Patriotic Mantel

I have seen lots of awesome patriotic decor ideas on Pinterest lately.  It was my inspiration to begin my patriotic mantel and and to create this picture to add to it.

This piece was the finishing touch to my mantel.

I love it and I will keep it up the remainder of the summer.  I feel like the summer with Memorial Day, Labor Day, and the 4th of July is a patriotic time of the year.

The pieces on the mantel break down like this:

The larger stars I picked up at Michael's for $3.99 each.

The birdhouse also came from Michael's and it was $4.99.

The picture frame on the left I picked up a while back on sale at Hobby Lobby to frame this picture of the husband receiving a letter of commendations while he was in the Navy.

I thought it fit right in on this mantel.

The frame I painted for the print I made I picked up at Wal-Mart for three bucks.  It looked like this when I brought it home.

Much better.

One more look..

Enjoy your day!!

Linking Up:

Florence Recap

Florence was beautiful.  The city, the art, the food.  The David alone is life changing.

Okay, this is not the marble David, but I was not allowed to take pictures of him.  This one is a copper replica.  Here is the marble.

(source)

This one is life changing and was by far the most amazing piece of art I saw in Florence.  The detail in this statue is insane.  He has veins in his hands, arms and feet.  It is breath taking.  The David is located in the Galleria dell'Accademia and he is waiting around the first corner you turn.  When you go into the museum there is a large room with paintings which we spent some time in and then you exit into a long corridor room.  The space is massive, because, honestly the David is massive.  He is 17 feet tall and is standing on top of a tall pedestal (which he deserves).  When you enter the second room you are at the opposite end from the David.  Once you turn your head and realize he is there, there is nothing you can do besides stop in your tracks and stare in awe.  It is that amazing.  There are no words.

Since there are no words, I will transition to telling you about all three museums we visited in Florence.  All of them have amazing art work.  We visited Academia, Uffizi and the Bargello.  As I mentioned the Academia houses the David.  The husband and I kind of felt a little sad for all the other art that is displayed there.  We spent about 3 hours in the museum and most of that time we spent circling the David and viewing it from different angles.  Life. Changing.

The Uffizi houses some of the most amazing paintings in the world.  Including Botticelli's The Birth of Venus.

(source)

The Bargello has amazing sculptures.  Most of which are carved from marble.  All are mind blowing when you think about how they started as massive pieces of rock.

Like I stressed in my Venice Recap post, I HIGHLY recommend that when you are visiting places like these you buy your tickets online in advance.  The husband is a planner, and I love him for that.  We arrived in Italy with tickets for all these places in hand (or at least paid reservation slips that we exchanged for tickets).  Doing this saves SO MUCH time.  The lines for these museums were blocks and blocks long.  We were able to pass those lines right up.  Take some time for the planning before you go.  You will not be sorry.

On to the city.  Oh, the city.

Hello Gorgeous.

I miss you.

The Arno River flows through the city and it is beautiful.
 

The day we visited the Academia we walked back from the museum to our hotel over the course of the afternoon.  The museum was not close to the hotel, but it was a great way to see the city.  We ate at the restaurant on the right under the green awning over the river. Fantastic view!

 We saw lots of town squares with beautiful buildings and churches.

These newlyweds were very popular on the river.

Our most amazing dining experience, for so many reasons was at Il Santo Bevitore.  For one the food was amazing.

Second, one of my college roommates grew up in Florence and her friend owns and runs this amazing restaurant.  I highly recommend it...call them, you will need reservations.

(source)

The service was amazing and we were seated outside on this cute patio.  We chatted with the other couple that was out there and they were very nice.  It was a lovely evening.

And finally, our hotel.  The Hotel David.  I cannot not say enough good things about this hotel.  It is no wonder it is number one on TripAdvisor.

The hotel is precious, the staff is wonderful, the price is great, breakfast is included, and they have happy hour on the patio each evening.  If that was not enough...they welcome you with a hand written note and tiny cake in your room...

...there is a pretty well stocked fridge and snack bar in your room that is complimentary and they have an honor bar downstairs.  When it is not happy hour you can make the drink of your choice and just write it down.  This was definitely tied with one other hotel as my favorite from our trip.  I loved it.  The extra bonus surprise?  A washer dryer...that's right, we left Florence the half way point in our journey with a suitcase full of clean clothes.  Thank you Hotel David.  We enjoyed our stay.

Selfie at the Uffizi.

Ah, Florence.



Have a great day!!

Venice Recap

Our weekend was nothing to write home about and I made no significant Weekly Finds this week, so instead of boring you with boring things I thought I would go ahead and start recapping our fabulous Italian vacation.  Much more interesting, right?  I thought so too.  And I am so happy I am about halfway through editing over 600 pictures!

