Afternoon Delights

My daughter and I love to do tea.  I have collected beautiful china for years.  You could say I have an obsession for beautiful china, vintage silver pieces and exquisite stemware.  Stephanie wanted to try this sorbet type milkshake her sister told her about so she went down and bought these wonderful pastries in chocolate cups and brought them home for us.  We tried to find fresh flowers that were reasonably priced but even here in Southern California, the pickins were slim this weekend (probably all scarfed up last week for Valentine's Day).  Well, you can't do tea without flowers so I rummaged through the silk pile and look what I found.  These are so pretty, I'm going to leave them out for awhile.  This vase is vintage and I call it my "Lalique" vase.  It's not, but it might as well be.  I LOVE this vase.  My sweet little birds were a recent find at the gift show and I think I'm keeping a couple of these too!

 I pulled out this large silver tray I keep out all the time.  It's a great size for serving tea.  We made the little sorbet smoothies and topped them with fresh berries.  I love how all the colors came together with my chintz china.

 Another thing I obsess over is vintage and antique lace.  This piece is beyond beautiful, and I suspect it is probably a hundred years old.  It's pretty fragile and is rampant with little holes here and there, but I just scrunch it up to hide the imperfections.  Look at the detail of this lace.  There are several crowns and bows and roses.  How romantic can you get?  I wish I knew the history of this piece.  It's truly one of my faves.

 Thanks for joining us for tea.  You are always welcome.

Homemade Script Tissue Paper

Last night I was perusing the Faded Charm Cottage White Wednesday and Savvy Southern Style Wow us Wednesday Linky Parties, and I came across a post by Tales from an OC Cottage click here. She had done a project with scripted napkins. I fell in love with her projects and spent the rest of the evening trying to find the napkins on the internet so I could make some projects of my own.  I had absolutely no luck.  So I began experimenting with my ink jet printer and some used tissue paper and one of my French typography documents.  I love the result.  My daughter thought it was actually old paper.

 Here is how I did it.  I took a piece of copy paper and sprayed spray adhesive on the top and the bottom.  I left the middle with no spray.  This was just to get the tissue paper to adhere so it would go through the copier. I laid the tissue on the sheet of paper and trimmed it to fit the 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of copy paper.  I then ran the paper through my copier and copied the image like normal.  I only had to use one piece of copy paper because each consecutive piece of tissue adhered just fine.

Yard Stick Coffee Table

One of our dealers brought this coffee table in.  It's mounted on a shortened tredle base and then the top is covered in a collection of yard sticks.  Great find if you ask me.

Black and White

I went out to the shop, Aubergine Emporium, on Sunday which is my usual custom and practice.  Pat put together this great vignette of black and white and cream.  I think it looks great.  I love the color combo.  It reminds me of vintage aged paper with faded black print.  Everything here has French flavoring in it, but the textures and the paint finishes are all different, yet it all works perfectly together.  The delicate French chair is covered with leather.

 The frame below is aged to perfection.  It's just chippy enough to give it character.  I can just imagine the old photos it used to contain.

These bird prints are wonderful.  I just might have to try my hand at something like this with an image from the Graphics Fairy.

 Isn't this sign great?  I didn't paint it, but I wish I had.  The words say it all.

 Below is another example of black and creams and neutral.  This is brown mailing paper on the walls just tacked up with the riding hats and a wood mirror with beveled glass.  The riding hats are surrounded by a large gold frame.  This is a great look without being too feminine but still it is soft enough that it's not too masculine.

Thanks for stopping by.

French Beds in Mattress Ticking

I love these beds.  I wish my photo had turned out a little better.  The beds are painted in charcoal black and shabbied back a fair amount with a good sanding.  They have been recovered in black and white mattress ticking.   Now they have a French country cottage feel.  Of course in the shop they are not set up with their side rails as we need to save floor space to accommodate many items.  Later this week, I will show you these beds in a black and white vignette that is absolutely stunning.

French Typography

Today I am sharing two more antique French Typography invoices that I acquired last month.  The first one is from 1892 and the second is from 1907.  I have three more invoices to share from this group of documents, then I will move on to my USA invoices which are equally beautiful and all date from 1920 and prior.  Hope you can do something fun with these. 

 

Vintage Chocolate Boxes

I have collected vintage chocolate boxes since the early 1990's.  They are very hard to find in good condition and thus makes them a perfect collectible because the collection stays small and when I do find one, it is so very special.  I have kept the collection to the paper boxes and not the tins.  The tins are very plentiful and are not as desirable to me although I find many of them to be exquisitely beautiful as well.  Since it is the season for chocolates, I thought I would share some of my collection with you.

 The above box, although not vintage, is made with vintage materials and I love it just as much as some of my other boxes.  This one is from Goldbug Studios.  Ashley Carter is the designer and she does some amazing things with boxes and these adorable little people she makes.

I store them all together with some of my other favorite things in a large antique cabinet in our entry way.  Because the cabinet is a true antique, it is not lit up so I put mirrors in the back of it to reflect a little bit of light behind my collection of collections.   Thanks for stopping by.