3 years blogiversary & Italian paper give away

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage dear blogging friends and readers! I'm back from Italy since a few days and before I'm off again to see my cousin and my sister at the countryside this weekend and then off again to Athen in Greece next week for a couple of days, I'd like to celebrate with you my 3 years blogiversary. I started my blog in September 2005 although it feels much longer than that. My first posts even were in German language, but I quickly realised that I'll reach much more interesting people by blogging in English. I have met so many fantastic and creative women from all over the world on this journey for which I'm more than thankful! I feel so connected to you through my blog and since a year to my flickr too that I wont want to miss this anymore!



Well I'm a bit in a hurry today so I better stop chatting and go on with this post. I felt like sharing with you some inspirational pictures from my new fave Italian city which with no doubt is Venice now. Above you see some lil treasures I brought home from my Italy journey. My fave place to shop was a Paper shop called Il Papiro in Venice and I thought to celebrate my 3 years blogiversary I'll also share some papers from Il Papiro and other lil Italian treasures with you:

To win my blogiversary Italian paper give away in the photo above you simply have to leave a comment under this post and let me know which of the Venice photos I'll show you now you like best:

The basilica of San Marco with the Lion of San Marco as it's symbol looks like it comes straight out of a fairy tale to me:

I was also stunned by the beautiful details of the Venician palazzos. This is a close up of the Doge's palace. See the the shades the sun sent through the pattern?

The next palazzo is called Ca' d'oro and it looks like precious lace to me:

The lion of San Marco again:

A shop window with very artistic masks:

Loved the silhouettes the Venezian lanterns made and the pink glass:

Isn't this a gorgeous balcony, just look at these fairy tale like windows:


The huge chimneys you can see on these houses you already find in medieval paintings:

Oh to own such a beautiful rose garden at a canale in Venezia must be a dream:

As always you just have to doubleclick on my photos to enlarge them and see all the details, the photo above for example is huge!

I didn't do a Gondola cruise, it's too expensive, 100 Euros for 15 minutes yikes, we used the Vaporetto instead which is the waterbus in Venice and drives all along the Canale Grande so that you have lot's of time to enjoy the sights along:

In the picture above you see the water street were we had our beautiful B & B appartement and below is the famous Rialto Bridge, photo taken from the Vaporetto:

Well that's all for today my friends, I'll have to hurry up now because my cousin Stefanie is waiting for me with breakfast and it's an hour drive to go to her.

I'll pull the winner out of my Vintage chapeau clac when I'm back from Greece next weekend.

Until then have a fabulous start into the cooler Autumn season!

Hugs xox

Carola