A Scottish ....

.... Valentine's Day.  My cousin got married in Edinburgh last week, so we went over there for a few days.  The wedding was held in Mansfield Traquair - it's a deconsecrated church in the Georgian New Town section of Edinburgh and is the most magical wedding venue I've ever seen.  Here's the front door:

And here's the main interior all set up for eating and a closer shot of the altar area where the ceremony took place:

Isn't it divine?!

The wedding invitation was art deco in style, so I made a card with a nod to that era.  Here it is:

I'm entering the following challenges: Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge ("Upcycle/Recycle" - I've used a little heart charm from a Lindt rabbit), Crafty Cardmakers ("Love, love, love"), Creative Card Crew ("Love"), Lemon Shortbread and Creative Inspirations ("Anything Goes") and Moving Along with the Times ("Words Only - No Image").

I used liberal amounts of gold embossing powder, to go with the black/red/kraft colour scheme and the art deco style lettering.  I also gold-embossed some wood veneer hearts - they came out really well.  Here's a side-shot:

Recipe:

Paper: Basic Grey "Kraft Basics"

Font: "Betty Noir" dafont.com

Other: Gold e.p., ribbon from stash, Lindt bunny charm, Studio Calico wood veneer hearts

Thanks for looking!

Buon Giorno ....

.... after the mayhem of work on the house, we escaped to Italy for four days.  Had such a good time, packed an awful lot in, but did some really good relaxing in the times when we weren't doing other stuff.  The weather was perfect for us, bit of rain (warm rain!) on the first day, then the sun came out, but it never got higher than 26 degrees, thank goodness.  I've been doing Italian lessons over the past 9 months or so - got a chance to practice a bit on this holiday.  My son's friend, who is only four but has a masterful command of both English and Italian, was only too willing to correct me at every occasion!!!  We took a lot of very random photos, here's a small selection:

The view from the playground of our friend's son's school:

 

My son on the climbing frame:

 

I'll take this one, Mum!

Whilst we were there, the Mille Miglia vintage car race actually came through our village.  Fantastic old racing cars, racing on normal roads.  With typical Italian disregard for safety, the roads aren't closed, there are no safety barriers or crowd control - it was great fun!!!  There were over 400 vintage cars in the race, and they were preceded by a load of modern Ferraris - my son and I were standing roughly where the small group are, but on the wrong side of the barrier, when the Ferraris came through - we were flattening ourselves against that barrier, glad we didn't get our toes run over!!Here's a few old cars coming through, see the guy on the bicycle crossing the road behind them!  We were heading into Rome that night, and ended up driving in the race for about 10km, right behind a stunning 1954 Mazerati - what a memory!

Cappucino time - spot the tourists under the awning!

La famiglia!

Laundry day in Narni:

Spot the whitest person in the village:

We came back to cleaning up the house after the workmen had finished, and to major reconstruction of our garden that's still ongoing.  I finally have my craftroom back, just have to get some time to make things!

Thanks for looking!