Firenze

Being in Florence is a dangerous thing for a paper-lover like myself! We arrived a few hours ago and already the girls and I found ourselves in a beautiful paper shop, getting a demonstration on how they do paper marbling.

They use a mixture of wallpaper glue and water which can be used again and again - you just clear off the top layer between jobs. You can see here that she added several blues, orange and yellow paints, splattered on top. 

Then she used the end of a paint brush to pull the colours along and make nice designs. She also had a wide comb which she used to pull the paint around into fine swirls. 

Then she lay the paper directly on top, and almost immediately pulled it out again, skimming off the excess.

The result is beautiful, as you can see! This paper is a bit of a hodge-podge, since she was showing us the different techniques, but you can see that no two pieces would ever be identical. 

Personally I love the big swirls and loops at the top. We didn't buy anything, ahem, TODAY, but I am sure we will be backfor another  visit before we leave!