Snow and more snow

I am continuing on today with some blue and white china from my collection.  This is from the Liberty Blue Collection which was given out in grocery stores in about 1975.  I was not living in the continental US at that time but was living in Puerto Rico where my husband was stationed with the Navy.  So I didn't get in on it until later.   

I found the following quote on line about the china........... It was at a site that sells a book about Liberty Blue.

"Blue and white ironstone dinnerware has been collected for many years, and the introduction of the Liberty Blue pattern in 1975 by Enoch Wedgwood of England, with its fifteen different historic scenes of colonial America, brought forth keen interest. Here the Old North Church, Minutemen, West Point, Independence Hall, Mount Vernon, and many more historic sites are shown. The Liberty Blue promotion coincided with America's Bicentennial celebrations, causing more people to become interested in owning a set for themselves." 

 Each piece, or in this case, a set, features a scene from American History.  This one was the Ride of Paul Revere.  I have most of the set and will feature others at another time.

 It is a really nice collection to have if you like Blue and White China.

 And then there was the SNOW.......................

 For the past week all the weather men in our area were reporting on the big blizzard that might be heading our way.  Well, I wouldn't call what we got a "blizzard" because there wasn't much wind... at least not yet.  The snowing has stopped and we got a lot, at least a foot I think.  My hubby and our neighbors had the "fun" of going out and "playing" in it.  We have had many worse storms while living in Maine so it wasn't that big a deal.  But for many folks that live in our area it was Big.  It is all in what you are used to I think.... AND it is January!!!!!
  I stayed inside and made soup (from scratch) and I baked. I did cheat a bit  and made brownies from a Betty Crocker Mix but they were Good!  And the soup was too.

Now we wait for all the snow to melt again.  It will take a bit longer than the last little one we got.

I hope you will all visit me again next week.  You just never know what I will be showing.  Or talking about.  Or if we have had another "adventure."

I am joining with the following Tea Parties and blog parties.

  These may not be available every week so check to be sure.

Hope you will visit them too.

NO PLACE LIKE HOME 

 Martha at Martha's Favorites *

Bernideen's Tea-time Blog *
Ruth's Antiques  Teacups *

Share your cup  Thursday*

January Tea and Music

 

And so another week passes since my last Tea Cup Tuesday entry.  Time is surely flying fast.  Must be having lot of fun as the saying goes.

This week I want to share more Blue and White China, of which I own a LOT!!!!  These two mugs are a couple of my favorites.  Nothing better to me than holding a mug filled with warm tea or coffee on a cold winter's evening.  And these two are so nice and thick and hold the warmth well.

 The one on the right is from the Buffalo Pottery Company.  That was in the US.  And the one on the left simply says Japan on the bottom though it is hard to read.   I love the way the one from Japan has the extra treat inside with the pretty design you see, only as you have drunk some of the tea.

 Here is the mark for the one from Buffalo China.  It is an old cup, probably washed many times so the mark is a bit messy but you get the idea.

       I imagine I will be using these often over the next few weeks until things start to warm up.

MEANWHILE......................................

It was Saturday night and my favorite BlueGrass group The Hillbilly Gypsies was going to be on stage in a   town about an hour from here.  I sort of "hinted" I sure would like to see them since it would be the fiddle players last performance with the group for awhile.....     So dh says.... sure get the tickets and find a nice restaurant!   I didn't waste time and did just that........

SO... off we went.  Considering it is January and our weather isn't always the best this time of year I was a tiny bit worried.  HOWEVER... not necessary.  It was cold but CLEAR.... And the drive in both directions was uneventful.

I had found a restaurant right across the street from the concert venue and luck was with us as we found a parking place right there!!!  (Someone was just leaving.)  

The Restaurant called Stella A is called a "bar and grill" featuring Greek Food although they had lots of other selections.
 
Upon being seated we were served this little Hors D'oeuvres Tray featuring Pita bread and pickled peppers.  Wow but they were good.  This is a picture from the website but it is what they looked like!!

Bill had Osso Buco   which actually is an Italian Dish but it felt Greek that night (LOL)  And I had Pork Souvlaki which is most assuredly Greek.  The servings were so ample we had the leftovers for lunch the next day! '
 I tried to get pictures  of our meals but lighting was not the greatest for that and my camera rebelled!

I asked for hot tea as my drink but was disappointed that didn't have any variety other than the "house blend."  It wasn't bad but I am thinking in future I should carry some tea bags with me of my favorite teas.  Some of our favorite local restaurants do carry varieties of tea but not this one.  I will say though the tea really hit the spot on this cold night.

We don't often go  to this town but you can bet if we are there in the future we will try to plan to catch a meal here again.

