Wednesday, January 29, 2020

MEDALLIONS FOR VALENTINE'S DAY, TEA ROOMS AND FOR FUN

The last few weeks I have been working
at making some paper ephemera medallions
I have 2 large ones and 6 small ones done.
I hope you can check them out.




I have spent a lot of time on these.


Some are Valentines, others are
Queen Victoria themed and others
are French - Eiffel Tower themed.
I am sending this one to a sweet 
young friend in Colorado Springs:


And this one will go to another former customer
and friend who lives in Woodland Park, Colorado.
She will be very surprised to hear from me:












Tuesday, January 28, 2020

ENGLISH KING AND QUEEN TEA COMMEMORATIVES

I have recently re-watched the PBS movie
Victoria and also other past versions
about Queen Victoria.  What a fascinating
person she was and what about her amazing
husband Albert.  He was a great man of
integrity.  If you have looked back and
studied the many Kings of England,  you 
know that was often not the case.


I have been enjoying a display of my King
and Queen tea wares this winter in my kitchen.


I change this display regularly so then
 other types come up and these go back down
 to the basement tea room. I also made an
 ephemera  medallion but I know I overdid 
this one so others won't be quite so full.  


My Fulton friend, Karen who I met through 
the Tasha Tudor Facebook Group when
  I lived in Colorado Springs,  got me 
interested in the Victoria and Albert
 lusterware pieces that were sold at the 
1851 Great Exhibition.  Prince Albert was
 in charge of this event and oversaw the project.
  After reading about the pieces which were
 sold as souvenirs at the exhibition and after
seeing Karen's collection, I was smitten!
I have acquired a few pieces.


If you purchased something from the UK,
you know the shipping is what drives your bottom line up.  I was able to find this Staffordshire figurine in Georgia, USA
 so that helped a lot.  
Another friend, has one of these I 
had admired at her home.


I just added a 9" plate
 which arrived from
England to my 
collection:




 uncle, King William IV died and he had no 
living male son as heir to the throne. Two
 of her other uncles also did not have
 legitimate male heirs so it passed to her.
 She was only 18 years old.

She served as Queen from 1837 to 1901 and her name is why it is called the Victorian Era.
1901.  His wife was Alexandra. 
 He served until 1910 and we call his
period the Edwardian Era.


Next we have King George V and his wife
 Queen Mary. If you saw the Downton
 Abbey movie, they were portrayed in
 the story.  He served from 1910 until 1935.
Remember the Titanic went down in 1912.


So who comes next?

Remember the King who abdicted to
marry a divorced American woman?
King Edward the VIII was on the
throne for a brief period and then
George VI and Queen Elizabeth.
If you saw the "King's Speech"
that would be George VI.
He served from 1935-1952



And of course Queen Elizabeth - 
the present Queen and longest
 reign to date!  I have really enjoyed
reading about all of these but find
Queen Victoria is a favorite.

If you saw the PBS Historical Documentary
"The Wedding"  - you probably found
it fascinating like it did.  I have watched it
several times lately.  I could barely
keep up with all the history in "The 
Queen's Palaces" about the 3 royal 
residences.  


I need to say - I may not have everything
100% correct in this post. I am learning.
Just let me know if something is wrong.
Are you interested in Queen Victoria?

Friday, January 24, 2020

CONTENT TO BE AT HOME

Now that winter is upon us and
things have slowed down it's nice to
be at home and as Jane Austen said,
 "enjoy real comfort".


Today our neighbor across 
the street
built this for his
sweet little daughter!


Wintertime for me means sewing,
crafting, baking and organizing.
I don't plan to do a lot of running
around now but am content to stay
at home.




I have been enjoying watching the
birds too.  My family gave me a
pair of those bird watching binoculars
for Christmas so I can zoom in from 
the kitchen table.


One of the things I have been doing is
reading and researching a number of things.  
After watching different DVD's I began
reading about the Kings and Queens of
England.  Then I decided to do some
 "royal" crafting too.



Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Sunday, January 5, 2020

ANOTHER VISIT TO FULTON, MISSOURI

Last week my friends Janice and Gina
and I were invited over to Fulton, Missouri
east of Columbia.   We went to the lovely 
home of our friend Karen and had an
 Afternoon Tea and a lovely time enjoying
her home, antiques, books and collectibles. 
 I forgot my camera but will share Karen's


Fulton is a lovely old town - rather small
but with Westminster College and
William Woods University there are plenty 
of young people coming and going.  
Downtown the main street is still brick with
  charm and history and Winston
 Churchill visited here in 1946 and gave a
very important speech with President




 which originally stood in London, England
 and was completely rebuilt once in London after a
fire. Then all but the walls were destroyed
a second time in the Blitz of World War II.
It was then sent over and rebuilt in 
this town of Fulton, Missouri. There
is also a Churchill museum in the basement .

My husband and I drove through Fulton
today and I took a few photos of some
of the lovely homes north of the downton
on Court Street and the surrounding area:




This one still had a few Christmas
wreaths outside:


My husband's friend has moved
to Kentucky and I saw that his
old office "building" on the
left has a new paint job.




In the coming weeks, I hope to be sharing
 more about some other lovely old homes 
here in Missouri.

Friday, January 3, 2020

2019 YEAR IN REVIEW

For quite a few years, 
I have been doing yearly reviews
with links to some of my posts.

Last year I didn't post much but
let's do a review just the same.  This
post was called 



I hope I can do a better job of posting this 
year.  I am retired and that means I should 
have all kinds of time, right?  I seem to
just fill my life up with so many things.

my favorite time to share violet china:


Here in Missouri it also means spring
starts to stir a bit which is always good news.
  I realize that's not true for everyone.
  It seems to be the advantage of living
 where summers are very hot.
A post from March:




 in May:


As the summer moved along I
enjoyed many hours outside and
for me - I got a real suntan which 
was shocking.  I loved it when the
hollyhocks came up around our
mailbox.  I had to learn not to
water them as that causes yellow
which included my Grandson 
graduating from high school!






Some sweet Home School
Moms came to use my 
downstairs tearoom in September:



October:



November:



Looking at that photo above amazes
 me even now as I see I had hydrangeas
 blooming in November!

And for my last month of December I
want thank all of you who have followed
my blog and leave comments.
I hope to post more often in 2020 -
let's see if I can at least try harder!