Matching Pieces....

Remember this pretty little creamer I recently found in an antique shop?

Well, now it has a companion piece of a much larger size. Not having anything else to do today, I decided to visit one of my favorite antique shops where I found this gorgeous 12 inch plate that has the same beautiful yellow rose and purple flower pattern as that of my pretty little creamer.

Here's a closer view of the floral details....

Love the blend of colors....

Once again, I feel so lucky when I find such beautiful things at affordable prices.

Blogger was giving me fits as I was doing this post as it was not letting me move my pictures around within my post to get them in the order that I wanted them to be. Urrrgggg......

After fighting with it, I finally got them in the order that I wanted them, but it took much longer to get this post ready than it should have. I hope this is only a temporary problem. Have any of you been having the same problems????

Enjoy the rest of your weekend. I'll be back again on Tuesday for "Teacup Tuesday". If there are any new ladies who would be interested in joining this event, please send me an Email with your blog link and I will add you to my list and include your blog link within my Teacup Tuesday post.

Itty Bitty Finds.....

Hello my sweet friends....

Don't you just love it when you can find something really, really cute for really, really cheap? If you're anything like me, I'm sure you just answered YES..

Wanna see an itty bitty little something that I found for just $1.00 at one of my favorite antique shops?

Here it is.....

It's the cutest little jar ever with a flower shaped lid in the softest shade of blue. It stands just 1.5 inches tall and is 2 inches wide. It's an old Avon Cream Perfume jar and was empty when I bought it. The empty jar was a little plain so I filled it with some old cream colored buttons I had.

Now, it sits on my computer monitor riser right in front of me so I can have another pretty thing to look at whenever I am sitting at my desk in my office at home (now if I could just find a way to hide all those darned electrical cords....)

What kinds of things do all of you surround yourself with on your desks and/work areas at home and at work? I would love to know.

Teacup Tuesday - Week 10

Hello my friends and Happy Teacup Tuesday to all of my visitors.

I hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. My weekend was fabulous. The weather here in Minnesota was perfect for the long holiday weekend with sunny skies, light breezes and temps in the mid seventies. I was able to spend quite a bit of the weekend visiting with my Mom, my sisters and my nieces and nephew which is something I always enjoy getting to do. It was also the perfect time to test out my new bed as I was able to sleep in each day and so far so good. The new bed seems to be helping with my back as it's been easier for me to get up in the morning and start moving around without any back pain. I hope this is a good sign and that the problems with my back will improve even more as time goes by.

For "Teacup Tuesday", this week I am sharing a lovely teacup that has a rose and blue floral pattern. The marking on the to bottom of this teacup indicates that the teacup was made in England by the Gladstone Bone China company.

This teacup is actually one that I no longer use for the reason that it has a chip along the top edge of teacup and I have always read that for sanitary reasons, it is not a good thing to use any sort of china for serving food or beverages if the china is cracked or chipped. Even though it is no longer used for its intended purpose, it still looks lovely displayed alongside all of my other china so I will never part with it.

Now, for something extra special.....

Katie from Rose Breeze Boutique , who for the past several weeks has joined me for Teacup Tuesdays, is doing a special giveaway on her blog. Katie makes and sells these wonderful little paper teacups that are filled with rose shaped teabags. They are just the sweetest thing to keep for oneself or to give away as little gifts or to use for party favors. Katie is giving away one of these sweet little paper teacups to the lucky winner of her drawing which will be held on Friday. Stop by Katie's blog before then to enter her drawing. Good luck to all of you.

In addition to Katie, these lovely ladies are also joining me for Teacup Tuesday this week and they would love to have you stop by and visit thier blogs to see the teacups they have chosen to share with us today:


Melinda @ Everything Shabby and Chic
Jocelyn @ Happy Cottage Quilter
Lola @ ...and Sew On

Valerie @ http://travelingthrough2.blogspot.com/

Hello New Bed.....

It's here !!!

Ladies, say Hello to my new bed....

Sorry about the bad quality of the pictures on these first two pictures. First the lighting was too bright with the sun coming in the window in the early afternoon and the picture looks a little fuzzy, then the pictures I took later came out dark. Oh well, at least you get the idea of what my new bed looks like.

I love it already and I haven't even had a chance to sleep in it yet. I am so looking forward to crawling into my new bed tonight and I am keeping my fingers crossed that my back will like having a firm mattress to and that I won't wake up with a sore back in the morning.

I prettied up the bed with a new pale pink bedskirt and some pretty pink sheets with a small rose print from the Rachel Ashwell "Simply Shabby Chic" line at Target.

