Silhouette swap, white Easter eggs, clock faces & SPRING!

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage dear readers and blogging friends!

I have a lot to share with you on this rainy Sunday afternoon and I like to start with a private Silhouette swap I recently had with my friend Cerri from The Little Pink Studio.

This is my third swap from Cerri and as always I loved every single item that she created and chose for me.

You US gals always have the best stuff! Just look at all these gorgeous treasures in neutral colors, so pretty!

and isn't it just so clever what Cerri made out of a simple cotton bag? Dyed and embellished and with the silhouette with my name and the lace and ruffles I just love it!

It's hard to chose what I like best from this swap, but apart from the gorgeous silhouette bag the embellished round box filled with the prettiest rhinestone and pearl pins, the gorgeous silhouette stamp and the sweet stitched vintage and framed picture all belong to my faves for sure!

Sweet Cerri also made me a cute lace covered booklet filled with her beautiful dyed paper doilies and hand stamped the cutest little cotton and paper bags for me to use. Btw did you notice my new vintage electric Elita sewing machine? I bought it on our local flea market lately. It's a very heavy and solid piece which is still working if only I knew how to use it *sigh*

I guess Cerri will soon show you what she got from me over on her blog: http://www.littlepinkstudio.typepad.com/

Apart from swapping I also did a bit more crafting. With Easter ahead I was inspired to embellish some more of my papier mâché Easter eggs, this time I painted them white and embellished them with matching lace, Dresden trims and some bling. My favorite has to be the hanging bird nest egg which I sent to my friend Anja from Matilda's Design for another little swap, hope she'll like it!

I think the golden Dresden foil border and bird matches so well with the white egg.

The egg above looks more like a vase I think, so I put some pretty millinery roses in it.

These eggs were so fun to make, I'll sure have to make some more. Two of them found a new home with my mum yesterday for her birthday in a little nest I made her along with necklace I created for her and some handmade treasures I bought for her from blogging friends like Anja  - see the gorgeous white rabbit in the picture below made out of a vintage baking mold and Ann's Vintage suitcase door hanger and the latest Jeanne d'Arc Living magazine, because she loves it as much as I do.

I liked this vignette with the vintage Easter postcards in Riley's white wooden box:

Well and I also soldered something new, it is sort of a glass terrarium for my clock face collection:

I then embellished my little terrarium with a pretty silver lace foil Dresden border. Lik it?

And how do you like the clock faces in the terrarium?

Did I fool you for a moment? Well these clock faces are made by me lol Seeing that I can't seem to find enough of them lately I thought I might as well solder me some he he

Oh and the really good news is that Spring has finally sprung also for us here in Nothern Germany.

Starting last week, this week was even better. All my crocusses are in full bloom, the snow drops are already fading.

It's so exciting to see my Allium Globemaster and purple tulips sprouting after this very long and cold winter:

I took these photos on Thursday this week,where we had over 20 deegrees celsius and I had the chance to have a little siesta in the sun in my fave old weathered deckchair on my patio and enjoy the little spring vingnettes that I created on the french iron tables:

I wish you all a very happy Easter time and will be back with a give away for my faithful followers soon.

Warmest Spring wishes to all of you!

Carola, xoxo

Easter crafts and Spring decorations versus snow outside

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage my dear readers and blogfriends!

To start this long picture filled post I'd like to show you a photo of a swap that I did for my dear flickr friend Ann of  The Tin Rabbit. I showed you the wonderful treasure trunk full of Vintage delights that I got from sweet Ann in my last post. Meanwhile she has got her friendship swap parcel from me as well. I still added some things after this shot, but it is the only picture I did before sending it off to Texas. I'm so happy that Ann loved everything and that I could reach up to the high standard she set up. It was a true pleasure to swap with you Ann!

Last Sunday it was Antique market in our town and here is what I came home with:

Great finds are they? Lucky me :) and lucky Riley because

being a BOX"wood" cat he thought that I bought the white wooden box especially for him!

So he still loves his cosy bowl ;-) and while we decorated the cottage for Spring and Easter

and did some crafts like the embellished Easter Egg Chocolate Box above (notice the gorgeous millinery flower I got from a swap with the lovely Lorraine Lewis) and a little Easter egg cart for my gorgeous lamb from my sweet friend Madai (the beautiful Easter postcards are recent finds)

well while we've been really in spirit for Spring to begin, it snowed again! This long snowy and frosty Winter has decided it is not over yet. Starting yesterday in the late afternoon this is what we awoke to this morning:

And also I loved taking these sun filled pictures in my boxwood garden this morning, we are all longing  for Spring here in Germany.

Collecting clock faces and making little displays is diverting us and shows us how fast time passes

and that Spring will be here sooner or later anyway.

I showed you my beautiful family heirloom pocket watch before, I got it from my Dad and he got it from his Dad when he was 14 years old.

I took full advantage of the great light the Winter sun brought us today and took all the pictures in this post of my freshly decorated home.

The black &amp ;white C and the numbers 8, 6 and 3 are from one of my oldest blogging and swap friends Nicole of Small Treasures. You can find them in her Dawanda shop. (Click on the picture to enlarge it for more details)

The black alarm clock is from IKEA, the old square metall clock face I got from Ann and the round enamel clock face was my fave Christmas present from my dear daughter (she even got me two of these!)

And I finally got a good shot of the wonderful vintage inspired paper cone I got from Ann too.

I decorated it it with some dried flowers and a tiny spring nest:

Last week I got a belated birthday present from my middle sister who lives in the countryside. The bad weather conditions didn't allow us to meet up earlier. See the gorgeous stone girl on the stack of old books?

I love her! Thank you sis! Mwah!

The cute white plaster rabitt is from Nicky (Small Treasures) as well!

Another beautiful thing I got this week is a personalised & custom made stamp:

When I saw the personalised stamps my dear friend Anita ordered from here: http://blog.casa-di-falcone.de/

I just knew I had to get one too. I have this round scalloped paper punch and the round scalloped stamp is perfect for the punched out papers. It fits excactly inside. I played a bit with it thís morning as you can see in the photo above. I chose my favorite script Chopin for the "Handmade by Boxwood Cottage" and asked Anna to design me a boxwood in a pot with a little Robin bird on top. I think it came out totally enchanting!

Thank you Anita for introducing me to Anna and thank you Anna for creating and making this beautiful stamp for me :)

So let's continue to wait for Spring but don't forget to savour the moment!

Until next time I wish you all a happy month of March!

xoxo, Carola