c & j's european adventures

last fall, we took a trip. to paris and italy. here are some of my favorite pictures.

tuscany countryside
we rented a car in florence and drove to a small village about 20 miles to the north called vicchio. we stayed at an amazing olive oil resort called villa campestri. it was glorious. the weather was beautiful, the food was delicious and we had quite the adventure driving around all the towns, mountains and of course the auto strada. so much fun!

towns in tuscany and emilia-romagna

we drove around some of the nearby towns. this was scarperia which is famous for making knives. we should have bought a set, but were paranoid about traveling through airports with them (since we took only carry on bags). lovely little town.

this is a tower in the town of forli, which was featured in assassins creed, so we had to make that trip. there were a lot of times when j said to me "many men, i have killed many men on that tower".

this is me thinking... "that's nice honey"

this is also forli. this basially says 'don't park your bike here'. i love italy.

this is in ravenna, famous for mosaics. this is a very old grape vine inside an even older basilica.



firenze... aka the best city in the world

again with the "...many men..."

food... mmm food...

those are porcini mushrooms, very hard to find where we live. it was porcini season when we happened to be there. awesome!

and, finally, our crap rental car... the infamous fiat 500.

we had an amazing time. and we're planning our next adventure...

adventures in letterpress

shortly after discovering letterpress and then being totally disappointed by the cost, i was able to find a place to do budget letterpress for the wedding invitations. i think they turned out very nice, but they are done on paper that isn't really meant for letterpress, so the impression doesn't really stand out. shortly after completing the invitations (by the way, i did layered invites -- 3 layers. which may not seem like a lot until you realize you have to actually stick them all together perfectly multiple times. more work than i initially thought), i found that there is a company that makes a home crafters version of a letterpress. so i immediately ordered it (L Letterpress).

the reviews on the l letterpress aren't stellar, but this awesome place called Boxcar Press did a nice review and included a number of tips that make a huge difference (like throw out the crap plates that come with it because they break, get a new brayer, etc.). i figured there was some piece of paper i could letterpress myself for my wedding. 

i decided on making the menu cards for the reception, so i ordered a custom plate from Boxcar and within a few days, i had that plate in my hot little hands ready to go. so i got cards to print (i got the cards from Paper Source, which is also great. the cards themselves aren't really the greatest for letterpress because they aren't all that thick or fluffy so you don't see a huge impression), inked up my brayer and got to work...

and it was horrible! the ink bled no matter what i did and i ruined probably 15 cards. somewhat frustrated, i enlisted the help of the Interwebs to help me solve the problem. my primary issue was that i had used WAAAAAAAAAY too much ink. i missed the memo about using a very small amount and just assumed i need a crap ton. not true. you need very little ink. on the internet, people say the size of a pea. maybe an english pea - you know, the really tiny ones?  

lesson 1: on ink - less really is more.

the other issue i had even with less is more ink was the brayer i bought from amazon. it is a speedball soft 6 inch brayer. i am no printing expert, but i cannot get this thing to ink correctly. even with very little ink, it doesn't hold it very well and ends up leaving a little pattern on whatever you're inking. which is so annoying. so i reverted to using the miniature brayer that comes with the kit. this one is very small, very low quality and harder than the speedball. that said, i was able to get much better results using it. it was very challenging to ink the plate because of it's size. today i went out and bought a similar hard brayer (only 4 inches since they didn't have 6 inches) and the results were soooooooo much better!

lesson 2: on brayers - i found the hard type work better. and definitely get a 6 inch brayer. jury is still out on the soft type, the one i got might just have been crap.

so after a bit of panic and trial and error, things are looking up. i have printed out all the menu cards. they all have little flaws - heavy ink in places, lighter in others - but they are handmade! and my first project.

for my next project (probably thank you cards or personal stationery), i am going to get some of the nice crane lettra paper. it's thick and made out of cotton (no trees!!) and works really well (apparently) for showing off the letterpress impression.

pictures to follow...

