This month’s Pinterest Challenge is a fun mantelscape recreation. Hope you’ll stop by!
And here are this week’s wonderful features…
Last week I shared a number of wonderful gardens with you and somehow I totally missedJudith’s French Country garden home over at Botanic Bleu and her wonderful romantic peonies… I just had to go back and capture them for you. Definitely a special post to go back and sigh over…
🙂
Rita, who writes the fun blog Panopoly, shared some of her own
home decor pieces available for sale that she is letting go through the storefront she shares with her sisters. If you are looking for something that you’ve wanted for a long time but haven’t found… Check out her post as it just might be there!
🙂
Over at Fabby’s Living she shares a wonderful summer tablescape with her adorable fish plates and blue stoneware pieces underneath. I think we all enjoy setting our tables beautifully even when it’s just family for dinner. Show Fabby some love and stop by and leave her a comment or two, won’t you?
Debbie at Debbie-Dabble is back with a summertime patriotic lighthouse and she shares this delightful DIY ~ love its New England look!
Kelli at 3 Boys and a Dog brings us her recipe for making these fun rainbow soaps ~ super fun for kids in the tub!
Thank you to everyone who posts about Share Your Style on your blog ~ I do see it when I stop over and appreciate your support!
If you’ve been featured here at Share Your Style… Here is a button to share and copy to your site and your featured posts, thank you!
The St. Anthony hotel in historic San Antonio, Texas is breath-taking with its crystal chandeliers, antique baroque and Egyptian furniture, and incredible oil paintings and statuary ~ a hotel well worth your visit!…
This was our view from our park side hotel room overlooking Travis Park in historic downtown San Antonio, Texas ~ pretty with sunburst walkways into the center of the park and set with its tables ready for visitors to picnic at or play a game of chess or two.
🙂
We arrived late on Friday night due to holiday weekend traffic and leaving town late due to things that had to get done so I didn’t get any photos of the room itself except this little hallway entry table.
Loved the set up and lighting switches were set up to let staff know if you wanted the room cleaned or wanted privacy as well as a nightlight at a push of a button.
The antiques downstairs
The pool on the 6th floor had lovely views of neighboring hotels and business buildings, most historic, and was over-filled making it a fun place for kids to play along the wide steps walking into it.
The weight room with treadmills and stationary bicycles was really nice with large mirrors so you could see yourself lifting and correct your form… But even though I partook of the latter I really was gaga over all the priceless antiques inside the St. Anthony’s lobby and upper museum gallery areas!
This was my cup of tea!
Beginning with this beautiful hand-laid tile doormat at a streetside entrance declaring the year the St. Anthony opened
I was enchanted!
Coming in from that entrance this famous “little” painting of an eagle ready to fly off a cliff is one of the first things one notices in the Grand Salon and entry area.
The walls of this French inspired space were decorated with numerous oil canvases, many from famous painters, as well as ethereal antique furnishings and reproductions of the original pieces.
I loved this sassy lady playing cards with her friend or sister and what looks to be her mother ~ the scene just says, “We are here to have fun!” A motto to which this hotel also subscribes.
Isn’t this sitting room beautiful?
Tea and coffee are set out on this desk every morning for guests along with travel cups to take out for sightseeing the city.
I wish more pieces of furniture were out there that the common person could find… Wouldn’t this be a lovely desk in one’s
library room or office?
Sadly a number of the paintings are torn and are in need of restoration ~ this one was sweet of this family’s children and their beloved spaniels.
🙂
Well, the computer is telling me my post is full so I’ll have to share some other photos with you another day…
I’ll be writing a post next about our walking trips around downtown San Antonio and the Alamo site so please look
Royal Wedding week for HRH Prince Harry and his fiancée Ms. Meghan Markle and it wouldn’t be complete without a small discussion and a little history about “taking tea.” Warming us when it’s chilly outside and cooling us down when poured over ice cubes in the summer ~ tea is the perfect drink no matter what side of the Pond one lives on! 😉
courtesy of Yahoo.com images, saved to Period Dress on Pinterest
Excitement and guessing about what the bride’s dress will look like are all part of what is being shared this week surrounding the upcoming Saturday nuptials at St. George’s Cathedral, Windsor Castle, England of HRH Prince Harry of England and Ms. Meghan Markle ~ a fairy tale being played out much like one 62 years ago where another American actress Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier of Monaco in April of 1956.
