Vatican City, Rome

The Vatican, a country within a country, is the centre of power for the Catholic religion. The Vatican has its own post office, stamps and radio broadcasting. We had to take a photo of the colourful uniforms of the Swiss guards, who we read about in Dan Brown’s Angles & Demons! Inside the Basilica we went first to see the ‘Pieta’, the famous statue of Mary & Jesus by Michelangelo. He made this when he was only 25!!

We climbed to the top of the St. Peter’s Basilica. More than 300 narrow, steep and winding steps led us to the top, where we had a view of the colonnade of Piazza San Pietro, designed by Bernini. On our way down we bought some postcards & used the Vatican stamps to post our letters.

By the time we got down, Lily was running a fever from the exertion! However we could not miss out going to the Vatican Museums because we simply could not leave without seeing the Sistine Chapel or Raphaels’ Rooms. I doubt Lily enjoyed anything much, but we did stop to look at the amazing ceilings. We could not photograph the Sistine chapel, but this ceiling will suffice. The amount of art kept in these museums is mind boggling!

Tag You're it!

I had to do a 'Tag, You're it!' layout for a DT I am on. I love the paisley prints but simply could not find appropriate photos. So these ones of DD during our Roman holiday will have to do :)

My Happy Thoughts

This layout goes into someone else's Circle Journal. It is about 'Happy Thoughts'. And even though I am not looking too happy in the photo, I used this one because it is the only sepia toned photo of me! I love sepia - it is very slimming ;)

My happy thoughts are very similar, I think to every one else's (good glass of wine, a meal with friends, children succeding in their lives etc etc.) so I will not put the second page here. Also, after 3 efforts at scanning I could not get the two background page colours to match. They do not look good (digitally I mean) side by side.

Natale

Layout for my album with my favorite photo from Christmas of 2005. Papers are from Chloe's Closet (I hope I remembered the name correctly - there are so many these days!). I am enjoying using the Hero Arts stamps that look like stitching. Very nice indeed!

Capitoline Museums

All papers are from Club Scrap. Layout inspired from a publication.

Here we are at the entrance to the Capitoline museums. Among other interesting things we saw lots of statues with their penises cut off – on orders of some extremely holy Pope in the 15th century. We saw a huge statue of Marcus Aurelius on a horse. The original is inside the museum. The copy is in the courtyard where we are standing. Pity Joe had to cut off the head in the photo.

Also here are the famous Lupa or She-wolf of Rome, Venus emerging from her bath, which is about 2400 years old and the Spinario, an exquisite statue from 1st century BC, of a little boy removing a thorn. We bought a small copy of this statue to remember our Roman holiday.

From the back of the Palazzo dei Conservatori we had a fabulous view of the Roman Forum, which we had already visited a day earlier.

My Butterfly!

I love the digital turn scrapbooking is taking. And while I am not yet completely converted to the digital scrapbook (I enjoy cutting paper too much!) I love all the digi~embellishments that I can use on the photos themselves. Here, I turned the main photo into B&W and then applied a frame and a little butterfly.

Winter in the Apennines

The poem frame is adapted from Longfellow & Cougar Wisdom:

Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow
Blanketing the earth.
Engulfing silence as it falls
Quietness and stillness everywhere.
Bringing peace
As the sun shines, the snow glistens.
Like a thousand diamonds that sparkle.
Smell the freshness of this winter wonderland
Trees laden with snow ...
Branches straining Bowing to the earth

The world needs Winter ... to rest.

This year we got to experience real winter! A few days after Christmas we decided to drive up to the mountains. It was snowing lightly when we left the town house. And by the time we reached our destination, everything was covered by a white blanket, thicker than anything we had ever seen before. It continued to snow for a few days and we were stuck! No chains on our car and no salt on the road in the mountains got us wondering if we would miss our flight back home. But in the meantime, the house was warm and snug; we started up all the fireplaces, made hot chocolate and really enjoyed the winter beauty of the Apennines.

With the New Year came sunshine and warm breezes. It was lovely watching the snow melting slowly. We stood under the firs and shook them till the snow fell off the branches. We watched the stalactites at the Fontana, dripping slowly, catching the rays of the sun, making exquisite rainbows. We were glad because while this was a winter wonderland, we were also free now to go back home!

What did Santa get you this year?

Ricky wrote a lovely letter to Santa asking for just one thing - a "very hard to find" game for his Play Station 2. Since he has been such a good boy this year, Santa had a surprise for him. Not only did he get his PS2 game, he also got a super cool Game Boy!

Christmas Lunch

The tree on the right hand side of the page was a last minute inspiration. I cut out the tree from a scrap piece of paper. Then using the negative as a stencil, I used a 'Pine Bough' stamp to fill it in. Then I just placed the circle stickers & the star on top.

Christmas lunch was at a very nice hotel in Salice Terme. Nonna was so pleased that we were given a private room - she thought that the hotel was treating her special and that made her day! Seated next to Masha is her brother who is a musician on a cruise ship which happened to be in Genoa during Christmas. Ricky, you were very well behaved and ate almost everything of this very special menu – this made me very happy! You also provided great entertainment for your cousin Lauretta with whoops & whistles. She really enjoys being with you!