Topping those off is a gorgeous for real Shabby Chic duvet cover. I purchased the Shabby Chic duvet cover years ago but was never able to use it as it was too small for my king size waterbed. Up until today, I've been storing it and the duvet in my closet. I am so happy that I am finally able to use it. It's still shorter than I would like on the sides and on the end as it barely comes down to the level of the box spring and I wish it was about 2 or 3 inches longer on each side, but I can live with it and I just love how pretty it looks on the bed.

One idea I had to better hide the areas where the mattress and box spring meet is to add another layer to the bedding. I think what I will do is look for some king size white sheets (hopefully with some ruffled edges) that are longer and wider than the duvet cover so that they will come down farther on the sides and on the end of the bed and I will layer them between the regular sheets on the bed and the duvet cover so there is more of a three tiered look to the bedding. I've seen it done in magazines and I think it should work.

Now that I have a much smaller bed, I have quite a bit more open space in the room. On the left side of the bed where before I had maybe a foot and a half of space between the side of the bed and the wall, I now have much more space to move around and I was even able to fit in a sofa side table that I found last fall in an antique shop to use as a second night stand and I also put a chair along that wall. Remember seeing this chair before? I found this cute chair for $5 in an antique shop this past winter and I showed it in one of my older posts. It was in my office being used for extra seating if I had visitors, but I moved it upstairs as I thought it would fit in perfectly with the Shabby Chic look I have created for my bedroom.

The only "ugly" parts of this room now are my old dresser and nightstand which are still the dark wood. My dream is to someday switch them out for some white or cream colored pieces to lighten up the look of the room even more. I have some ideas on what I can find to use for a nightstand and I will be keeping my eyes out for it when I am in the antique and thrift shops, but the dresser is going to be a little harder to replace.

I'll let you know in a few days if the new bed is making my back feel better and if it's easier for me to get up in the morning and start moving around without my back feeling like it could go out on me at any minute.

Have a fun and safe Memorial Day weekend. I'm just going to be hanging out at home for the most part, probably admiring my new bed all weekend, but will be over at my Mom's tomorrow for a picnic. More than likely, I will also end up at one or two different antique shops or thrift shops over the long weekend where maybe I will find just that right piece of furniture to use for a new nightstand... :-)

Bye, Bye Old Bed.....

I'm sooooooooooo excited!!

If you can believe this, up until Wednesday, I have spent the last 24+ years sleeping in a king size waterbed, but that is finally changing. It's time to say goodbye to the bed that has been my comfort zone for all these years.

Last weekend I went and bought myself a real bed with a plush firm top mattress that I am hoping will be much better for my back which has caused me quite the trouble over the past 5 or so years. I have wanted to do this for such a long time and I am so glad I finally had enough money tucked away in my savings account to be able to do this.

On Wednesday, I drained my waterbed for the last time ever and then my brother came over to my house and took the king size waterbed apart for me and hauled it away to the trash/recycling center. Now, I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my new bed which is being delivered Friday morning.

I can't wait until it gets here. Once I get the bed set up and "Dressed", I will take more pictures for you all to see.

Hope you've all had a fabulous week so far. Mine has been extremely busy at work as I've been training a new employee this week, so I am looking forward to the long Memorial Day weekend and having a few days to relax and of course sleep in my new bed.... LOL

See you soon.

Teacup Tuesday - Week 9

Hello Ladies,

I hope you all had a fabulous weekend and that your week has started on a good note. I enjoyed my mini-vacation immensely, even though I just stayed home and didn't travel anywhere. It was just really nice to de-stress and have some extra time to relax and do some of my favorite things and not have to think about work for several days. I have some exciting news about a major purchase I made this past weekend and I will post more about that later in the week, as I don't want to take away from the regular theme of this day which is all about teacups.

Can you believe it's already been nine weeks for my "Teacup Tuesday" posts? My how time flies. I've enjoyed sharing my collection of teacups with you and it makes me feel good knowing that I am not alone in my love of teacups and that so many of you share a love of these also. What has made these "Teacup Tuesday's" even more special is that I now have several other lovely ladies who have joined my small group by sharing teacups from their collections on the same day. I am very honored to have them be a part of this group and I hope that even more of you may join in someday, even if it's just a one time thing for you.

For this week, I have chosen to share another one of my Royal Albert teacups. This particular teacup is from the Summertime Series and the pattern is called Sherborne. Sadly, I must admit that I am not familiar with a lot of the names of different flowers so I can't tell you what type of flowers make up this pattern. All I know is that I love the flower pattern and the colors.