After dinner we crossed the street and went to the Elks Lodge ball room where the concert was to be held!!   The band was already warming up so that was a treat as well.  Since we have seen this group many times and feel like we know them we chatted with them a bit.  The room was not conducive to take pictures that I would want to put here so I took one from their website.     But it is still them.

  The Hillbilly Gypsies from Morgantown, West Virginia

I should point out that Bluegrassers we have met seem to love to meet up with old friends and fans and are always willing to chat a bit.

     The fiddle player, who can play classical as well as bluegrass is my favorite.  He always dresses in bib overalls and often plays barefoot.    This is purely an act!!! He is a VERY bright and talented young man.   Unfortunately he is leaving the group for awhile to do other things.  I will miss seeing him.  But wish him well.  Part of the reason I really wanted to go to this concert was to see him one last time.  We will be seeing the group again this summer without him.

After three lovely hours it was time to head home..................



I hope you will all visit me again next week.  You just never know what I will be showing.  Or talking about.  Or if we have had another "adventure."

I am joining with the following Tea Parties and blog parties.

  These may not be available every week so check to be sure.

Hope you will visit them too.

NO PLACE LIKE HOME 

 Martha at Martha's Favorites *

Bernideen's Tea-time Blog *
Ruth's Antiques  Teacups *

Share your cup  Thursday*

Snow has finally shown up

Winter finally arrived.    Well the snow part anyway.  For the past several days we have had snow off and on.  It is some how peaceful to look out the window and see the flakes gently coming down.  Well, peaceful if you don't have to go anywhere or drive anywhere.

Funny thing.  I hadn't finished this post and thought I had just put it on draft mode until I could get back with the pictures I had taken.............    and suddenly I realized it had posted.  Obviously it wasn't quite finished or even edited if you read it before now.

 Here are the pictures I took of the current snow.....................

As you can see it isn't all that much by some standards........  My daughter, who lives up near Syracuse, NY had well over a foot of snow while we got only this much.  But it does seem more like winter now.   This picture is of my garden shed.  It includes my birdhouse collection.

 This next picture is of a little patio area off of my deck.  In the summer I like to sit there and have a cuppa!!!  Probably won't be doing that for awhile now.

 And finally here is the side yard, looking out towards the street.   I imagine we will get a good bit more snow before it is all over but for now this is enough.  The roads are now all bare so driving is fine. But you must be careful walking on some unshoveled walk ways.

Come back to see me at the next Tea Cup Tuesday Blog Party and I will have a cup and saucer to share as well as another adventure my husband are planning for this weekend.

A pretty teacup and an adventure on a COLD winters Day

 I am starting today's post with some pictures of a cup and saucer set that seem quite appropriate for January.  The set is called "Winter" and is made by Duchess China.  It is so pretty and I think it definitely lives up to its name.

When writing my post, as I often do, I decided to do a bit of a search on line to learn more about the company called Duchess China.  CLICK HERE for an interesting website that tells a bit about it and its history and then there is a link to the actual modern day website for Duchess China.

 To change the subject quite a bit, I wanted  to share an "excellent adventure" my husband and I had this past week. We went to a nearby town in search of record players, the vintage, windup kind.  We were pretty sure the guy we had met had a "few."  WELL..................  He had way more than a few..........

I wish now I had taken some pictures of the whole floors full (there were three floors) but I didn't.  I did take a few pictures of individual ones. I will show them in a bit.

The building was old, and if someone had the money to restore it, it would be amazing.  Mostly now it is so full of the record players you could barely see the beauty that was hidden.  There had to be 50 or so very vintage and antique record players  on each floor.  And interspersed were boxes full of old vinyl records.

It was very cold.... inside and out but that didn't stop us.  I did however wish I had had the forethought to bring myself some hot tea in a thermos to ease the cold.

Here are pictures of a few of the older  Edison Brand players........

 He also had a record player that I liked but he seemed reluctant to talk about selling it.  So I didn't take a picture.  But the discussion will just be tabled for another day.  I just imagine sitting in my living room and listening to old records playing on it....  Who knows............

The drive home was pleasant as the car heated up and we began to thaw out..............

  I hope you enjoyed our little adventure.  There are amazing treasures out there if you just ask around.  And it was a fun and rather different way to spend a very cold winter day.
I hope you will all visit me again next week.  You just never know what I will be showing.  Or talking about.

I am joining with the following Tea Parties and blog parties.

  These may not be available every week so check to be sure.

Hope you will visit them too.

