Monthly Archives: November 2015
Europe Vacation 2015: Stockholm
This page marks the beginning of a very adventurous day in the capitol city of Sweden – Stockholm! While our plane landed in Stockholm we were whisked away to Uppsala right away, and now the Johansson family brought us back to Sweden to enjoy the day.
Our first stop was along the harbor to enjoy the panoramic view of the harbor and all of the places that we were going to see during the rest of the day. I took a series of pictures of the harbor that I pieced together to put on this page. Now, before you all start emailing me – I do have a panoramic setting on my camera and I could have created a picture that way – but I have found that they are very expensive to get printed that way, and I like the staggered effect that putting the pictures together in this way has.
Also on this page are an antique map of Stockholm that is over 100 years old that I purchased on Ebay! As well as a plastic coated map that I bought after the trip on Ebay as well. You may ask why I did this and did not collect a map on the way, and the main reason was that I completely forgot to do so. I like having the maps so that we can look at them later and find the places we visited on the maps. This newer map is mounted to the outside of the plastic protector sheet so that it can be opened by the viewer.
The antique map is mounted inside of the plastic protector sheet that it came in so that I didn’t have to put a glue or sticker onto the antique map, and I used the brown background of that protector sheet as a border color for the other items on the page.
Europe Vacation 2015: Uppsala Ephemera
This page holds ephemera from several of the things that we did on this date in Uppsala, Sweden. This is a great example of a page that mixes several things together if you don’t have enough photographs and ephemera to take up a whole spread from a single event.
The pink theme of this page is based on the napkin in the bottom right hand side. It is from a candy and ice cream store (Triumf Glass) that is a favorite of our exchange student Jonathan. We got a kick out of the Swedish word for ice cream which is “glass”. A dangerous thing to eat if you ask for “glass” in the United States 🙂 ! The right hand page background is of pink ice cream scoops, and the left hand background color was chosen to match. I selected bright neon green borders for the pictures and ephemera to balance the bright green “Uppsala Musser” / Uppsala Museums brochure in the bottom left hand corner.
Also included on this page is a made of Uppsala that is affixed to the outside of the plastic sheet protector so that the viewer can open it up to look at it, as well as a menu from the “Taco Bar” where we had lunch. This is where our exchange student Jonathan took us to eat after I asked if we could eat somewhere “Swedish” :).
Europe Vacation 2015: Old Uppsala Church
Next to the Uppsala Viking Burial Mounds is the Old Uppsala Church. It is an amazing thing to be inside of a structure that is over 1000 years old and to be able to see the various versions of the building within the stone walls. In the garden cemetery of the church was a building that looked like an old stave church, but I think that it was being used to store garden tools.
I chose a red and brown theme for this page to compliment the stones, bricks, and roof of the church. I placed the brochure for the church on the page held by a strip of cardstock. I did this because the brochure had information on the back that I wanted to be able to view, and therefore could not affix it directly to the page. If the viewer wants to read this brochure they would need to remove the entire page from the plastic sheet protector in order to remove it from the holding cardstock strip.
The photographs are bordered in brown, and the two border strips on the right hand side were created using a Creative Memories tearing ruler. Adding a side border like this often will add interest to the page, and make it feel multi-dimensional.
Europe Vacation 2015: Gamla Uppsala
After visiting the Gamla Uppsala Museum we proceeded outside to look at the Viking burial mounds and to climb to the top of two of them. I loved the green colors in the picture and in the tourist guidebook that I bought at the museum store, so I wanted to theme this page in greens and blues.
I decided to make this page a little more artistic and made the background pages myself to match the three burial mounds. I used blue cardstock as the base, and use sand paper to rub away some of the color to give the impression of clouds. I then cut green and yellow cardstock to look like the mounds and the walkway. I outlined these two in black marker to help define them a little more and to help them stand out. I then used a black marker to hand draw in the fencing.