If anyone would like to educate me on what type of flowers these are, I would love to know.

Now, for a little something extra that I saved to include in today's post for the reason that it fits in perfectly with the tea theme, I just have to show you this great book I found last Thursday in a specialty shop called Rose Mille which I mentioned in my previous post. It was here in this store that I found and purchased a new book created by the publishers of "Victoria" magazine. The book is titled "The Essential Tea Companion" and is filled with beautiful images of teacups and other china pieces and tablescapes from the pages of "Victoria" magazine and tons of yummy recipes perfectly suited for tea parties. It's going to be so much fun testing some of these recipes.

To see even more beautiful teacups, please take the time to visit these lovely ladies who have joined my group and are also doing a Teacup Tuesday post today. I know they would love to have you stop by for a visit:

Katie @ Rose Breeze Boutique
Sandi @ Wayside Treasures

Valerie @ Traveling Through
Jocelyn @ Happy Cottage Quilter
Lola @ ...and Sew On

Until next time....

A Good Day Antiquing....

Hello my sweet friends..

I'm so glad that you stopped by for a visit today. Did you all have a good week?

Crazily enough, my week went very fast and it's been a very good one. I worked Monday-Wednesday, then it was time for a few vacation days. Despite still being extremely busy at work, I needed to use up some of my vacation time, so I am taking an extra long weekend and will be off from work through Monday, returning to work on Tuesday. It is so nice to have a few extra days to relax doing some of my favorite things.

As you can guess, at least one day of my vacation days had to be devoted to visiting some of my favorite antique shops, so on Thursday I took a short trip to Stillwater, Minnesota which is one of the best places to go if you love to visit antique shops. They have several right in the old downtown area along the Mississippi river and you can walk up and down the street stopping in all the shops. In addition to the antique shops, they also have several specialty gift stores that are fun to visit.

Keeping within my set budget as I must, I managed to find some very pretty things, the best of which was this small German china creamer...

The colors are gorgeous, from the soft shaded green to the spray of purple flowers and yellow roses. I love these colors and they blend in so well with so many of my other pieces.

Less expensive, but non-the-less a great find for me were these darling pink and cream crocheted potholders that I've added to my collection. I had never seen this star design before and I love the fact that they are 3 dimensional. What's even better is that they were in almost perfect condition with no stains. I'm not even sure if you would call them antique or vintage as they could be brand new, but either way, I love them the same.

A closer up view to give you more of the 3 dimensional look of this crochted pattern. I find it so amazing that someone could do such fine and detailed work.

The last stop of my day was in a shop called "Rose Mille" which sells a wonderful and eclectic mix of beautiful antiques, jewelry, clothing, specialty soaps, tea related items and gorgeous crafting items from scrap book papers, buttons, ribbons, and all sorts of embellishments. I could have spent tons of money in this store, but I held myself back and only purchased two small bundles of paper Forget-me-Nots as well as a new book which I will share later in my next Teacup Tuesday post.

What a great start to my extra long weekend... I feel like pinching myself sometimes to make sure I'm not dreaming when I manage to find so many nice things in just one day. I hope your next trip to the antique shops, thrift stores, Goodwill or even those garage sales brings you just as much luck as I had on Thursday.

Have a fabulous weekend ladies...

You must check this out....

Just dropping in to wish you all a Happy Wednesday and to let you know that Debi @ http://lifeinmystudio.blogspot.com/ is celebrating her 200th post and is doing a totally awesome giveaway.

Make sure you stop by Debi's blog to congratulate her and enter in the drawing for her wonderful giveaway.

Here's just a small peak at some of the wonderful things she's giving away...

As for me, I'm taking a much needed short vacation from work and will be spending the next few days most likely browsing through some of my favorite local antique shops. If I'm lucky, I will hopefully have a few new treasures to share with you by the weekend.

Hope you are all having a wonderful week.

Until next time...

Teacup Tuesday - Week 8

Hello my friends and welcome to another edition of “Teacup Tuesday”.

Before we get to the teacup this week, let me first say that I hope you all had a wonderful Mother’s Day Weekend. I had a great time with my own mother on Mother’s day. My family is not what you could call “Fancy” and we did nothing extravagant to celebrate Mom’s special day. My siblings and I along with my brother-in-law and nieces and nephew just spent the afternoon at my Mom’s visiting and having a barbeque lunch. It was the perfect way to spend a quiet Sunday afternoon.