We started our trip in Venice, so let's start there.  Flying into Venice was super easy, customs was a breeze, and it was so much fun to go right from the airport to a boat.  We opted to spend a little more and take a water taxi from the airport to the hotel.

If it is in your budget to go this route, I recommend it.  It was great to have one on one time with the husband while we basked in the excitement of arriving in Italy.

While in Venice we stayed at a cute hotel called Hotel Becher, it was located on a side canal which we loved, it was nice not being on the very busy grand canal.  The room was cute, affordable and breakfast was included, which was great.

The husband, who is a planner, booked all the tickets for the places we wanted to see ahead of time.  If you are heading to a place like Venice, I HIGHLY recommend you do this.  I am SO happy Daniel is a planner and did this for us.  We were able to wait in shorter lines at a lot of the biggest attractions and in some cases skip the lines altogether.  Take the extra time to do this before you go, you will not be sorry and you will save so much time while you are there.

We toured St. Mark's Basilica which is amazingly beautiful inside and out.

We toured Palazzo Ducale (Doge's Palace), crossed the Bridge of Sighs, and walked through the "new" prison.

Bridge of Sighs connecting Doge's Palace (left) and the new prisons (right)

The palace used to be the residence of the Doge of Venice (the supreme authority of the Republic of Venice) and housed the courts and the prisons.  In the 1600's the Bridge of Sighs was built to connect the palace to the new prisons.  The bridge was named for the sighs that convicted persons would let out when seeing their last views of freedom as they were escorted to jail.

View from the bridge.

The Companile on St. Mark's square is very pretty and open for climbing, we opted to not go inside.

We wandered through Venice's opera house and took a gondola ride.  Yes, very touristy and slightly expensive, but completely worth it.  Venice is so beautiful from the water and being on the gondola is a nice slow paced ride with a tour guide.

Rialto Bridge from the gondola.

Our favorite places to eat in Venice were Osteria Leon Bianco and Art Blu Cafe.  Leon Bianco had the best pizza (not just the best in Venice, the best we had in Italy).  Art Blu had the best calamari I have ever had in my life and was a fun place to sit, people watch and enjoy wine.

Daniel and me with Art Blu's owner.

The staff at Art Blu was a lot of fun and super friendly.

A fascinating thing we noticed in Venice (and in other stops in Italy) were padlocks with writing attached to bridges.

Locks on the Ponte dell'Accademia

Of course, I needed to know the reasoning for the locks.  They are love locks.  This trend took off in Italy and started to spread to other places around Europe in the early 2000's.  Most of the credit for the trend seems to go to the book I Want You by Italian author Federico Moccia.  Lovers inscribe their names on the lock, attach them to the bridge and then toss the key in to the river (or canal) below as a sign of never ending love.  Interesting.  Some bridges had so many locks that the locks were attached to each other.  I did also find out that the practice is against the law and the cities do sometimes remove the locks.  So I suppose keep that in mind if you are feeling the love while you are visiting.

I loved that the residents in Venice love plants.

The city has very few grassy areas and it was so nice to see plants everywhere.  The husband and I would joke when we would see balconies covered in flowers that those were my balconies (since that's what my Venetian balcony would surely look like).

The culture of Venice and living on the water was very neat to experience.

Rialto Bridge over the grand canal.

Travel around the city is easy, you are either walking or floating...unless you fall in and then I suppose you are swimming.  One of my favorite things to do was to sit at outdoor cafes that were off the beaten path and watch the residents go about their daily activities.  Even seeing the trash being collected was photo worthy.

Some people will tell you that Venice smells or isn't worth the visit and I completely disagree.  I loved Venice and I could have spent more time there.

Cool mosaic signs in the streets.

Yes, every now and then there was a smell from the canals, but I found it reminiscent of being near the ocean.  I smelled no sewer smells.

Bridge of Sighs from the gondola.

I see myself going back to Venice one day.  If you are planning a trip to Italy, Venice should be on your list.  It is a wonderful city to experience.

I wish we were there now.  :)



Have a great day!!

Weekly Finds

Over the weekend the husband and I started the gigantic task of cleaning out the garage.  As it turns out I found lots of treasures hidden in said garage.  There were two boxes tucked in the back that were from one of my grandparents' moves.  It was packed away in the 80's and forgotten about.  It sure was fun to discover it.

I found vintage bar tools,

a crystal shot glass,

a very fancy toothpick holder,

a china coffee cup and saucer,

and a china coffee service set.

The effort to uncover them from years of grime and dirt was completely worth it.  Work gloves are my friends.

I have been looking for some fun pieces to finish the shelf over the bar cabinet in our dining room so a lot of my discoveries already found their place in my home.

I think it is a pretty good improvement.  I really like the pops of color on the shelves.

Yesterday was my mother's birthday and my sister sent her these sunflowers.

I couldn't resist snapping a picture...they are so happy.



Have a fabulous day!!