carriage.

This is after climbing up to the base of the Duomo. Heaven and hell are represented from the top to the bottom. Quite imaginative. 

 We made it to the top of the Duomo!!!!! Yeah!

Looking out toward the clock tower which is 6 meters shorter. Look at those sucka's over there.

 The builders carefully stored the measuring implements they made for all the stairs, domes, arches, etc. If anyone every needs to fix something, here's the place to begin.

 Should I touch him? He winked at me.

A model of David out in the elements. Still impressive, but not as spiritual for me.

 The Uffizi museum was FULL of cool stuff.  Here's Venus coming ashore.

 The Three Graces in Botticelli's Primavera. I didn't know about them. They are also referred to as the Charites and represent charm, beauty, and creativity in Greek Mythology. There are many famous artists and paintings that depicted them. Here they are with Mercury and Venus.

The whole museum is an art piece. It is formerly a castle where the Florentine Royals lived.

And if they needed to flee quickly from their enemies, they'd run across the Vecchio bridges top floor that is unoccupied to this day.

 Sculptures and paintings everywhere.

This wall looked like it had cameo's decorating the columns. Very cool paint job, I'd say.

One thing we didn't get a picture of was of us eating a Gelato.  Seriously almost daily we would go get a yummy cone or cup of various different flavors of the cold wonderful stuff.  Should really have a picture of that. It was how we spent 15% of our time. (Insert smile here)

We ate huge Florentine style steak which we shared, and pasta, fresh vegetables, and fish. We continued to walk our feet off, which made us sleep well so we could be ready for the next leg of our trip.

Here we come Prague.

Baby Boy Bubbles

My DIL and I threw a shower a couple weeks ago for our sweet friend and hairdresser. We have known her husbands family for 19 years and actually hers too - just her grandmother. We've known her for about 6 or 7 now. 

I saw the invitations on Amy Atlas Blog last year and had "Pinned" them for just this time.
So we changed the colors and added a couple things, and ordered a set of party decor from Penandpaperflowers. Most of my ideas stemmed from these designs.

I really thought the address labels made the invites look great. I bought 8.5"x11" label paper because my old 500 sheets of sticker paper was all used up. It took me about 15 years, but I used it all up. These  100 labels cost about the same amount that the old 500 sheets. Time has a habit of making things more expensive.

 I found this diaper tricycle idea online.

Turned out pretty good.  (more on this later)

I made dots out of chiffon for the tables.

 My friend and Krista's made these Oreo POPS. We had POPpyseed Strawberry salad.

 We had POP corn,  Jello POPS, Cupcake POPS, SodaPOP, LolliPOPS, anything POP.

 Never thought I'd be making Jello for anyone let alone for a party, but it was so colorful and pretty.

 The entryway to the house had a ladder with a welcoming sign and bubbles streaming from a machine on top of it.

Welcome to the guest of honor.

One of the guests also made a fancy diaper bicycle. What a pair.

 We had about 40 women at the party and they all enjoyed chatting for a few hours. It was a lovely evening for an outdoor party.

The mother-to-be received all sorts of love and gifts for her new little guy. 

He should arrive in October.

Congratulations Krista!

Independence Day Quilt

 I started this quilt last year a month or so before the 4th of July. I quit working on it after I didn't get it finished, in leu (is that how I should spell it?) lieu (thanks to my niece Megan for helping me be a little more literate) of finishing the next projects on my so called table.

Then this year there was a big wedding in our lives, and life got in the way of getting back to the quilt in time to finish it for the celebration of our Country.

I bought the pattern at a cute quilt store in Livermore, CA and it is by Verna Mosquera at "The Vintage Spool." Called Faded Glory if you want to look at her things.

 The pattern calls for hand stitching all the appliqués on by hand, and I had completed a few of them last year, but I decided I didn't need to take the time and effort to do them this way now.  I used iron-on backing on each individual piece and then machine stitched each design with a blind hem stitch or a satin stitch when I thought it would look best. This quilt is not going to be going through wash even once per year, so it'll hold up just fine with the iron on. There are 12 main designs and I think they are so cute that I'll probably make a few pillows or table runners out of some of the patterns eventually.

 The design above is Uncle Sam's hat with a bouquet of flowers in it. A few of the flowers are just cut outs of fabric flowers in a particular piece of fabric. This method of piecing is called Broderie Perse and is basically just fussy cutting a section of fabric that you want to place onto another fabric for a pretty addition to the quilt. You can see the red/pink flowers above are not pieced with stamens and petals, but  cut all in one already printed flower. Apparently they used to do this with Persian or English chintz fabrics for a specific look.

 The firecracker above had bugle beads hand sewn on for the burst of fire on the end. Very cute, if I do say so.

 Same on this wagon full of firecrackers. The blue and red sparklers are beaded.

Another technique I've used on the quilt is my own idea of using my cool embroidery machine to make a couple of sectioned flowers, cutting them out and then sewing them together. Nice new type of embroidery I've never tried before.

The whole thing turned out very well, even if it is the middle of August.

Better luck on my Thanksgiving quilt?

Faux Fire Crackers

I "pinned" some crafty wood fire cracker decorations last year and after saving our old 4 x 4 posts from the backyard redo, I thought I should use them up. I like using things up because then I can clean out a cupboard or nook & cranny that they are holding up in.
I added my little touches without purchasing anything except a new jar of mod podge. Pretty good deal.
I sent some to my two girls for their homes and my DIL who lives close by helped by saving me some postage.

 When I'm in the middle of a craft project, my kitchen island tends to look like .... a huge mess. This time was no exception.

I used one power tool, and this cut a 1 1/2 inch circle in the top of the square crackers so I could insert a tea light candle in case some one really wants to "light" it up. I had our carpenter from the house project cut up my firecrackers last year when he was redoing the back yard so that saved me a few minutes.
Always thinking ahead.

 I had plenty of fancy papers to use for what ended up to be 6 sets of "firecrackers."  I made 4 inch square ones in 3 heights, and 2 inch circular crackers also in 3 different heights. One of my favorite additions was these cute old fashioned advertisements from the early 1900's. I just glued them right onto the sides of the crackers.

 I also had some little candles that look like pop bottle rockets that made a fun addition to some of the sets.

Hope everyones July was fine and Yankee Doodle Dandy!