Now, to get on with the purpose of today’s post, this week I have chosen to share another Royal Albert teacup from my collection. This teacup is part of the Gaiety Series and the pattern is called “Valeta”. This pattern features roses mixed in with moss green leaves. The top and bottom of the teacup are trimmed in my favorite color of pink as is the saucer. It is so pretty!!


It even has a spray of roses on the inside edge of the teacup. Don't you just love teacups that have the floral patterns on the insides of the teacups as well as the outsides?

Another view with more of the saucer showing....

This teacup I inherited from my Great Aunt Hester when she passed away several years ago. It is very special to me and I think about her and what a kind and sweet lady she was every time I use it. I also appreciate the fact that she enjoyed collecting teacups as much as I do.

I hope you aren’t getting bored yet seeing the teacups in my collection as I still have quite a few more to show. Who knows, before these “Teacup Tuesday” post ends, I may even have added a few more to my collection… LOL

Now that you’re done visting me, please stop over and visit these lovely ladies who are joining me this week to see the teacups they are showing. They would love to have you stop by for a visit:

Katie Rose Breeze Boutique
Melinda Everything Shabby and Chic
Jocelyn at Happy Cottage Quilter

...and Sew On


Don’t forget. If there is anyone else who is interested in joining me each week for “Teacup Tuesday”, you are more than welcome to. It is open to anyone who wants to participate. Remember to, that it is not something you need to do every week. You can just join me whichever weeks you choose. All you need to do to join in the fun is send me an Email by Monday night with the link to your blog and I will include your blogs link in my post for the upcoming week.

I hope that more of you will join us in the upcoming weeks, even if it’s just once or twice. The more ladies we have joining in, the more fun it will be.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit. Take care and have enjoy the rest of your week.

More Roses To Add to My Collection.....

Happy Saturday Everyone...

I hope you all had a wonderful week and that you are finding time now to enjoy the weekend and hopefully some beautiful spring weather where you are. We've had some very nice days of weather this past week for the most part, but on Friday we received some much needed rain. The weekend sounds like it will be dry but somewhat on the cool side with temperatures in the mid sixties.

I wanted to say a big Thank You to all of you sweet ladies who left me such kind comments wishing me a Happy Belated Birthday. Your good wishes mean the world to me as does your friendship.

Not to leave you without some eye candy during your visit, I must share with you a few pictures of a gorgeous little china pitcher that I found several weeks ago during one of my antiquing jaunts. This pink beauty with the lovely roses was just sitting quietly there on the shelf patiently waiting for me to find it and bring it home with me.

That sweet little boy in the picture next to my lovely new rose pitcher is my handsome nephew Hunter (his picture was taken a little over a year ago and he is now a much bigger "5" year old)

Isn't she a beauty?

It has no stamp on the bottom, but I'm guessing that it was either made in Germany or Bavaria as those countries seem to have manufactured some of the prettiest china pieces I have found in the past.

I could sit for hours just admiring my display of rose patterned china and other pretties. I wonder what I would ever do if a fire, tornado or some other natural disaster were to destroy my home someday. I honestly think it would send me into a deep depression if I were to lose all of the wonderful and irreplaceable things I have collected in my lifetime.

Am I the only one who thinks like this and feels this way about impersonal things that are just objects and really have no meaning in the bigger scope of life, or am I crazy? I know people lose things all of the time in natural disasters all over the world and life does go on for them, but it's so hard to imagine anything like that happening to me. Do any of you feel the same way that I do? I would love to know what your thoughts are.

Enough of my rambling thoughts for today. Take care my sweet friends and have a lovely weekend. And for all of you mother's out there, I wish you a very Happy Mothers Day!!

Birthday Gifts & Other Gifts.....

I’m not much one for bringing attention onto myself by announcing to the world that it’s my birthday, so I quietly let the day slip by without mentioning it here on my blog, however, now that the day has come and gone I would like to share a little something about my birthday and more specifically what I ended up buying with the money my Mom so sweetly slipped into my birthday card. It wasn’t a large amount of money, but even so, my Mom really does know just how much I appreciate getting even just a little bit of extra cash to use as “fun money”.

The timing of the gift of money couldn’t have been more perfect as it came just in time for me to shop at a local “Occasional Sale”. These are special shops that sell mostly vintage, antique and handcrafted items and the sales are only held periodically throughout the year. The shop I spent my birthday money at is called Vintage Whimsy and is located about an hours drive from my home. Definitely worth visiting even if it takes a little while to get there as they have lots of cute vintage and shabby chic items.

Keeping mostly within my set budget, I managed to snag the perfect gift for myself. Are you read to see it????

