Tea Things Tuesday..........

Hello my sweet friends and welcome once again to "Tea Things Tuesday".

For those of you who may be new visitors to my blog, "Tea Things Tuesday" is where I and anyone else who wishes to join in, share something tea related each Tuesday. I first started by sharing my teacup collection, but have now moved on to my collection of teapots.

This week, I will share with you a beautiful china teapot with a lovely purple pansy pattern....

I am fortunate to also have a matching teacup and desert plate for this teapot. A complete set for one. Notice the little lady figure sipping tea? I found this charming little piece several years ago at Hallmark. She looks somewhat out of place being as tiny as she is next to the teapot, teacup and desert plate, but she definately is a sweet addition to the display.

To see even more wonderful tea themed goodies, please pay a visit to the blogs of these wonderful ladies to see what they are sharing with us today:

Mary @ http://marysteacottage.blogspot.com/

Jocelyn @ http://justalittlesouthernhospitality.blogspot.com/

Lola @ http://ansewon.blogspot.com/

Rebecca @ http://bellemaisonshop.blogspot.com/

Mrs. Bee @ http://ourpeaceinthevalley.blogspot.com/

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

Candace @ http://wraggedypatches.blogspot.com/

The Duchess @ http://roseteacottage.blogspot.com/

"M" @ http://talesfromanoccottage.blogspot.com/



**A little reminder as well. If there are any more of you out there who are interested in participating in "Tea Things Tuesday", we would love to have you join us, even if it's only once. If you'ld like to be included in the weeks ahead, just send me an Email and let me know and I will add you to the list. You can find my Email address under my profile information.

Lovely Ladies....

Hello my sweet friends and Happy Saturday to you all..

I hope you are enjoying your weekend so far. I have been. The weather here in Minnesota today is wonderful for this time of year. The sun is shining brightly and the temperature is a pleasant 61 degrees. While definitely not the hot temperatures I'd prefer, I'm not going to complain as I know that just a month or two down the road, when winter begins to settle in for the long haul, I will find myself dreaming about and wishing for days like this.

So while I enjoy the weather today, I will leave you all with something to enjoy as well. Today I will share with you my small but lovely collection of Lady Planter Figurines. I just love to collect these and I am always on the hunt for more as I am roaming through the antique and thrift stores.

The first lovely lady is wearing a dress of yellow and green. She looks a bit like Marie Antoinette I think...

The next lady is a tad bit smaller in size and she is wearing a dress in the softest shade of blue and cream. So pretty...

This next beauty I will show two pictures of. One without any flowers in the planter.....

And one with a bundle of artificial flowers filling the planter on the backside...

And last but not least is the one I consider to be my favorite. This little beauty is the smallest of them all, but as you can see, she is PINK!!! Not a bold pink, but the softest shade of pink with some cream as well. The backside planter of this one holds a tiny batch of cream pink roses.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing this charming collection of mine. I know that I've enjoyed sharing these lovely ladies with all of you.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!!!

Tea Things Tuesday.....

Hello my friends and welcome to another addition of "Tea Things Tuesday".

I'm thrilled to have you stop by for a visit today to check out what teapot I am going to be sharing with you from my collection. It won't surprise you in the least when I tell you that the teapot for this week is covered in dreamy pink roses. I'm sure many of you are just like me when you are out shopping, whether it be in the antique shops, thrift stores or retail stores and you find your eyes immediately drawn to anythign with roses on it.

This lovely rose patterned teapot found its way into my home about two years ago after I discovered it in a wonderful antique and gift shop just across the border of Minnesota in the charming town of Osceola, Wisconsin.

Just look at the pretty roses. The colors range from an ever so soft shade of pink, to one just a tad bit darker...

Loving the color pink as much as I do, it's hard for me to imagine that there are some people out there who don't like the color pink. I guess they just don't get the "Pink" thing or know how to appreicate the beauty and many shades of this color.

If you want to see some more pretty tea things, whether they be pink or another color, please visit the blogs of these lovely ladies to see what they are sharing today.

Mary @ http://marysteacottage.blogspot.com/

The Duchess @ http://roseteacottage.blogspot.com/

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

Debbie @ http://pinkrosesandteacups.blogspot.com/

Lola @ http://ansewon.blogspot.com/

"M" @ http://talesfromanoccottage.blogspot.com/

A Little Of This & A Little Of That.....

Hello everyone and Happy Friday!!

I hope you've all had a wonderful week. My week was very busy as usual at work, but other than that, it's been great. The weather here in Minnesota the past few weeks has been absolutely gorgeous with mostly sunny skies and temperatures around the 80 degree mark. It's so hard to imagine that Fall will officially arrive early next week and of course, Winter just waiting around the corner to sneak up on us.

Lucky for me and despite being very busy at work, I was able to schedule a vacation day for today and with the weather being as beautiful as it was, I of course had to get out of the house and make a drive to visit a few antique shops. Didn't find anything at the first one I visited, but I had much better luck at one of the smaller shops in town.