Tea and Brits
Tea and the British go together like… well…
tea and biscuits…
This week I shared a post about porcelain fit for a king so today I thought I’d share a little about how tea time as we know it came to be.
Tea as a drink has its origins in China in the year 2737 BC when Emperor Shennong was away from home with his army. His servant was preparing hot water for him to drink and a leaf from the camellia sinensis bush blew into his cup. The leaf went undetected and Emperor Shennong drank from the cup and found the brewed tea to his liking.
In the 1500’s, Portuguese priests and merchants were offered tea to drink in China and they enjoyed it and brought tea leaves back to their part of the Western world. Tea became a popular drink in the United Kingdom during the next century.
The East India Tea Company brought tea production to India during this time in order to compete with China. Consumption of tea was mostly for the upper classes initially as tea was expensive but with England being able to produce its own tea, the drink was eventually cost-effective and made available to everyone.
Anna, the seventh Duchess of Bedford, started the tradition of afternoon tea back in 1840 by inviting in a few friends to share a light meal to stave off hunger between the noon meal and dinner
which then was served at 8:00p.m.
The idea took off as apparently everyone was hungry and
high tea became very fashionable.
What’s the difference between the different tea repasts
you ask?
According to a nice post by Tea Time magazine afternoon tea {also called a low tea} is a light afternoon snack where little finger or tea sandwiches, scones and cake is served. High tea is a little more substantial with savories and meats included with the tea and is more like what we would call supper. High tea is served at 5:00p.m.
Not really a tea but too beautiful not to share. 🙂
Here is a table set for a light dinner at the Biltmore Estate
that I shared in my Biltmore at Christmas post last December.
A cream tea is a tea that serves scones with clotted cream and a small pot of jam.
In the Victorian Tea Society when we had teas at each other’s
homes we really had an afternoon tea.
Once in a while if a friend just happened to stop by
then I might have a cream tea as a mid-morning snack
but actually a cream tea is a type of afternoon tea
in the United Kingdom.
Tea Accoutrements
Tea tins
Earlier this year I found this tea tin at HomeGoods and since it works with our British tea theme today plus it’s my favorite color… Just had to share here with you today! On the back of this sweet pink tin of black tea by the Keep Calm and Carry On Beverage company, Ltd. there is a summary of how the famous saying on WWII British posters came to be:
“On the eve of WWII the British Government printed 2.5 million Keep Calm and Carry On posters. The aim of the simple five word statement was to convey tot he country a message of reassurance for the troubled times that lay ahead.
“The posters went unused and subsequently destroyed at the end of the war. Some 55 years later a second hand book dealer in the North of England discovered a copy of the poster in a box of books bought for auction. That find marked the rebirth and launch of the Keep Calm and Carry On message into the 20th Century.”
Tea tins have been in production for over a century now but tea was first stored in small locked tea chests or boxes within the home {think the Boston Tea Party of Dec. 16, 1773}.
Tea bags
There are first cutting and second cuttings of tea with the first cut referred to as the best tea for that harvest from the camellia sinensis bushes at a tea plantation. Brewing a cup or pot of loose leaf tea is still the best tasting way to enjoy tea.
There are differing types of tea ~ white, black, oolong, rooibos, green tea and more.
There are also tisanes which are herbal blends and not really teas but most people call them tea anyway.
The invention of the tea bag is considered as 1908 with little hand-sewn bags of fabric, usually silk. Patents were applied for as early as 1903 with production beginning in 1904 and successful marketing of tea bags by 1908, hence the date.
Tea spoons
Spoons specifically for tea were originally called mote spoons and were created by Colonial pewter and silversmiths here in America.
These spoons were long-handled with slots in the spoon face itself for removing tea leaves from one’s cup and from the crevices of the tea pot’s spout.
Pretty interesting stuff, huh?
🙂
I hope you’ve enjoyed this little history of tea today and
please check some of my other posts featuring tea
by just searching “tea,” “teatime” and “table settings” in
the search bar along the top, I believe it is.
🙂
Set your recorder to record the royal wedding which will begin at 4am EST this coming Saturday morning on all the major news channels starting at various times.
Check there programming for the correct time for that station ~ especially if you aren’t planning to get up to watch it live
Today’s post then is sharing some beautiful china
fit for royalty!
This sweet Art Deco creamer with it’s zeppelin ridged style is lovely used as a flower vase.
