Monday, August 30, 2010

Château de Versaillles

As I mentioned yesterday, we spent a few hours in the Montmartre part of Paris. Then the group met back up at the bus and we headed south to Versailles. I have a need to clarify...I am doing these pages and journaling to you from what I remember. The photos I had taken helps a lot because they are date stamped. Unfortunately, they are not time stamped though. That would make my job a whole lot easier, wouldn’t it? There are certain events that trigger a memory or so. I remember hubby needing to eat. He was a borderline diabetic at that time and tracking eating times were a bit more difficult than normal. Anyhow, we were in the town of Versailles, looking for a place to grab a sandwich. There was a little sidewalk café who was still open, but were going to be closing shortly. Most of the café’ close up around 1pm. Luckily for us, this one was still serving. Everything was written in French, and we had no idea what was what! LOL So the lady behind the counter pointed to the top item, "Gammon" and started making a pig sound. Turns out, she was trying to tell us that was a ham sandwich. We all laughed and said "Oui, Oui!" So we took our "sandwich au jambon et de la bière" (sandwich and beer) outside to a little table and enjoyed!
Bon Appetit!


Afterwards, we went back to the Château of Versailles. I was in utter amazement of the how spectacular this grounds and the palace was. Did you know that this was suppose to be a hunting lodge of the royal family? This excerpt was taken from Wikipedia, "Louis XIII's successor, Louis XIV, had a great interest in Versailles. He settled on the royal hunting lodge at Versailles and over the following decades had it expanded into one of the largest palaces in the world (Félibien, 1703; Marie, 1972; Verlet, 1985). Beginning in 1661, the architect Louis Le Vau, landscape architect André Le Nôtre, and painter-decorator Charles Le Brun began a detailed renovation and expansion of the château. This was done to fulfill Louis XIV's desire to establish a new centre for the royal court. The court was officially established there on 6 May 1682.
No wonder they had an uprising and revolution!



In 1993, we didn’t have digital cameras, but that didn’t stop me from snapping picture after picture after picture! I wanted to preserve this time and memories forever.
For these pages, I used CTMH’s MRK, "Passages." I used CTMH’s how to book, "Imagine" for the left page layout. The right page is from "Passages" WOTG kit’s right page. Of course like the intro page I shared a couple of days ago, I added a lot more embellishments to the page and changed it. On both pages, I distressed all the papers’s edges and used Fiskars’ and Martha Stewart’s border punches. All the florals are spiral flowers. Click here for a still picture tutorial or click here for a video tutorial on how to make your own spiral flowers. I thought I would try something different than what the tutorials said to do. Instead of using straight cutting scissors, I pulled out my decorative cutting scissors, dusted them off and used them. It really gives the flowers a more realistic look to them. On the right page, under the red roses, I made a flower using a flower loom. Most of the time, I would use thin width ribbon, or yarn or fibers, or waxy flax, but I tried using " ribbon this time. I sewed a button and a die cut flower to the center and then put the two spiral roses on either side, surrounding the bouquet with tiny Prima flowers with chocolate brads in the center. 
That’s not all to these pages. There is more than what meets the eye. In the lower left corner of the right page, I wanted to show what it was like walking through the gates and encountering this magnificent palace.

 
But wait there is STILL more!
I didn’t want to make that center picture of the palace any smaller but I also wanted to share more of the gardens and fountains of behind the palace. So, the picture and mat in the center of the right page is 5"x11". So, I doubled the height, scored it at the halfway mark and made a whole other layout in the inside.
 
 
I used the "Say It With Crystals" flourishes to give the effect of the water sprouting up from the statues in the fountains. As you can see most of the titles on all the pages are in French...I wanted to keep the ambiance of being in France with these pages. I see a lot of French influence in my every day life, which I think would go unnoticed if we didn’t go to Paris.
Well, Family and Friends, this is how I spent my month of July. Once I decided to use "Passages" for my monthly workshop for July, that imaginary "light bulb" went off! What better time than right NOW, to get started on scrapping all those pictures of our Paris trip. Now its only been 17 years since we were there. So, this is about all I have done for the Paris album. I still have all the papers, and embellishments and ribbon and everything else all out to be used for some more Paris layouts. So, I better go get busy and do some more pages, so I can share with all of you.
So, until next time....
 
Happy Scrappin’!!
Leanne

3 comments:

Lori said...

Gorgeous!!!

Haley D. said...

Merveilleux! Magnifique! J'aime tes pages! ;)

Gamma said...

Oh je vous remercie beaucoup!