Monthly Archives: January 2016
Europe Vacation 2015: Gustavianum 3 – Art Cabinet
My favorite exhibit at the Gustavianum was The Augsburg Art Cabinet. It was a fascinating piece of furniture that I spent quite a bit of time exploring.
Wikipedia shares that “Cabinets of curiosities (also known as Kunstkabinett, Kunstkammer, Wunderkammer, Cabinets of Wonder, and wonder-rooms) were encyclopedic collections of objects whose categorical boundaries were, in Renaissance Europe, yet to be defined. Modern terminology would categorize the objects included as belonging to natural history (sometimes faked), geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious or historical relics, works of art (including cabinet paintings), and antiquities. “The Kunstkammer was regarded as a microcosm or theater of the world, and a memory theater.”
Unfortunately my pictures of the cabinet did not turn out due to the class case surrounding the cabinet and the poor lighting in the room. So I purchased the large postcard on the left hand side of the spread and the booklet that is on the right side of the spread. The postcard is tripled bordered to help emphasize the massive size of the cabinet (taller than I am!). The booklet is held in place by two brads so that t can be carefully removed so that the viewer can open it to see the contents of the cabinet in great detail.
Notice that I have slipped a round brown museum ticket sticker on this page as well, indicating that it is part of the three spread series of pages of the Gustavianum. (See Spread 1, Spread 2).
Europe Vacation 2015: Gustavianum 2
This spread is the second of our visit to the Gustavianum. This page show cases the Anatomical theatre which was built over 100 years before the American Revolution!
Wikipedia shares that “an anatomical theatre was an institution used in teaching anatomy at early modern universities. The theatre was usually a room of roughly amphitheatrical shape, in the centre of which would stand the table on which the dissections of human or animal bodies took place. Around this table were several circular, elliptic or octagonal tiers with railings, where students or other observers could stand and get a good view of the dissection almost from above and unencumbered by the spectators in the rows in front.”
The left hand page shows pictures from the anatomical theatre including two that show how steep the rows are. It was quite a chore to get up and down the steps. In the center of these pictures is the round brown entrance sticker that we had to wear while in the museum, which you will see on the two other pages from this event. (See Spread 1, Spread 3).
The right hand page also includes one of these stickers, along with exhibits from the museum. I really enjoy the bottom right hand picture when my son seems to be bonding with the skeleton of a gorilla.
Europe Vacation 2015: Gustavianum 1
On the fourth day of our vacation to Sweden we visited the Gustavianum museum.
Wikipedia shares that the “Gustavianum is the former main building of Uppsala University, built 1622–1625. The name Gustavianum comes from Gustavus Adolphus who in the 1620s donated money for its construction… Since 1997 it has functioned as the home for Uppsala University’s museum – Museum Gustavianum. Under the cupola is the theatrum anatomicum, the second oldest in the world added to the building in the mid 17th century by Olaus Rudbeck, professor of medicine and amateur architect, among other things.
The Museum Gustavianum includes exhibitions of objects from the university collections of Classical, Egyptian and Nordic antiquities, as well as an exhibition on the history of science and the history of Uppsala University. The Augsburg art cabinet, the best preserved of the Kunstschränke made by Philipp Hainhofer, which was given to Gustavus Adolphus in 1632 by the City of Augsburg, is on display in the Museum Gustavianum.”
Since this building is almost 400 years old I wanted to create an antique theme for the series of spreads. The left hand page includes some pictures on the way to the museum and a brochure that is mounted to the outside of the plastic protector sheet so that it can be opened by the viewer.
The right hand page has two very thin pocket strips to hold two more brochures from the museum. I wanted to put all of these brochures in the scrapbook since there was so much to see in the museum that I couldn’t do it justice with just my pictures. The squares on the strips are brads that are punched all the way through that background paper to help create stability for the brochures so that they don’t tip.
The brown circle is actually the ticket sticker that we had to wear while we were in the museum. There are three spreads for this location, and I have placed one of these stickers on each of the three spreads as a clue that they all belong together. (See Spread 2, and Spread 3).
Europe Vacation 2015: Swedish Currency
This spread is a single page, as it is the last page of Volume 1. I know that it is hard to believe that I have filled an album with only 3 days of our vacation, but we did so much in those first three days that it took up a whole album!
Usually when we travel to another country I try to collect both bills and coins to add to the scrapbook. In this case I saved 209 Kronor which is about $25 US. You can find out the current exchange rate HERE. This means that these pages can sometimes be fairly expensive, but I think that they are really cool mementos of the trip.
The coins and bills are both placed in plastic protector sheets. The bills plastic protector sheets are hinged on their blue background so that they can be flipped over if the page is taken out of the full page plastic protector.