Well here it is…

It’s a cute wicker shelf that is actually intended to be hung on a wall, but as soon as I saw it, I knew that it would be perfect to use as a display piece on a small desk that I have in my spare bedroom (which actually has no bed and is currently used more as a sitting room). I’ve already filled it with some of my favorite things. Someday, I may even move it to the larger desk that I have in my home office downstairs, but I have so much stuff on that desktop already that I can’t imagine trying to make room for this. So for now, it will stay here where it already fits perfectly.

And lastly, I must share with you a few pictures of a lovely gift recently bestowed upon me by my dear blogging friend Katie at Rose Breeze Boutique. Showing what a sweet and generous person she is, Katie sent me this darling little hand-painted pink oval box with the prettiest hand-painted roses on sides and on the lid. Isn’t it lovely?

What makes it even more special is that she also painted a rose on the inside bottom of the box and also added my initial as a way to personalize it and make it just for me.

I would like to thank Katie once again for thinking so kindly of me and having the generosity to send me such a wonderful gift. I will treasure it always.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit today. Take care and come back soon!!

Teacup Tuesday-Week 7

Eeeeeeeeeeeks….

Do you notice something different about this “Teacup Tuesday” post? See something that is usually lacking in my blog pictures?

Figured it out yet?

Well, if you haven’t figured it out, let me help you out a little bit. It’s the color BLACK! Yep, that’s right, BLACK. I don’t think I’ve ever shown anything with this color on my blog before. As I’m sure my frequent visitors know, I tend to stick more to my favorite pastel colors in my blog posts as those are the colors that I myself find more pleasing to the eye.

However, for this post I must sneak a little of this color black onto my blog to take you back many years ago to where my teacup collection first started. This my friends was the very first teacup that I ever purchased and which was the beginning of this crazy teacup collection of mine. I’m guessing it must be close to 20 years old by now. I know nothing of the pattern. All I can tell you is that it was made by Queens China.

Ever wonder what started me on this collection of teacups, teapots and pretty china? Well, it all started about the time that the gorgeous “Victoria” magazine entered into this world. It was through the beauty of “Victoria” magazine that I fell in love with everything to do with the art of tea and with collecting pretty china. If it wasn’t for “Victoria”, my china cupboards would probably be empty and my pocketbook a little more full…LOL.

Now that you've seen my offering for todays "Teacup Tuesday", it's time to continue on your journey through the virtual world of "Teacup Tuesday". Please take the time to visit the blogs of these lovely ladies who are also participating in “Teacup Tuesday” to see the beautiful teacups they are sharing with us today. I know that they would love to have you stop by for a visit and leave a comment for them.

Katie - Rose Breeze Boutique
Melinda - Everything Shabby and Chic
Jocelyn - Happy Cottage Quilter
Sandi Wayside Treasures

Until next time my freinds.....

What's on top of your refrigerator?

Hello my sweet friends.

Ask me if I'm crazy, but don't be surprised if I say YES..... LOL

I'm feeling a little bit like I've been stuck in a rut the past few weeks and other than my "Teacup Tuesday" posts, I'm having a hard time coming up with some new and fun things to blog about. So being the crazy girl I am, I thought I would snap a few pictures of some of the things I have on top of my refrigerator and share them with all with you.

See that pretty teapot that now holds a bouquet of flowers? Sadly, it's missing it's lid. In all of the years that I have collected teapots and teacups and other bits and pieces of china, only once has something been broken and that one thing was the lid to this teapot. It happened in the most ordinary way. I had used the teapot to make a pot of tea and as I was washing the lid to the teapot, I dropped it in sink and it shattered into a hundred little pieces... SOB!!!

How sad is it that I almost started crying when it happened? Maybe not so sad when I tell you that I feel like these teapots of mine are almost like friends because they bring so much comfort and joy into my life and to have one break like it did was almost like having my heart broken a little bit.

There's that crazy part of me coming out again. Maybe this love of collecting I have really is a sickness and maybe I really need some help. What do you think??

Now, just because I feel like it and because I'm feeling a little generous today, I think it's time to have my first giveaway. See the pretty little red and white saucer below. It is stamped with Spodes "Camilla" Copland England on the bottom. I have a two extras that never get used and are for the most part kept tucked away in my china hutch. I think that it's time that they come out and find a new home where someone new can appreciate them too.

Sooooooo..... this is how it will work. The third and seventh person to leave me a comment on this post will each receive one of these sweet little saucers as a special little gift from me as my way of saying thank you for visiting my blog.

Good luck my lovely friends...

Have a great weekend!!!