Girly Stuff

A while back I told you my unique habit of reuniting separated pieces at the thrift store; candlesticks, creamers and sugars, cups and saucers all make their way into my cart while I 'drive' them up and down the isles looking for their lost mate.  I even did it with a vintage boxed Knickerbocker Raggedy Andy this week!  I walked up to a woman holding the boxed Raggedy Ann and said, "Oh!  There she is!"  She handed Ann to me and I confessed, that I was just putting them together.  She said, "Oh, I'll take him then, my sister loves Raggedy Ann."  

Two weeks ago I walked around at the thrift store looking for the mate for this little bone china creamer, I couldn't find the sugar so I placed it on the shelf where I put the loners.  On Friday I went on my weekly field trip and saw a sugar bowl,  picking it up I thought it looked familiar.  I walked to the loner shelf and low and behold!  The creamer from the first trip was the lost mate!  Into my cart they both go, together again, happily ever after. How many of you are now walking through your thrift store restoring couples to their original state?  I make pairs all the time regardless of wanting to buy them!

I think I have about six sets of these little creamer and sugar sets now.  I use them for High Tea parties but I'm thinking with this many of them I might need to think up a little display to put them out and look at them all for a while.  This is my first in the purple color scheme.  For $ 3.75 for the pair, would you leave them?

When it comes to decorating, I think I gravitate toward the softer side at least in the bedrooms.  This little leather coin purse belonged to 'Big Grama', that one was a school teacher.  I filled the purse with my favorite flowers.  I love the fragrance and the petite little bell flowers, the cake at our wedding was decorated with silk Lily of the Valley even though I was married in August, not May the month when they bloom.

Gloves are part of my ensemble when I wear vintage dresses and drive the '57.  Being a tall girl, my glove size is 7, not typical for the 5'2" average woman of the 1950s.  I frequently use gloves in vignettes to layer things on.

I love handbags and hats too, eat your heart out Bette Page, mine are really vintage! I picked up the little white purse (which had never been used) for $1.00 at a flea market a couple years ago.

Over the headboard, a collection of girly soft colors, 3D hydrangeas, a floral from the 1950s and a pastel toned plate are hung along with four Skeleton keys.  I love to look at these vintage pieces tucked here and there, connections with the past make me happy in the present.

Tea Time, No Golf Clubs Allowed

When I was four years old my Great Grama Gina gave me this little sugar and creamer set.  She had it in the box it came in, a souvenir of her trip from Iowa to Galena, Illinois to President Grant's Home.  I imagine it was some time in the 1940s.  I displayed them on my hutch dresser for years.  The roses are the opposite color on the other side of each piece and the trim says 24 carat gold.  The set is precious to me no matter their material value.

I started thrifting five years ago and developed a unique habit of putting things back together.  It sounds like something from a children's storybook; the two candlesticks that sat on some grandmother's table forever and a day can't be in two different places in the great big thrift store.  They have never been apart their whole lives, they'll have separation anxiety!  I put the candlestick in my cart and 'drive it around' till I find its mate and put them together.  They are happy once again.

This little habit also pairs creamers and sugars in holy matrimony.  'Look, there's a cute little sugar bowl.  I wonder where the creamer is?'  Into the cart, drive up and down the isles.  If I didn't find it, I drive through the whole place looking again (there are about 6 isles with four layers of shelves on both sides).  I am not taking OCD medication, in case you are wondering.  This is the only place I do this, things that were together at some grama's house must REMAIN together.  

  So you see, once they are reunited, they just are so cute, and when you can have both pieces for around $3.00, why shouldn't they come to tea at my house?  They come in pairs, two by two, just like Noah's animals into the ark, I mean into my buffet,  TOGETHER AGAIN.  Only paired sets of creamers and sugars come home.

I did have to bring home the little red Pyrex fridgie without his lid.  I walked through that great big thrift store three times trying to find his mate!  He came home and I'll keep hunting, he's willing to accept a new partner at this stage of the game.  I asked Stephanie at Gilded Junque, my spring swap partner if she put things together too, we are so much alike...sometimes, she does.  Do you?

Cherry Blossom Tea Time

We started with warmed Cherry Scones

With Deavonshire Cream (also called Clotted Cream)

I used this tatted tablecloth (saved from life at the great big thrift store) to ground the centerpieces this time,  I love it with the cream colored dishes.  Can you imagine someone donating a year of work??

English Cucumber Sandwiches with a sprinkle of salt. 

Cream and sugar in my vintage cherry blossom set with a Korean serving spoon.

A little cherry pick in the jam jar.

Oh, and there were two decadent desserts but we ate them and I didn't stop to take pictures!  

