Rome.

I have always wanted to visit Rome and throw a coin into the Trevi fountain.
Rome is beautiful even though there was so much graffiti.
I really enjoyed the tour bus which stopped at all the major sites.
Later we found it would have been cheaper to buy a bunch of bus tickets which cost 1 euro each. These can be bought in advance and then validated when you ride on the bus. We tried to visit St. Peters on the Saturday but the queue was 4 hours so we tried agaon on the Tuesday and got straight in. It was free entry and was breathtaking. We went to the Sistene Chapel which was expensive at 13 euros as you got sent around the whole building up and down stairs into rooms with only a few things in and it took over an hour to get to the chapel even though we went at a quiet time.

Florence.

This is pont bridge which was full of shops selling gold jewellry.
I found Florence very expensive for example the tour bus was 16 euros in Rome but 55 euros in Florence. We got fed up of Italian food and ended up going to a Chines restaurant for a meal and had the best chinese food I had ever eaten. It was also very reasonably priced. There are a lot of churches to visit and you can attend mass at some of them.

Venice.

I loved Venice and went on a gondola even though it was very expensive. It was 100 euros for half an hour for 6 people. It would still have been 100 euros for 2 people.
I read before I went it would be about 40 euros so it was a bit of a shock but at least it is something I may not be able to do again.

Fort William - a little taste of the Highlands

I thought I’d the opportunity to share with you the lovely area I live in. Fort William recently has, like most town centres, gone down hill, with lots of local business’s closing there doors due to high rates and low customer numbers, this, could be due to any number of reasons, none of which I’m here to talk about today. Today I’d like to share with you some of the more positive things about our area.

Fort William is the home of Ben Nevis, Britain’s largest mountain. Anoch Mhor is Ben Nevis’s neighbour and also where you’d head to if you fancy an “easy” trip up the mountains. Take the scenic gondola 2150ft up Anoch Mhor where you can ski, snowboard or just relax at the restaurant and enjoy the view. At the summit they have a fantastic Boardwise Terrain Park for the snowboarders, there is also a Ski school, and very excellent Ski patrol staff to look out for you.

The Scottish Six days trials has been running since 1909, although not based in Fort William as it now is. This is a famous motorbike trials event. Entrants travel from all corners of the world to take part in this endurance trial of rider and machine over six days of gruelling terrain. More recently Fort William has hosted the World Mountain Bike World Cup, and hosting the UCI Mountain bike championships, again they can be found at Anoch Mhor, where you can follow the paths and support the riders.

We have had hundreds of famous guest staying in our luxurious Inverlochy Castle. Sean Connery, Robert De Niro, Mel Gibson, Jerry Hall, Elton John, Barbara Streisand, Naomi Campbell, as well as HRH King Hussein of Jordan and HRH Queen Noor - regular visitors who describe Inverlochy as their Scottish Home.

The Hollywood blockbuster Braveheart was filmed in Glen Nevis, at the foot of Ben Nevis. Mel Gibson, was often spotted in the Town Centre when not filming. Wizard fans will also know that a lot of Harry Potter has been filmed around here too, with the famous the Hogworts Express, on our West Highland line from Fort William to Mallaig. Dozens of excited school children got to be part of the first film, although I think it wasn’t what they were expecting, with lots of hanging around and chugging back and forth on the same piece of railway line for hours!!

This is just a little taste of what goes on in my area – I hope you enjoy it.

Look after those breasts!

Last week I altered a bra. Not one that didn’t fit me any more, of course, but I have a friend, Sian, who took part in the London Moon Walk to raise money for research into something dear to every woman’s heart, breast cancer. This was a 26 mile walk through the London night that began at Hyde Park and finished, for Sian, 8 hours and 32minutes later, to raise awareness of this awful disease. Thousands of women (and some men too I’m pleased to say) took part and the majority proudly sported a bra, on show, to anyone who cared to look!

A group of us had been out for the evening a few days previously and the wine was flowing as usual, when the conversation got around to Sian’s Moon Walk. I got to thinking, ‘Well, I have all that stash at home, I’m sure I could come up with something,’ and heard myself volunteering to decorate her, as yet, plain bra. Somehow I also apparently offered my house as the venue for an Anne Summers party, but that’s another story!

She dropped the bra off on Thursday evening and I got to work straight away. I pulled out an old scarf I’d been saving for that 'certain' layout, some tasselled edging a friend had given me, a length of pretty pink fibre from a swap, a huge silk rose and some Prima flowers. By the end of the evening it wasn’t looking too bad and by Friday it was complete with the finishing touch – four strategically placed flowers on the cups. Just to stop it looking too bare, you understand! I handstitched everything - well, it's one thing to pin items to a layout but brads pinning your bra to your skin? I don't think so. ( Sorry for the poor photo by the way - it was taken in haste. )


Here is Sian modelling it on the Saturday morning of the walk. She told me afterwards that she braved the first few hours without the t-shirt but by midnight it grew too cold and she was glad to put on something warmer. I don’t blame her.