Lovely Limoges
Porcelain tableware from the late 1800’s through the 1940’s from European countries such as Austria, Germany,
Selisia {modern day Poland} and especially France capture the heart
like no other ceramicware.
Beautiful, lightweight and durable with hand-painted gold details and decorated with roses and sweet garden flowers ~
Limoges and the ceramics from this time period are just as fashionable today as when these pieces
were first made.
Variety of uses
In today’s modern setting ~ vintage and antique Limoge can be used for their original purpose as placesettings for dining or just decoratively as I tend to use many of these pieces here.
Antique china tends to have small chips often along its edges called flea bites and small crazing all over if not down and out cracks and repaired breaks which someone lovingly repaired long ago. Other than drops, much of this is probably due to the stresses of weather and time as well as from being boxed away and stored when not in use or in fashion. 🙂
Here I’ve repurposed this antique Irish soup tureen to display a candle ~ lovely!
Tip
Even if a piece doesn’t have any cracks or crazing ~ hot foods can cause any lead to leak out becoming poisonous so only use antique and vintage tableware with cold foods or place a clear plate between any food and your beautiful piece.
This O and EG Royal Austria plate was manufactured somewhere between 1898 – 1918. I hadn’t realized it was that old!
Too beautifulto just throw away past owners kept these ethereal pieces until it was decided to let someone else
enjoy their beauty…
This cake plate (above photograph, lower left) is really a Victorian or Edwardian era soup dish with flatter sides as was popular for dinner parties at the turn of the last century. This porcelain soup bowl was made by a pottery manufacturing company called O and E. G. ~ then owned by brothers Oscar and Edgar Gutherz.
This little antique creamer with its zeppelin shape charmingly holds some posies.
According to a site called The Porcelain ZoneOscar Gutherz began the firm with Maximilan Marx decorating porcelain. Gutherz’ brother Edgar joined the firm after Edgar bought out Marx’s interest in the company. The company was commonly called Royal Austria Factory, according to the Porcelain Zone. From there, the brothers went on the produce porcelain themselves.
Here are the years of production to help date a piece of their tableware if you have or find some:
1876 – 1898: Marx and Gutherz
1898 – 1918: Oscar and Edgar Gutherz
1918 – 1920: OEPIAG – Österreichische Porzellan-Industrie AG
1920 – 1945: EPIAG – Erste Porzellan-Industrie AG / Karlsbad
1945 – 1958: EPIAG / Starorolsky Porcelán
This gilded Haviland deviled egg serving dish
has held berries on the table and does
double duty as a decorative soap holder
in our bathroom.
A collection of O and E G plates mixed with Haviland Limoges and other European tableware.
Practical uses
A practical way to use many of these pieces is by mixing them in with today’s modern tableware. My favorite thing to do is use reproduction cups and saucers that I know can be safely used for tea or coffee and the plates themselves can be used for cold foods like finger sandwiches, cold fruit and desserts.
If there is any doubt about using a dinner plate or salad plate for dining then a way to use them safely is by adding a clear glass or plastic plate over top to eat off of instead while enjoying the beautiful plate below.
My friend Gloria would do this whenever she used her antique carnival glass for our tea luncheons ~ although it may have been safe to use “as is” since it’s glass. The extra glass plate on top doesn’t detract from the look of the table either as it is almost invisible to the eye.
Another tip
The acid in citrus fruits can also pull lead out of pieces of porcelain.
Place a paper doily under your fruit salad when serving
oranges and mixed fruit salads.
Little bits of love in a stamp…
The history of Limoges
Often we call all of these pretty porcelain pieces Limoges
but that would be a misnomer. Limoges is a city in France where the base clay called kaoline used in this very
white porcelain was found.
David Havilandalready had a thriving china shop in New York when in 1840 he went to France to find a manufacturer out of the
many in the area who would create pieces of porcelain that he could then sell to the American public.
Haviland eventually moved to the city of Limoges so he could oversee production of his tableware.
The city’s name became synonymous with Haviland’s china
production and hence the name Limoges stuck.
These pieceswere always hand-gilded and sometimes sold as blanks to be hand-painted by women in cottage industries. This was particularly popular at the beginning of the 20th century with American women.
Manufacturer’s used a newly invented process of transferring a lithograph onto a piece when decorating a plate or china piece in house ~ a process of placing a pre-inked tissue stamped by copper plates which was then “transferred” by hand by a worker onto each china blank. The pieces were then fired at a low temperature to fuse the beautiful prints into the clay.