NO PLACE LIKE HOME 

 Martha at Martha's Favorites *

Bernideen's Tea-time Blog *
Ruth's Antiques  Teacups *

Share your cup  Thursday*

New Years and Resolutions

 I am sitting here drinking a "cuppa" of my favorite tea... Earl Grey Vanilla....  apparently available only in Canada.  At least that is the only place I have found it.  (I always buy up a supply when we go up there!!  And for today I am using one of my favorite everyday cups..............  It isn't a fancy bone china cup.  It is a simple pottery mug made by Churchill, England.   It is from a series of cups given out at Irving Oil Gas Stations around New Brunswick, Canada  (and maybe other provinces that had Irving Oil Gas Stations at that time, back in the 70s or 80s.  I forget which.  I have some of them and use them every day for coffee and tea when I don't want to sit down and be formal.

 There was a series of 8 Farm House Scenes  and at the moment I don't have all the different ones.  But they featured one with a scene of a farmhouse showing a number of different farm animals and fowl.  Then on each of the other seven they featured each one of those....  The one pictured above is obviously the chicken.  There was a cow, horse, duck, goose, sheep, chicken and maybe a pig.  I don't have the 7th one and don't remember that well.  But it seems logical.  I did an internet search just now to see if I could find a picture of the farmhouse.  I did but it didn't show all of it.  At any rate I learned they must be getting rare because I could only find a few for sale and they were getting pricey I thought.  Anyway.  Here are the ones I have.

On another note...............
I recently participated in a tea swap with an on line swap group called SWAP-BOT.  I have done lots of art type swaps with the group over the years but this was the first for tea.  Each person (2) sends you 4 different teas.   The first little package arrived today........

Except for the constant comment I have never tried any of the others so it should be a little adventure.


        ..................................   And SO A NEW YEAR BEGINS............


We all like to start the New Year with a clean slate.........  and some resolutions.  If I can get through January keeping the resolutions going I always feel like I have made a major accomplishment.

Well...........   last year my resolution was to USE UP!!!  Art supplies, fabric and what ever that was sitting around unused.   And I am happy to say I actually did keep one of those resolutions.....  I vowed to NOT BUY ANY MORE FABRIC and to USE UP WHAT I HAD..........  so I got going, organized all my half started projects, added a couple of new ones and started sewing.  I ended up FINISHING twelve projects!!!  (Now yes I still have a few more..........  but I did what I set out to do!
No new fabrics purchased!  And found (mostly free on line) patterns to bust my STASH.  That felt good.  I want to do it again this year!  A couple of months ago I showed some of my finished projects here on the blog.
     Here is the link to see some of them plus other quilting posts I have done.......  CLICK HERE....


In addition I made myself a promise that I would NOT buy any new art supplies.  That was a little harder as I occasionally run out of glue, paint or something else I THINK I must have.......    But over all I think I succeeded except for colored Pens and Pencils because I did get caught up in the Coloring Book trend.  But I didn't buy any other crafting supplies except some glues since that is something I actually use up!

I am hopeful that I can continue on with this.  I now have a notebook developed over the past few months where I have listed and printed out instructions of projects I have underway.  I am hopeful I will be able to finish another huge group of projects this year without adding to the pile of UFOs.  I am adding some instructions to the notebook for projects to help me use up my supplies and fabrics... so we shall see!

Because of the popularity of Personal Planners and free printables for them I have found appropriate pages for this notebook.  I am fairly certain I will be able to continue this all.  Pinterest is the place to start if you are interested in planners, organizing info and more!  Of course once you get to Pinterest you may find it hard to break away!!!!!

Is there anyone else out there trying to do this?  I would love to hear your ideas on the subject.

I hope you will all visit me again next week.  You just never know what I will be showing.  Or talking about.

I am joining with the following Tea Parties and blog parties.

  These may not be available every week so check to be sure.

Hope you will visit them too.

NO PLACE LIKE HOME 

 Martha at Martha's Favorites *

Bernideen's Tea-time Blog *
Ruth's Antiques  Teacups *

Share your cup  Thursday*

As the year winds down...........

 

As I sit here writing my post today I realize I have been at this Tea Cup Tuesday thing for quite a while.   I have shown almost all of my personal tea cups and many that I have had or still have out in my antique shop.  And have shown many things I have found at flea markets and other antique shops.

Today I decided I would show you a couple of my FAVORITE cup and saucers.  There are ones I still own.  And will NOT put out in my shop.

I think the reason I love these is because they are not your standard fare.  They are both Royal Albert because that maker will no doubt ALWAYS be my favorite.  And they are primarily black which really makes the designs on them pop.

These are two in a series.  I MUST find more.... maybe when I get back to Canada this year I will find some more.

