Ciao!
So I’m a big breakfast person, but I quickly realized that Italians aren’t! Their idea of breakfast is a cafe latte (you have to say cafe because latte is Italian for milk so if you just say latte you will literally get hot milk) and a chocolate cornetto (nutella stuffed croissant). At first I didn’t know how I felt about this but, I think I could get used to this. 😉
The other day we were able to go to a leather factory owned by a family that has been making leather products for hundreds of years!
Every year they make a desk set for the President of the United States and they told us they are currently working on the one for President Elect Donald Trump.
We met a man named Nicolo who was showing us how they make the fancy designs in gold that you see on many frames, ornaments and notebooks. He had all these little stencils on handles and he would stick them into fire to make them hot and once the metal reached a certain temperature, he would press the sheet of gold into whatever product it was and then pull off the gold and the design would stay!
This was one of the coasters he made while we were there.
The daughter of the family taught us all about different types of leather; calf, lamb, ostrich, alligator etc. I never knew there were so many different kinds!!
The mother is one of the designers and she is the one who actually creates the different bags for people. When she gets an order she will stitch the bag together by hand and add embellishments and jewels until it looks just the way she wants it.
Each of her bags are unique; she hasn’t made one of them the same. She said she wants to create a bag that no one else can get. Her artisan bags are special because you can’t mass produce them and the bag you get is specially made for you.
In a commercialized world full of so much mass production, it was so refreshing to see someone value quality over quantity.
Outside the Pazzi Chapel in the Santa Croce church in front of the leather school.
At the end of our tour, we all got to pick out our own leather journal to document our trip so I’ve been carrying mine around everywhere with me to take notes, make sketches and jot down my thoughts as I discover different parts of this city.
This is the Opera del Duomo, one of my favorite buildings in the city
This is the fresco inside the Duomo!
I’m so thankful for this beautiful reminder that it’s okay to produce less if it means the end result will be a higher quality.
I would rather be diligent to do a few really good things than rush through life to accomplish many mediocre things.
Thanks for reading! See ya soon!
Love always,
Nicole xx #DoStuff
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