Sepia Saturday 166; Cardboard boxes;

Cardboard boxes, we all use them. I think back when cardboard boxes were quite a rarity. If we craved one for play or other uses we had to wait a long time.  Groceries were taken home in a woven basket or a bag.
Sugar, flour etc, was stored in drawers and sold in paper or cloth bags. In the Swiss village I grew up a paper bag was called a  "Scarnuz" from the Ladin Romanisch an old Etruscan language.
Cardboard has been upcycled and recycled to make a huge array of articles.
Children and animals love them to play, to sleep and all sorts of things. My grand children loved them too.  We made tables, houses, trains anything was fun to make. Not long ago Fabrizia made a house to hide for Billy,as he is afraid of thunder.She wanted him to use it to hide, but he has never used it, which was a bit a disappointment, he rather jumps onto the sofa under a blanket!

The beginning of cardboard;

A human billboard who wears a sandwich board

Decoration;

Furniture;

Baskets and bags;

Sophisticated cardboard hat box;

Victorian French Art Nouveau elegant ladies decorative Hat Box circa 1890's to 1920's of early cardboard or paper board with yellow gold cord handle. Aqua blue lid with art nouveau graphics and La Pointe's signature.

Please go and visit

Sepia Saturday 166;

I gathered, gleaned and picked the photos courtesy Google images.

Friday; Places of Learning;

Picture Book Library - Iwaki City, Japan
Built in 2005, the Picture Book Museum gave the preschoolers of Iwaki, Fukushima, a space to call their own. Turned off by the shhh-ing atmosphere of traditional libraries, the Picture Book Library's founder gave architect Tadao Ando free rein to create a space that would be inviting for children. His only order was to make sure the covers of the books were visible. The glass-walled and vibrant end result was celebrated as a new paradigm in educational spaces in Japan, and as an architectural masterpiece.

Bibliotheca Alexandrina - Alexandria, Egypt
Nothing remains of the original Library of Alexandria -- the biggest and most prominent library of the ancient world -- and nobody knows for sure exactly when and how it was destroyed. But nearly 2,000 years later in 2002, the new Bibliotheca Alexandrina opened as an homage to the original.

Royal Grammar School Chained Library - Guildford, England

Established in the early 1500s, the Royal Grammar School contains one of few remaining examples of the practice of chaining books to shelves. This allowed important or particularly useful books to be placed in communal areas for public perusal rather than locked away, paving the way  to the public library system. Now the Headmaster's Study, the Chained Library holds books that date back to the late 1400s, including two early editions of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia.  

St. Catherine's Monastery - South Sinai, Egypt

The oldest continually operated library in the world, St. Catherine's Monastery has been around since it was first built by the order of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, sometime around 564 AD. It currently holds over 3,000 religious and educational manuscripts and approximately 8,000 printed books, including first editions of Homer and Plato. 

Trinity College Long Room - Dublin, Ireland

Ireland's oldest university, Trinity College, is also the location of the largest library in Ireland. The oldest and rarest of its collection is housed in the Long Room, the largest single-chamber library in the world with over 200,000 volumes preserved inside. 

When I travel I always like to visit libraries. When I see the might of books and learning I ask myself why is the world still such a savage place? Spending the people's wealth on wars and destruction, still invading other countries to steal and to plunder. 

To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace. Tacitus

Thursday; unforgettable;

My granddaughter Fabrizia leaves little notes for me. I find them in books, in the cutlery drawers, behind mugs, they are always a little surprise.She is now 10, when she could not read nor write she left me drawings and long epistles with  "Hieroglyphics". When only 2 years old she carried always books around, not with pictures just with writing, she loved dictionaries, she still loves notebooks and carries them anywhere to write and draw. This little note says "Dear Goi, I miss you already I will bring back something and maybe stay at your hotel in Europe. Fab

(Goi is short for Grossmammi a Swiss German word for grandma. She invented it when she was two years old.)