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Europe Vacation 2015: Returning Home
This is the final spread of our 4 album scrapbook of our trip to Europe in summer 2015. It actually captures two days and two different flights. On the morning of July 34rd Mrs Ollmann took us to the Hamburg airport and we flew on SAS to Arlanda in Sweden. We then stayed the night at the amazing Arlanda Clarion Hotel, and left the next morning on SAS to Chicago, IL. On our long flight to Chicago we actually ended up in amazing seats with a ton of leg room (see pictures) and our own personal interactive screens. I watched 4 movies on the way home and was surprised when they announced that we were getting ready to land – it was the perfect ending to our trip!
The left hand side of this spread highlights the Arlanda Clarion Hotel with pictures out of our hotel window looking at the airport as well as our room and pool keys. I also attached a welcome card that was on our bed as well as the used the hotel stationary to journal on for this spread.
The right hand side highlights the two trips that we took, with the boarding passes resting behind some photographs from the flight. We were so impressed with our leg room that I took a picture of it and another of the personal screen that we had. I also used two photographs from that screen of our flight path as I thought it was cool to watch where we were on the trip. Thanks SAS for a great flight!
Europe Vacation 2015: Saying Goodbye to Sweden
Our final day with the Johansson’s came too quickly. We had such a great time with them, and are so thankful that they shared their home with us and showed us around their wonderful country.
This is the final back page of this album, and so it is only a single page. I placed pictures of us saying goodbye as well as some pictures of the flags at Gamla Uppsala on this last page. It is a little hard to see in this two dimensional picture – but I carefully cut out the suitcases from an identical background page and placed them with raised tabs on this page to bring three dimensions to this page. If you look carefully you can see the shadow at the bottom of the suitcases caused by this technique.
Europe Vacation 2015: Vaksala Kyrka
On our way back from Stockholm we stopped by the Vaksala Kyrka. (For information in English check out Wikipedia.) This incredibly beautiful church was built during the 12th century. It has been through many renovations and one of the most interesting things to me was to see the evidence of the various renovations in the stone and brick work. If you look closely at some of the pictures you can see old viking runes used as stones to build the structure. We arrived too late to be able to go inside, but we were able to wander around the outside, and see the beautiful structure.
Unfortunately it was overcast at this time and my pictures turned out kind of dark. Because of this I used a darker background to help the pictures stand out better on the page. I chose a background paper that had old writing on it to highlight the age of this location. I kept the page simple by adding borders of alternating colors and straight lines, but which still add dimension to the page.
Europe Vacation 2015: Stockholm and Stortorgskallaren
After visiting the Royal Palace we walked to the Restaurant Stortorgskallaren. This spread celebrates the walk to the restaurant and the amazing meal that we had.
The spread has a black background with gold accents. On the left hand page are pictures of Stockholm, including the top left hand picture which is of the official resident of the President of Sweden. In the center of the pictures is a gold Fleur-du-lis brad (which I know is not Swedish, but I thought that it looked good.) The pictures are bordered with a gold and black Fleur-du-lis pattern paper.
The right hand page has a strip of this same paper accented with some silverware washi tape placed behind a high quality napkin collected from the restaurant. To the right of the napkins are pictures of three of our meals – a hamburger, fish, and a wonderful steak! The food was delicious and the environment was noble and historic.
Europe Vacation 2015: Swedish Royal Palace Courtyard
This spread shows the areas around the Swedish Royal Palace. The background of this spread is actually the clear plastic bag from the Royal Palace Gift Shop. I carefully cut the bag apart and then folded it around white card stock paper to create this background, which I believe is the official pattern of the Swedish Royal Family. (Note: I have learned that if you are going to use this wrapping technique that you must cut the 12×12 cardstock down about 1/4 inch on two sides so that it will fit into the plastic protector sheets when you are done.)
The left hand page showcases royal portraits from inside the palace, a picture of us entering the palace, and two pictures of the inner courtyard. The right hand page has pictures of a military band that was performing, a laser cut wooden cutout of the palace, and an informational piece that I cut from a brochure. The pictures on both sides of the spread are bordered in a black and gold paper to help them stand out against the light background.
Europe Vacation 2015: Swedish Royal Palace
On this day we went to visit the Swedish Royal Family in their palace in Stockholm. They were kind enough to let me take some formal pictures of them while we were there (jk!). The day before we arrived in Sweden was the royal wedding of Prince Carl Philip and Sofia Hellqvist. Prince Carl is the second born of the Royal family, and I was able to watch the wedding as the Johansson family had recorded it so that they could watch it later. It was so cool to walk in the places that I had just seen on the TV.