Loving beautiful china and Mosaics, I was thrilled to find two gorgeous Mosaic covered wood boxes, both very reasonably priced and within my spending budget. The first one is quite large in size and might possibly at one time have been a box for storing silverware, but now, it's been painted a lovely shade of cream and the top of the box is covered with a Mosaic of broken pieces of delicate, rose patterned china and also with the lid from a serving dish of some type.

Besides the larger Mosaic box, I also found a smaller Mosaic box featuring a lovely pink and yellow floral pattern. This box has already found it's place on my dresser where I will use it as a jewelry box.

And last but not least, I will leave you with a little bit of pretty pink and white to show how I am displaying some of the milk glass vases that I've been collecting. In my bedroom, I have a small stand that holds a cute pink shelf with 3 drawers (that I just have sitting on top of the stand and not hanging from the wall). It's just the perfect size to use for displaying the vases.

Well girls, thanks for stopping in for a visit. I'm always happy when you do.

Enjoy the weekend and I'll be back on Tuesday for "Tea Things Tuesday".

Remember, if you want to join me and share something tea related on Tuesday on you own blog, just send me an Email with the link to your blog and I will include a link to your blog in my post on Tuesday. Anyone who wants to join me is more than welcome to.

Tea Things Tuesday....

Let's have tea shall we??

Hello my sweet friends and welcome to another addition of the newly renamed "Tea Things Tuesday". As always, I am so happy to have you stop by for a visit.

For this weeks "Tea Things Tuesday", I am showing another Sadler teapot from my collection. Like most of the other teapots in my collection, this lovely teapot has a beautiful rose pattern. The pink roses in the center are surrounded by a ring of smaller pink and yellow roses with a dash of blue flowers tossed into the mix.

I do not have a matching teacup in this pattern, however, I do have my soft buttery yellow teacup that I found earlier this summer and it perfectly compliments the teapot by bringing out more of the yellow from the teapots floral pattern. They make a wondeful pair don't you think?


To see even more beautiful tea things, please check out the blogs of these wonderful ladies to see what they are sharing today:

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

Mary @ http://marysteacottage.blogspot.com/

Mrs. Bee @ http://ourpeaceinthevalley.blogspot.com/

** JUST A REMINDER : "Tea Things Tuesday" is open to anyone who want's to participate. If you are interested in joining and would like me to include a link to your blog in my weekly "Tea Things Tuesday" post, just send me an Email with the link to your blog no later than early Monday evening and I will add it to my list.

Awesome Finds......

OK seriously....

Do you ever go shopping somewhere and feel like you are "stealing" something because you've paid so little for it when you know how much it's really worth? Well that's how I was feeling today after a visit to one of my favorite antique shops.

After dishing out the big bucks last week on a brand new computer, I knew that if I allowed myself to visit one of my favorite antique shops this weekend, I would need to set myself a dollar limit and stick to it. Yesterday was payday, so I decided that I would give myself a limit of $40.00 to spend if I found some things I wanted to buy.

Well, I needn't have worried that I would go overboard after finding something I wanted, because this was my lucky day and I ended up spending less than half of what my budget was and I still came home with several new treasures to add to my collection.

These my friends are the lovely new treasures I found today....

First up, and the most "expensive" item in the batch at a whopping $4.50 is this lovely pink and rose relish dish. It does have a noticeable crack line in it that has been repaired, so I won't use it a serving piece, but it will make for a wonderful display piece....

Then there was this lovely pair of rose patterned linen hand towels (marked as new and not antique..) for just $3.50 for the pair. You can't see from the picture, but they have a crocheted edge on the bottom...

The next item is this beautiful sugar jar which was priced at a whopping $2.99. Amazingly, I cannot even find any noticeable chips or cracks in this beautiful jar. I'm still shocked at the low price on this one...

The final two items that I found can be seen in the first picture above. One is another pretty milk glass vase to add to my growing collection that was priced at $2.95 and the other is the pretty hand painted pink and rose candlestick that was only $2.50.

The grand total of these items, with tax added was a mere $17.57. Can you believe that??

I felt like I had just finished shopping at a garage sale or thrift store instead of an antique shop after finding this much for so little money. Makes me wonder if the dealer in whose booth I found all of these items even realized what some of the pieces are actually worth. Maybe she was just trying to get rid of stuff and sell it for as cheaply as she could, but even so, I think she was letting herself get robbed with marking the prices as low as she had them. She sure wasn't making much of a profit on them. Her loss, not mine is all I can say.

Beings I only spent half of my shopping budget today, maybe that's a sign that I need to do some more fun shopping tomorrow....

I hope you are all having as great of a weekend as I am and that you are maybe finding some new treasures yourself. I'll look forward to finding out.

Enjoy the rest of you weekend !!

Different Looks....

Hi Girls....

Many of you may remember that earlier this summer, I finally got rid of my old waterbed that I had for close to 25 years and I bought myself a new bed (boy, what an expensive summer this girl has been having. First the bed, which was actually planned into my budget, and then a new computer which wasn't).

Thought I would share with you two different looks for my bed. I first started with my Rachel Ashwell Shabby Chic Duvet covered quilt which I totally love....

