Blog Archives
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: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: Anton’s Birthday
While we were visiting Jonathan in Sweden, his brother, Anton, turned 18, and we were fortunate enough to enjoy this special day with him and his family. In the early morning Anton’s mother made a traditional Swedish birthday cake covered in fresh strawberries and with quite an exciting candle on top! In the evening we joined Anton’s family and friends for a traditional Swedish meal – oh wait – that’s not true – we went to a restaurant called Texas Longhorn and had traditional American food!
These page are fairly simple. I used a cupcake background paper for the background of the left hand page and made sure to stick a Swedish flag on the page as well. For the right hand page I found a complimentary color background page, and for all of the pictures bordered them in a strawberry paper to pay homage to the strawberry cake that was had earlier in the day!
Europe Vacation 2015: Maps and Farmhouse
This page is an excellent example of blending two events into one spread. After visiting sites in Uppsala, Jonathan took us to his grandparents home where I took a few pictures of the outside gardens. I did not have enough pictures to fill a whole spread so i placed them only on the right hand side, and used the left hand side to put the maps from the days earlier adventures. These two maps are not attached the the page, but instead are just placed inside of the plastic page protector so that they can be removed to open and view. I chose an antiqued map background paper to compliment the fact that this spread holds maps.
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: 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: 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.