Curse you, letterpress

why must you be so beautiful... and expensive. and beautiful. i've always been fascinated by fonts and all things paper, but for some odd reason, had never really been introduced to letterpress. which in hindsight is probably for the best.

so now that i'm working on wedding stationary (there's more to it than just an invitation, it turns out), i'm completely and totally obsessed with these letterpress works of art. alas, these brilliant works of art are a bit beyond my reach (read: out of budget... i really cannot see spending $2-4K on wedding paper items), which is why i curse you, letterpress.

a couple of my favorites so far...

hello lucky
bella figura

there are so many more... and so little time (and money).

blinds

we received the new blinds a few days ago and installed them this morning. it isn't terribly hard to install blinds or take down old ones, so this was rather uneventful. the trickiest part was putting the bracket in the right place so it would mount correctly on the rail.

i didn't get a great "before" picture of the old, disgusting, mildewy, pink!, broken blinds.  i got a few pictures of them after we took them down... note how gross they are... eeewww.

the new blinds are installed and they look great. unfortunately, the lighting is bad right now for pictures, so i'll post some later once the direct afternoon sunlight is gone.

how to replace 1980's delta roman tub spout & handles

i hesitate to say this project is complete, only because a leak could form at any moment and plumbing makes me nervous and insane.  that said, we have replaced both the tub spout and the handles from an old delta (circa late 1980's) wall mount roman tub contraption.

here's where we start, with the yellow polished brass fixture. notice that the finish on the spout is completely flaking off. (it was like that when we moved in).



those are some sweet handles, huh?  i'm willing to part with them for the right price.

first, we took off all the decorative pieces to see what lies beneath...

very exciting and a little bit scary.

yesterday we were able to get the spout on -- here's the picture as of yesterday (note the handles are still acrylic and partially gold).

today we shut off the water and took apart the... well, now that i think of it, i really don't know what these things are called... the things the handles go on. that'll do. 

the stems (the plastic thing poking out in figure 2) are held in place with a nut... (i neglected to take pictures of all this...). so you just unscrew that and the outside sleeve (the gold part) slides off and there's a little plastic ring behind it. the stem just comes out.

behind the stem are these little thingy's called "seats and springs". since there are two faucets, there's only one seat and one spring behind each stem. you flip those out with a screwdriver or needlenose pliers (carefully). and then replace with new ones.

this is important - you need to remember what direction the stems are installed. so make a mental note or take a picture or something. anyway, put in the new one in the right direction. put on the new sleeve and little plastic thing (making sure to line up the grooves) and then replace the nut. then put on the handle and tighten with the set screw.

these are the parts -- on the top are the stems and the bottom are seats and springs:

that is it, lather, rinse, repeat for the other handle.

then go turn on the water and pray that it works. it seems to have worked, but i'm still waiting for something to spring a leak.  at any rate, here is the finished product:

the lighting is a little weird, since it's nighttime. not the fixture of my dreams, but certainly more up to date than "the before".

i'd like to thank delta customer service for providing me with schematics of my old faucet valve that contained the replacement parts for everything you see here, ups for the overnight delivery of many of these parts, the awesome lady at mcclendon's hardware for actually helping us (i'm looking at you, keller "go to home-depot" supply) find some of the little doohickies that we needed, and finally and most importantly, my sweetie who has patiently done all of the work to get this mofo installed and operational. xoxo

tub filler... success

i said the other day that the new tub filler didn't fit. which was true. today while we were browsing through mcclendon's hardware store, we came across this little brass thingy that seemed like it would extend the pipe out of the wall further and it might be long enough to actually work, so for $5 we figured it was worth a shot.

we got it home, put it on, attached the tub filler... and it was just a bit too far away from the wall, but definitely progress, so my sweetie figured that he could cut off part of the piece so it would be shorter and thus, closer to the wall. fast forward a few minutes, reattach everything.. and it works! it's still not quite flush with the wall, but it's close enough for government work. and the filler more or less reaches far enough to clear the deck of the tub (so the stream of water doesn't splash everywhere -- well, it splashes, but just about as much as the old one did... so... eff it).

here's a picture (ignore the handles -- we will replace those soon):

baby steps...

sometimes, in the face of adversity, small wins give you some momentum. yesterday, i was able to complete a few of my tasks related to "operation: no polished brass".  i swaped out the recessed toilet paper holder, the tub overflow drain cover and the tub drain (although the part we got for the drain is a cheap piece of crap, so we might change it again). baby steps.