The photographs are bordered in a slightly different green to help them stand out a little bit more. The guidebook is a little heavy to mount on the outside of the plastic sheet protectors as is my usual practice, so instead it is held in place by a strip of cardstock that is attached to the page with brads. If the viewer wants to read the guidebook they would need to pull the whole page out and then slip the guidebook to the left to remove it from the holder. While it is not as convenient for the reader, I believe that it will hold up for a longer time frame doing it this way.
Europe Vacation 2015: Gamla Uppsala Museum
The next stop on this busy day was a trip to the original center of Uppsala, now known as Gamla Uppsala. We stopped first at the Gamla Uppsala Museum which shared the Viking history of the area. Since there were very few English signs in the museum Levi did not see the suggested age range for the Viking dress up area for kids!
I selected orange to be the basis for the spread for two reasons: 1. the orange at the top of the museum brochure, and 2. Levi’s orange sweatshirt which seemed to dominate the pictures on this spread. I chose a muted orange background paper, and the created a border of a thin bright orange and a thicker darker orange. This helps to bring out the brighter oranges in the pictures without being too bring on the eye.
On the left hand page where I placed the Museum brochure I used a quadruple border to help balance the space on the page. The brochure is affixed to the outside of the plastic page protector so that it can be easily opened and viewer by the reader.
Europe Vacation 2015: Carolina Rediviva and Uppsala Slott
The name of this page, doesn’t do much to explain the two places that this page represents. Unfortunately on this day many of the places that we went did not allow pictures to be taken, or where too dark for them to show up properly. So the brochures on the left hand page do the best job of explaining to the viewer what we did in these two locations. The three brochures are not affixed to the background paper in any way so that the viewer can pull them out to find out more.
The Carolina Rediviva is the main building of the Uppsala University Library and contains a small museum of ancient documents and books. The most famous of which is a “Silver Bible” that was created with a silver cover and silver paint.
The Uppsala Slott is one of the Swedish Royalty’s properties in Uppsala which used to be the capitol of Sweden. We toured the ruins of the original Castle which were incredibly interesting, but they were not giving tours of the current structure on the day that we were there.
The pictures on the right hand page are: Left Top: Carolina Rediviva; Left Bottom: Uppsala Slott; Right: Cannons on top of the ruins of the original castle.
Europe Vacation 2015: Uppsala Domkyrk
The second day that we were in Sweden, Jonathan took us on a tour of Uppsala. We started at the main Cathedral of Uppsala called the Uppsala Domkyrk. This is the tallest church structure in Scandinavia. The church has a fascinating history and many important figures in Swedish history are interred within the building – discover more about the history from Wikipedia.
When we were in the bookstore at the back of the church I saw a door which looked like a vault door with words that made me think something valuable was inside. I asked Jonathan what it meant and he asked the Cashier who told it was an elevator to the church treasury which is high in one of the towers. Jonathan did not know that it was there, and so we paid a fee to go and see the treasures of the church and State that were inside.
The left hand page holds the 3 brochures from the church and the treasury. I created a pocket using two pieces of cardstock and cut a slit in the front one to hold the brochures so that they can be taken out to be viewed. The right hand page contains pictures from inside and outside of the church. We were not permitted to take pictures in the treasury and so none are on this spread.
Europe Vacation 2015: Rune Stones and King’s Castle
Jonathan (Our first exchange student), and his mother, picked us up from Arlanda Airport and drove us to their home near Uppsala, Sweden. Once we got to their home and we dropped off our bags, Jonathan took us on a short road trip to see some Viking Rune Stones that were near his house, as well as the Swedish King’s Hunting Lodge/Castle. I was amazed that we were able to basically drive right up to the front door.
The greenness of the Swedish countryside was breath taking, and I decided to use a green background on this spread to emphasize the beauty and aliveness of the nature around us. I created a double border around the two sets of pictures. This was done manly because the pictures on the right side did not align up in a rectangle. I did not want a lot of border color to show through to distract from the green of the background and this helped to solve this problem. The left hand border was created by using a tearing border ruler that Creative Memories used to sell, but I haven’t seen any for quite a while. It is basically a ruler with a jagged edge which helps to tear paper in a straight line but with jagged edges. I then space the two parts of the paper a little bit a part to create the effect that you can see above.