My favorite part of these two spreads is that the background is actually royal family paper napkins that I purchased in the palace gift shop. I carefully opened the napkins, turned them upside down, placed white card stock on top of them, and then folded the napkin over the edges and taped down tightly. (Note: I have learned that if you are going to use this wrapping technique that you must cut the 12×12 cardstock down about 1/4 inch on two sides so that it will fit into the plastic protector sheets when you are done.)
The left hand page of this spread contains ephemera that I purchased in the Royal Palace gift shop: a Crown metal bookmark (middle), postcards of the royals, and the program from the tour of the palace. The program is affixed to the outside of the plastic protector sheet so that it can be viewed by the reader. To keep it from flapping open while the page is being turned, the pages are clipped together with a contemporary paper clip. The right hand page contains pictures of the banquet room and dancing hall that I saw earlier on television. The bottom right hand picture is a scale model of an earlier version of the castle that was in the castle dungeons as part of the tour.
This second spread is created in the same way as the first spread above. All of the photographs are bordered in gold paper. In this spread the left hand page show cases the entrance to the coronation room and the chapel were the royal wedding was held just 8 days earlier. The right hand page has a picture of the organ from the chapel, the entrance to the chapel, and pictures from inside the coronation room. Notice that the date in gold is the cut out which was left from creating the date plate on the first spread shown above.
Europe Vacation 2015:Midsommer Day
On Midsommer Day we went to Vattholma to see the traditional Tug of War contests. We were cheering for the Rasbo Pirates, who came second on this day, and also explains all of the pirate references on the page! Basically tug of war teams from several small towns in the area come together on this day to have tug of war contests with each other. It all happens with much fanfare and cheering and was quite an exciting event to be at.
I chose a green theme for this page due to all of the greenery in the photos that I wanted to use. I bordered the pictures in green, and used a tan accent color to border some of the stickers to help them stand out. On the left hand page you can see some of the caution tape that was used to cordone off the tug of war area, as well as a unique cone shaped popcorn container that we enjoyed at the event. I had some popcorn photograph paper which I used to “fill” the cone with popcorn. Both of these items were bordered in green as well.
Europe Vacation 2015:Midsommer Eve 3
We ended Midsommer Eve with a perfect meal outdoors on the deck. There were all kinds of raw and cooked fish, cheeses, sauces, and even reindeer if I remember correctly!
For this spread I bordered the pictures in blue, and then in yellow, to celebrate the national Swedish colors, and then also carefully attached a streamer of Swedish flags which I purchased at a gift store later in the trip. Each one is carefully glued on so that they do not move.
I ordered the background paper on Ebay before we even left for the trip and I felt that it worked perfectly for this spread. (hmm – did I mean the pages or the delicious food?)
Europe Vacation 2015:Midsommer Eve 2
This is the second page of our adventure at Disagarden on Midsommer Eve. This spread includes a map and program from the day. I bordered the program in pink and set it inside the plastic protector sheet so that it can be removed so that you can read all of the entries on the map page which is attached to the background paper.
On the right hand side of the spread are two sets of flowers that we collected on that day and carefully pressed in a book I was reading during the trip. When we returned home I used a laminating machine to carefully press them to card stock, and then mounted card stock onto a pink background paper. The laminating machine curled the card stock and so I used brads to affix the flower card stock to the page background paper.
While I realize that this page may not be quite as exciting as others, and also does not include any pictures, I wanted to highlight a unique form of ephemera that can be collected and included on scrapbook pages.
Europe Vacation 2015:Midsommer Eve 1
Midsommer is an important Holiday in the Swedish tradition, and so therefore is Midsommer Eve. (Midsummer in English). This day is usually celebrated in the country and involves maypoles, flowers, and eating outside. More information can be found at these links:
- https://sweden.se/culture-traditions/midsummer/
- http://www.visitsweden.com/sweden/Things-to-do/Swedish-Lifestyle/Swedish-traditions/Midsummer/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midsummer#Sweden
Our day started at the Disagarden, which is part of the UppsalaMuseet (Uppsala Museum), and is an outdoor living museum. It was the perfect place to start the day because the setting and the activities helped us to get the full authentic experience.
I chose blurry flower photograph background paper to remember all of the flowers from that day, and also cut out the top layer of the Date and Event from flower paper. To help these words stand out I bordered them with a darker solid purple paper. The letters were cut out using my Cricut machine. The left hand page has 4 pictures from the maypole bordered in purple, and the right hand page includes 3 more pictures from the day, including Jonathan trying out some stilts. I also included a picture of the entrance sign, which helps to place the location of the event on the page, as well as a maypole cut out that I bought at a gift store later in the trip. I originally had a square border on these 4 items, but it looked to strong filling out the square, so I used a pair of sharp pointed scissors to carefully cut the outline of the maypole dancers.
If you look carefully at the bottom right hand corner you will see three wheat seeds which my son dutifully collected from this adventure.