An interesting book published by the Haviland Collectors International Foundation (HCIF) called
Celebrating 150 Years of Haviland China: 1842-1992
catalogues the history of the Haviland family and an amazing amount of tableware pieces.
A couple of years ago I shared my story of meeting Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York and I thought I had shared about Royal Winton potteries as I have a book in storage about their manufacturing facilities and their process but perhaps not.
This book shares many photographs of the artists and young women at work applying transfers to pieces of china and hand painting ~ really interesting if you like studying this sort of thing!
Sets of china
Monogrammed china available as souvenirs is always created for royal newlyweds and though the new Duke and Duchess won’t have their official new titles bestowed upon them until
after the wedding ceremony you can bet their actual family china will be spectacular.
For other wonderful royalty posts check out my friend Laura Ingalls Gunn’s wedding week posts on her blog Decor to Adore. She shares many posts on tiaras and all things royal. 🙂
A favorite photograph from this year’s Valentine’s post.
Sharing with
Dishing It and Digging It
Wow
Thursday Favorite Things
Feathered Nest Friday
Sweet Inspiration
Inspire Me Monday
Friday Features
Hearth and Soul
Create Bake Grow and Gather
Tablescape Thursday
Best of the Weekend ~ Pender and Peony
Tuesday Cup of Tea ~ Antiques and Teacups
Tea in the Garden ~ Bernadine’s
If you’ve enjoyed this post here are several others
Apparentlythey were invented to keep critters from
wandering into Dutch homes and kitchens since screen doors
weren’t yet invented and though they were created in Holland
they were really a bit hit here in America.
Here’s a neat article on Dutch doors for you to check out.
Solvang is a great little town that after you’ve parked
you can pretty much walk everywhere to dine and shop.
Here Kathy is leading us on a quick tour around to see
a few other shops.
Oh, and there are a number bed’n’breakfast
places and hotels in Solvang to stay at, too.
From here we drove back to Kathy’s lovely home but
before we go here are a few last photos of Solvang and one
on the way driving through an ethereal allée of trees!!!
***
Our headline photograph from above, again ~ here you can see the lovely ethereal blouses and some of their beautiful white on white antiques and vintage goods displayed
The next day afters spending the late afternoon having
tea and cherry scones for a snack instead of dinner
{We were still full from lunch, really.} and then talking until
late in the evening about decorating and all the
things Kathy and her husband Ken have been updating
For me it was chandelier heaven!Each was unique and
other than this next really large one ($995 on sale) and
another really beautiful French chandelier
most were in the range of $120 – $350 or so.
Colorful candles, mugs, pretty jewelry, curated clothing and unique chandeliers all for sale along with spoon rings ~ Posies has something for everyone who comes through their doors for a visit.
The very cheerful young ladies who helped wrap up all that pink loveliness for me!
Happy just a few days until
Christmas!
Today I thought I’d just bring you a quick post
about the place where I found all that lovely
pink transferware ironstone china the other day…
Frisco Mercantile
8980 Preston Rd.
Frisco, Texas 75034
972-712-7300
Located about an hour north of Dallas, Texas, Frisco Mercantile is an nice venue with over 200 antiques shops inside this huge location carrying so many beautiful wares to buy including Christmas and holiday items as well as painted and stained furniture and gorgeous tinkling chandeliers! {my favorite!}
I wasn’t looking for anything that day
least of all to go shopping
as I’d come down just to check out the area
but…
It’s hard to pass up a new antiques store
to go browsing around in ~ so I did!
And, that’s where I found my new-to-me
pink transferware.
🙂
Frisco Mercantilereminds me of several
antiques emporiums
I’ve visited back in California such as
Vignettes
down in Ocean Beach near San Diego
and
Second Impressions
in Mitchell, South Dakota.
With shop owners carefully curated items for sale
I’m going to have to put blinders on next time as it would
have been really easy to spend a small fortune
here!
And I know that those chandeliers were talking to me…
😉
Usually I look for small items like silver spoons
or vintage linens and really I was only
looking for candelabras.
Happily I found the one I used in the story about the
Pink transferware
but then I looked up from studying it…
That’s when I saw the transferware pieces tucked into
this white hutch just waiting for me to notice them!
😉
I love this candelabras graceful lines and curves!
It is a lovely complement to the delicate looking pink china,
don’t you think?
It’s a pretty piece and matches a small chandelier
that used to hang in my craftroom back in the Big House.