I chose the Swedish flag colors for the page, but I am not sure that I liked the way that it turned out, but it works. The ribbon was placed on the coin protector sheet to help keep the coins from sliding out if the album is turned upside down.
Europe Vacation 2015: Drottningholm
This was a busy day for us, after the Vasa Museum and Skansen we drove to Drottningholm, which is the residence of the Swedish monarchy. We arrived too late to visit the inside of the palace, but we did get to enjoy the royal gardens, and watch the changing of the guard. I used gold background paper for this spread, first to highlight the beautiful yellow palace, but also to emphasize the elegance and majesty of the location.
In order to help the borders around the pictures stand out, I used black for a second border, which also helps to tone down the black in the two pictures of the historical signs. I like to use pictures of historical signs like these when I am unable to pick up brochures from a location. My son also had a great time getting selfies with the guard, who apparently had to stand there and take it!
Europe Vacation 2015: Skansen 2
This is the second spread of our trip to Skansen, and it is dedicated to the animals of the zoo. Notice that the background paper for the two pages mimics each other. The paper that I used for the background on the left hand page, I used for the borders on the right hand page and visa versa. both sets of paper came out of a “safari” pack, which I know is not very Swedish, but it did work wonderfully for these pictures of animals at the various zoo on the property.
If you look carefully at the bottom left hand picture you will see that the bear is looking at something shiny. It is a cell phone! Someone dropped it in the cage and the bear was getting a kick out of playing with it. Someone kept calling it which kept his attention. We never did see it rescued, but my guess is that it got scratched up quite a bit! We also saw reindeer (which was something I hoped to see in Sweden), and some very brave squirrels. We enjoyed the lemurs, but only my son enjoyed the snakes!
Europe Vacation 2015: Skansen 1
After we visited the Vasa Museum, we walked over to Skansen. The Skansen’s website shares that “Skansen was founded by Artur Hazelius in 1891. It is the world’s oldest open-air museum and is situated on the island of Djurgården within the city limits of Stockholm.”
We found it to be a mix of historical museum, living history museum, zoo, and children’s entertainment. We were only able to spend a little time at Skansen, but I am sure that it could be a full day event, as we only saw some of the parts of the facility.
I chose orange as the theme color her to match the “tram” ticket, brochure, and my son’s sweatshirt. The left hand page serves as a holder for the Skansen brochures. The black and white paper is the bag from the Skansen Museum store, and the orange ticket is for the children’s tram that we rode on to get a quicker tour of the facility so that we did not have to walk as much. I used a rotary cutter to cut the slit in the black and white bag to slip the brochures in.
The right hand page has a picture of my very yummy lunch, my son trying out stilts, and a cool picture of an old log home juxtaposed with Stockholm’s modern TV tower.
Europe Vacation 2015: Vasa Museum 2
This is the second page from our visit to the Vasa Museum in Stockholm. It contains only ephemera from the trip since my photographs are all on page 1. I did this primarily because I did not have very many good pictures from the museum, since it was so dark, and I had a lot of ephemera. The museum has a wonderful museum store with many things to buy.
On the left hand page is a laser wooden ship and a large postcard of the whole ship – this was nice to find since it was difficult to get good pictures. The right hand page contains another postcard of the intricate carvings on the back of the ship as well as a book of stamps (closed), the rubber bracelet, and part of the paper bag from the museum shop.
Europe Vacation 2015: Vasa Museum 1
As part of our day in Stockholm we visited the Vasa Museum – which is often touted as the number one thing to do in Stockholm, and frankly, I can see why. Wikipedia shares that “The Vasa Museum (Swedish: Vasamuseet) is a maritime museum in Stockholm, Sweden. Located on the island of Djurgården, the museum displays the only almost fully intact 17th century ship that has ever been salvaged, the 64-gun warship Vasa that sank on her maiden voyage in 1628. The Vasa Museum opened in 1990 and, according to the official web site, is the most visited museum in Scandinavia.” Everything about this museum is fantastic – from the ship itself, to the architecture of the building housing the ship, to the interactive and engaging exhibits in the museum.
The Museum is fairly dark, to help protect the ship from sunlight and the building is cool, also to protect the ship. Since the museum was dark many of my pictures did not turn out very well. I chose a brown theme for this page as a homage to the wooden ship. On the left hand side of the spread are two pictures from outside of the museum, as well as the Museum brochure, which is affixed to the outside of the plastic protector sheet so that the reader can open it to read it. On the right hand page are pictures of the tall ship – I apologize that they are so dark, and a rare picture of me within the spread. I tend to be the one taking pictures, and am not often in them. The “Vasa” title is made with cork letters that I purchased at a craft store.