Without further ado.......... here they are.  Two of the Provincial Flowers of Canada series from Royal Albert.  On the left in the Violet representing New Brunswick and on the right is the pitcher plant representing Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Violet will always be one of my favorite flowers and so this cup and saucer set gets to go first.

This is the information that is shown on the Royal Albert website about this design..............

New Brunswick -The purple violet (Viola cucullata) is a perennial which flowers from May through July. It is stemless, with leaves and flower stocks growing directly from rootstocks.  The flowers of the purple violet have been used in jams and syrups, and are supposed to have properties to soothe the digestive tract and suppress a cough. The flower was adopted as the New Brunswick  floral emblem in 1936, at the request of the provincial Women's Institute. 

 

 This pretty little flower is featured inside the rim of the tea cup as a little bonus.

 

 And here is the Mark.

The other set I own if the Pitcher Plant  and here is the information on that one.........

Newfoundland and Labrador - Although it was not declared the provincial flower of Newfoundland and Labrador until 1954, this strange plant appeared on the Newfoundland penny during the late 1880s. The pitcher plant is found primarily in bogs and marshland throughout the province. It has a large wine-red flower with a red and gold centre, and hollow pitcher-shaped leaves are attached to the base of the stem. An insectivorous plant, it feeds off the insects that become trapped inside when the leaves fill with water.   

                                         And here is the pretty little surprise inside the cup. 

                                                              And this is the mark.

I have spent a LOT of time in New Brunswick because we have so much family there and also because we enjoy going there.  I have never been to Newfoundland.  Maybe, someday.......

I hope you will all visit me again next week.  You just never know what I will be showing.  Or talking about.

I am joining with the following Tea Parties and blog parties.

  These may not be available every week so check to be sure.

Hope you will visit them too.

NO PLACE LIKE HOME 

 Martha at Martha's Favorites *

Bernideen's Tea-time Blog *
Ruth's Antiques  Teacups *

Share your cup  Thursday*

Getting ready for Christmas

I can't believe how quick Christmas has come this year.  Also this has been the warmest Christmas season I can remember in years.  (not counting the years we lived in Puerto Rico and some Southern states.

I finally got the tree up... yes it is artificial but at this point in my life it is what I prefer.  When we lived in Maine it would NOT have been appropriate since we could just go out in our woods and get one fresh!!!

 A very large majority of the ornaments on the tree are made by me or as part of various ornament swaps in which I have participated over the years.    This year I did some cute little wool ornaments that were freebie patterns from Trish Harriman at Attic Heirlooms in Damariscotta, Maine. 
 Two Snowmen, a star and a chickadee.  There are also close ups of some of the others I made over the past few years.

Here is one of my favorite Christmas tea cup sets with a few other Christmas  decor things.

  

And here is the centerpiece I remade using base of my Thanksgiving centerpiece I received from my daughter this year.  I liked the basket so am re using it for this.

This is a picture from the Ganong website

I usually do a bit of baking about this time of year so we can have cookies when folks drop in and of course for ourselves.  An absolute family favorite came about quite by accident awhile ago.  I may have talked about it here before, I don't know.

I made some sugar cookies and frosted them with my favorite frosting, cream cheese.  At that time I didn't have any "sprinkles" or other "decor" to pretty them up.  But then I remembered I had some really good candies we had purchased on a recent visit to Canada.  So I smashed it up and used it on top of the cookies.  Now that may not sound too good.... however...........  it is scrumptious.

The candy is called Chicken Bones and is produced by New Brunswick, Canada Candy Maker  GANONG.  The name "chicken bones" doesn't seem to fit these that well.  But they have been making them for 130 years so I guess the name doesn't matter..  Since we only get up to Canada once a year or so I finally had to break down and buy some mail order.  Now I do it fairly often.  MUST get my "fix"                                

So here is the details from the company website.......   GANONGs
and here is the site to learn all about the Chicken Bones....... .click here

Here is a picture of on of the bags of Chicken Bones I recently purchased.

 The next picture shows how I crushed up the pieces to make the topping.

 Here are the basic sugar cookies..............

 frosted with cream cheese frosting...........

 And then dipped, upside down in the topping......................

 And here is one batch...............

           They are beyond yummy.  I don't dare make them very often or I would be in trouble!

      Before I sign off today I want to wish all my followers and readers a very Merry Christmas.

 (Note: The postcards pictured today are from The Graphics Fairy whose link in is in my side bar)

I am joining with the following Tea Parties and blog parties.

  These may not be available every week so check to be sure.

Hope you will visit them too.

NO PLACE LIKE HOME 

 Martha at Martha's Favorites *

Bernideen's Tea-time Blog *
Ruth's Antiques  Teacups *

Share your cup  Thursday*