I’ll have to take a close up photo of this little
tabletop candelabra
so you can see the delicate petals of each leaf
which surrounds each candle holder.
Really pretty!
Loved the entrance all decorated for the holidays here at Frisco Mercantile!
The white tree center-left is the one I made for my friend Julie. Turns out she collects miniature trees unbeknownst to me!
Last year I went crazy making miniature Christmas trees! I gave most of them away but I did manage to keep a few for our family.
They really are pretty simple to do. I ended up going to Michael’s craft store and buying up all the little trees they had on-hand, brought them home and bleached them in our laundry sink. There were some tutorials out on YouTube and that’s where I learned how to bleach them. How to Bleach Mini Christmas Trees *I used about one cup of bleach in enough water to cover the trees (there were 29 of them, and I did them in two batches). * Leave them overnight and pull them out and rinse them in the morning. *Let dry on paper towels. Then decorate!
Caution: I tried spray snow but that made my asthma go wild! Don’t try it ~ made me sick. ;( *Use Gesso instead! 🙂 The gesso worked wonderfully and that’s where I got the idea to decorate the pinecones, if you saw yesterday’s late Saturday/early Sunday posting. *Just dry-brush on the gesso and let dry. No mess, little smell, easy clean-up! 🙂
When the trees were dry again, which is soon because gesso dries really fast, then you can go wild decorating! I used a lot of old bits of wire jewelry things that I have had forever! I also bought some strings of mini pearls in different colors, other beads that come on strings (that I cut apart). These are over in the jewelry making section. Sooooo convenient!
I even cut intoa long, inexpensive necklace that I had purchased at Forever 21 because it had really large pearls! and I needed them! I also used silver, gold and red beads that I had lying around. *Beads, a glue gun and zillions of glue sticks, and you are done! Was a fun craft to do while watching t.v.
This was also a great craft to use up a bunch of leftover goodies I had used with my old Girl Scout troop back when my daughter was younger. 😉
Our Christmas tea for my tea group last year. I gave a tree to each of my friends, as well as coworkers at school. Was great fun!
Now, for the monster tree… That I didn’t bleach. I found it at Joann’s craft store this year. But I DID add the silver baubles off the necklace! 🙂
We bought the tree’s “base” when we went up north for Thanksgiving, where we stopped in Clovis, California on our way back down {as I wanted to visit this favorite antique shop}. Not that I needed anything, but I LOVE all of the unique hardware this place has! I’ve found old door knobs there, that ceiling fixture and other cool stuff. Some of it is waiting to be turned into other crafty ideas! 😉
Just a few of the trees I made this year.
Most I gave away as presents.
Well, there at this store I found this old
cover plate for a ceiling fixture from the early 1900’s
(my guess).
It was $5, so it came home with me.
As soon as I saw it I thought of making a
monster Christmas tree!!!
I went and found a big tree 60% off at
Joann’s,
brought it home and my hubby
*helped me cut down the base
to fit inside the hole of the fixture.
*Then, he used a heavy adhesive epoxy glue to stick it to the underside
of the fixture.
*Because the tree was so tall, he thought it needed more weight
so…
*He mixed up some concrete we had lying around so flipped it upside~down and clamped it in place,
put that cement over-top of the glued-in piece
and around the edges of the cut base-piece.
*He previously ran fishing line around the tree’s trunk four times,
creating four hanging lines,
and hung the whole tree, base and cemented light fixture upside-down
for two days.
Thankfully, the cement idea worked
and
didn’t leak through the fixture’s hole (hence the epoxy). 🙂
Update: The base is an upcycled ceiling light fixture base. I found it at that antiques/hardware store in Clovis, California the same city that my son won the state track and field championship in the pole vault two years prior! {Just thought you’d want to know.} Was a HUGE weekend for our family then!
So proud of Peter Chapman ~ 2012 CIF State Track and Field Champion!!!!!
p.s. Thanks for sharing!
And, you see the amazing results!
Great job, Charles!!! {he cemented in the tree to the base for me}
Happy tree making to you all!!!
Sharing with:
Sew It Cook It Craft It ~ Sew Historically Waste Not Wednesday ~ Raggedy Bits
Feathered Nest Friday ~ French Country Cottage #Bloggingfifty ~ Facebook Duct Tape and Denim ~ 12 Days of Upcycled Christmas Crafts http://ducttapeanddenim.com/