                                   

And they brought me fun presents!  Specialty teas (Spearmint and Mango), English Tea Biscuits, Toffee Almonds, and Cherry note paper, makeup bag and my favorite:  cherry buttons in a cherry box!  Oh and not in this picture:  the pink hat with felt flowers encircling it (group photo) and another hat for my collection!   We chatted, drank five pots of tea and it was over, like Christmas, before I wanted it to end.  Now I think I'll put those English Biscuits where they belong because tomorrow I might have room  for one!

With a Cherry on Top

Cherry Blossom Tea tomorrow and I am ready.  The house is clean, the baking is done, the table is set and the guests are confirmed!  This does not mean that I won't be running around like a maniac tomorrow morning perfecting things just a bit more.  I do that, it's the curse of the first-born Norwegian.

I tried the Chocolate Cherry Bars last night, they must be tested you know.   Mr. Wonderful told me in his adorable way that they were good, "You can make these again anytime!"  As opposed to the quote I hear when he dislikes a new recipe, "You don't have to make this again if you don't want to."

Enjoy the photos of Washington DC at cherry blossom time, tomorrow we'll look at the highly caloric display of cherry menu desserts.   Oh!  I just remembered, I have to get out the sugar cubes and my fancy hostess apron!

Just a Bowl of Cherries

Cherry Blossom Tea Menu

Sour Cream Cherry Scones with Devonshire Cream

English Cucumber Sandwiches on Oat Bread

Chocolate Cherry Bars

Cherry Delight Dessert

Earl Gray Tea 

Cream & Sugar

Today was baking day, I laughed at myself with the mix of eras on the kitchen counter.  Next to my Kitchen Aid mixer was my set of Pyrex bowls and by the laptop open to the recipes were the 1950s aluminum measuring cups.  Wooden spoons and chocolate chips and the reading panel all in one place! 

The countdown to my annual Cherry Blossom Tea began a month ago.  It's my fourth year of hosting an April tea after seeing the blossoms in Washington D.C.  I began my planning by making tags for each of the guests I had invited.  I used Japanese cherry blossom paper purchased in D.C. on my trip there for the Festival in 2008.  For this set of favors I used the same papers on each of the six tags but made each one different.  It's always fun to watch the ladies circling the table deciding which tag they want!

I'm washing linen and have a pile of china and serving pieces on the buffet.  Next up, tablescape, stay tuned!  And if you're in the vicinity, my dining room table pulls out to 110", you are all welcome to come!  I have to go iron and maybe, I'll try sprinkling with that 7Up bottle!

Which Came First?

The chicken?

Or, the egg?

Neither!  Really, I found the picture of the little girl having a tea party with her little teapot that looked like a chicken and THEN I found the chicken tea pot!  What's a thrifter to do but take it home to join that cute little picture?

So of course, when the egg tea set was found, it had to come home too.  This little set also was a thrift shop score.  A sugar, creamer, egg shaped teapot and the two matching cups.  You've heard the expression, "They must have grown legs and walked off"?  Well, in this case, they did!

You can't drink out of something with legs on it?  Well then, the cups work well holding jelly beans too.  Hey! There were more jelly beans in here when I set this up; we won't name any names but his initials are...  Mr. Wonderful!  Norwegian with a sweet tooth, that one is!

Tea Time is not for Golfers!

I started serving High Tea because I'm a socializer.  It also gave me a very good reason to use the Candlewick crystal dishes that I inherited from my grandmother.  Add to the crystal serving pieces a few sets of vintage china and before I knew it, I had dishes to fill a hutch and place settings to serve 12 for tea if I wanted to!  

High Tea is four or five courses and includes a meat course; for my tea parties that is usually a sandwich made with chicken salad mixed with honey mustard along with the mayo.  Or it could be egg salad on cinnamon raisin bread, it is delicious!  Scones and Deavonshire Cream are a must serve and two or three desserts.  

When I send out tea invitations I have a theme in mind, a seasonal tablescape, and handmade ATC (artist's trading card) tags for each guest grace the the dining room table.  In the weeks before the tea I am busy planning the dishes to use, the menu, the centerpiece and then I make an individual tag to sit at each spot.  To hold the tags I have used a variety of objects:  mini sterling silver clothes brushes, flower frogs, photo holders, menu card holders to name a few.  It's fun to watch the guests circle deciding which place setting and bone china tea cup they want and which tag is their favorite.  

Creating the atmosphere of elegance, tea is also an excuse to sit out the basket of vintage hats that I have procured.  Ladies look adorable in cloche hats from the 1920s, a pill box style from the 60s or a darling little velveteen number complete with a veil on top and tiny bow in back.

Do you shop the thrift stores for vintage aprons?  They come to my house if they are gingham check with embroidery, crocheted in multiple colors or the darling little hostess aprons made of silky fabric starched stiff.  

I love to hear the tea kettle whistling, to fill the tea ball with fresh tea and enjoy the company of friends from the decades of my life, all laughing and sipping tea from treasured china cups and splurging on sugar on a Saturday afternoon!