However, after having this heavier cover on my bed for several weeks, I came to the realization that it was way too warm to use during the hot summer months, so I switched to a lighter weight quilt in a soft pastel patchwork pattern. This quilt is one I have had for several years and which I purchased from JCPenney.

I just love the looks of the bed dressed both ways and with the winter months soon to be upon us, I am sure I will be switching back to the heavier Shabby Chic duvet covered quilt before too long as that one will keep me nice and toasty during those long cold winter nights.

Which looks is your favorite??

Thanks for stopping by for a visit today. Come back again soon!!

Tea Things Tuesday....

Hello all my sweet blogging friends.

I am so glad to be back blogging again after an unfortunate week away, but all is good now thanks to my wonderful new computer.

As you can see from the title of this blog post, I've changed the name of my weekly Tuesday blogging event from "Teacup Tuesday" to "Tea Things Tuesday" as I've run out of teacups to share for now, but I still have lots of other wonderful tea things to share with all of you, so it seemed fitting to change the name of this weekly event to something more suitable that encompasses all things related to tea and not just teacups.

For this first week of "Tea Things Tuesday", I am sharing a lovely Sadler teapot that I bought many years ago, either at TJ Maxx or Marshalls. At that time, they used to sell lots of teapots for very cheap and I'm guessing I probably paid no more than $20 for this teapot. Prices have skyrocketed since that time, and now, I see these same style of teapots selling for closer to $60-$80 when I see them in different gift shops.

This teapot has a lovely floral pattern of which I believe are pansy's in a soft lavender/purple color.

In the first picture above, I am showing it displayed alongside two very pretty cream colored flower vases that I found at the dollar store of all places. The details on these little vases are amazing and I can't believe they were that inexpensive. Goes to show you that you'll just never know what you might find at the dollar stores.

Thanks for stopping in for a visit today. To continue on you journey of Tea Things Tuesday, please stop and pay a visit to these wonderful ladies who are also sharing something tea belated today. They would love to have you stop by and pay them a visit.

Update: Sorry girls. My links apparently weren't working. Hopefully they will work now this way:

Mary @ http://marysteacottage.blogspot.com

Melinda @ http://mycottagebythebay.blogspot.com

Candace @ http://wraggedypatches.blogspot.com

My New Computer & Other Things...

OK Ladies.

Here it is.... The big black monster that is my new computer.

Now why is it that computer and technology manufactures seem to think that everything electronic needs to be BLACK???? Doesn't anyone ever stop to think that at least half of the people who use these electronics are women who would prefer their electronics to come in more soft feminine colors like pink, white or maybe even a light blue? These ugly black monsters totally ruin the look we females try to create in our home, but because we need and use them, we are stuck with them without having a choice in color options. All we can do is work around them and try our best to make them fit into our decorating styles as much as we can.

Except for my new computer being my least favorite color of black, I am totalling LOVING it so far... I love having the flat wide screen and I am slowly figuring out how everything works. Most of you probably noticed that I have changed my blog background. I did that because with the wide screen monitor that I have (which by the way is a 21.5 inch monitor if anyone is wondering) the old background I had on my blog just didn't look right to me anymore, so I found one that works and looks better with the widescreen monitor.

Now for the other thing. Last week, when I was without a computer at home and not able to do any blogging, I spent some time working on my decorating scrapbooks. If you haven't read about my decorating scrapbooks, go here to read about them:

http://shabbypinkandpretty.blogspot.com/2008/11/decorating-scrapbooks.html

I managed to get a few pages completed and these will make their way into my notebooks.

For this page, I chose a theme of purple and yellow...

These two pages have a theme of pale pinks and cream.....

And the final page I completed features a theme of pinky reds....

I can find myself spending hours and hours on these decorating scrapbook pages, deciding on a color theme and a layout until everything looks just right before I start taping everything to the pages and them putting the finished pages into sheet protectors and into my scrapbooks.

Well that's all for now girls. I'll be back on Tuesday for the first installment of the new weekly theme of "Tea Things Tuesday". Can't wait to start sharing my collection of teapots with all of you and seeing all of the great tea things you will have to share as well.

Enjoy the rest of your long Labor Day weekend. Be safe and have fun!!

I'm Back...............................

Hey Girls...

I'm back!!!!

And with a brand spankin new computer and an empty pocketbook to boot..

Hard drive died in the old computer so figured I might as well go ahead and invest some of my hard earned money in a whole new computer instead of just replacing the hard drive. Considering that my old computer was one that I bought used a few years ago from a very good friend for only $200 I think I got my money's worth out of that one.

Haven't had time to take any new pictures to share, what with computer shopping, setting up the new computer and now trying to learn a whole new computer operating system (going from Windows XP to Windows Vista), but it will all come together one of these days. Hardest thing I think is going to be figuring out how to organize my picture folders as Windows Vista is way different that Windows XP when it comes to picture files.

I will post more again over the weekend and I am anxious to get around to visiting all of you as well. I have missed blogland over this past week and am so glad to be back.

Take care and I'll be back soon..