There is a more serious side to this blog entry as well. One of my best friends died of undetected breast cancer nearly 3 years ago now. One minute we were happily celebrating her 50th birthday and two months later she was disabled because it had spread to the base of her brain. Paula died 5 long years later and I was privileged to be with her on the night she died. I wouldn’t wish her end on anyone. She was a funny, loud, vibrant lady and we, her friends, miss her dearly. Please remember to check yourself regularly and, please, give our link on here a click every day. You’ll find it on the right hand side of this page, it won't take more than a couple of seconds, it won’t cost you a penny and it may well help to save someone’s life – just as Sian hopes her walk in her underwear has done.

Toot, Toot - A Class Act

Way back in the mists of time a lady called Gillian posted on a thread on UK Scrappers and asked if there were any more Gillians out there in the ether. Several mad women replied and we got chatting and we formed a UKS team called The Gogs. Mind you not all of the team were Gillians, we had a fair sprinkling of other names too. People would come in and chat and wander off again and generally we had a good laugh about every subject you could imagine.

Then disaster struck, UKS crashed and our thread was lost forever. But the Gogs kept in touch and we have become firm friends through the last few years.

We have shared each others joy, pain, achievements, sadness and the trials and tribulations of everyday life, supporting each other wherever we can.
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We, like many others, had been affected by Cancer, personally, relations, friends, workmates and acquaintances. Like Cath, who ran the Race for Life in memory of her brother, we also lost loved ones and we wondered what we could do to contribute, albeit in a small way, to funding research into this devastating disease.

It was suggested that we do our best to contribute what we could each month, by selling handmade cards, selling unwanted items, sponsorship etc.

We started working toward this end in May 2005 and in March 2006 we had collected through our efforts £405. We were elated that we had managed that amount - but the following year in February 2007 we sent our second donation, a staggering £1000.

What an achievement for 13 ordinary women!!!

This year we have made £300 and look forward to sending our next donation.

Here are just some of these wonderful, totally insane women that I am proud to call my friends

Visual Balance

Continuing on with the "science" of achieving balance on a scrapbooking page, we are delving further this week into the different types of balance that can be achieved.

The term “Balance” refers to some equal distribution of visual weight, so that everything works in harmony. However, visual Imbalance is used purposefully by designers to grab attention and to create more energetic impact.

The use of “white space” (irrespective of colour) on a layout represents creating visual balance through the absence of elements. Not only can we achieve horizontal balance (using the left and right hand sides of the page), but also consider vertical balance, where the axis is divided into top and bottom. With our sense of gravity, we are accustomed to seeing more weight toward the bottom. When the main distribution of weight is higher, the image becomes more unstable and dynamic, as can be seen in "Laughter" below.

A lot depends on whether you want a symmetrical or asymmetrical design to your page. In brief – a symmetrical design is evenly distributed across the page – by folding the page in half from left to right, a mirror image could also be formed. This is good for formal layouts – "The Four Seasons of Grace" to follow is an example of a scrapbooking page with symmetrical design elements, with a bit of a twist, where I have balanced the die-cut flowers with the embroidered ones, but put the paint chips on the top right and bottom left to avoid a feeling of "top heaviness".

Asymmetrical balance occurs when several smaller items on one side are balanced by a large item on the other side, or smaller items are placed further away from the centre of the screen than larger items. One darker item may need to be balanced by several lighter items. An asymmetrical design may be more dynamic, because it appears casual and less planned. Very careful planning is required here, because it is often harder to achieve overall balance. "Annie Walters" is a clear example of this type of asymmetrical balance.

There are more interesting examples of achieving asymmetrical balance in art here, represented in classical paintings:

With the increased popularity of circles on pages, radial balance must also be considered, where all the elements have a common central focus point. In this following case, "Katrina's 40th", the photo.

This type of balance is typically associated with circles, but I have used the heart shapes here as well.

Crystallographic balance is defined by having the same visual weight over the whole page – probably a bit harder to achieve with scrapbook pages, because our intention is for the photo to form the focus on the layout. However, I guess the following example is about the closest we could achieve in scrapbooking:

(I shall replace the dodgy scan later!) All these layouts are not recent, so it just goes to prove that we are often employing design principles even when completely unaware!

Now, if it were only as easy to achieve some life balance – but that’s a different topic altogether! Why not have a go and produce something completely different from your normal style - all it takes is a little research and planning - or else - just go for it! Till next week, when we talk about the "Z" principle, and the rule of thirds.

Happy scrapping!

Ali :)