And The Winner Is...

Hubby informed me that The Academy Awards Show is this Sunday and he wanted to see an Oscar party themed table.

It was a last minute thing, so I scrambled to come up with something.  I decided to use my Mikasa Dynasty Black plates with the Pier 1 gold salad plates.

I printed out tickets and place cards.  I made the napkins from scraps of gold lamé.  I spent no money this week.

The amber bubble glasses are by Artland.

Personally, I think awards shows are rather boring, but any excuse for a party, right?

I wonder what they will be serving at the Governor's Ball.  My invite got lost in the mail.  Again!

Be sure to visit Susan at Between Naps on the Porch  for Tablescape Thursday.

What? Leftovers Again?

Just because you haven't had your fill of red and white Valentine's Day tables!

Everyone else probably plans out their tablescape and blog post, has an organized file with the pictures they will use, types it up, edits it and then uploads the finished product at the proper time.  Not me.  I just throw things at the table to see what sticks. Then I come back to it later and take some pictures.  At a later time I look at the pictures, change the table, and take more pictures. I come back one more time for candlelight shots.  Next I look at all the pictures and write down the numbers of the ones I like.  Finally I stare at this blank white screen waiting for inspiration to smack me upside the head.  It's exhausting, I tell you!  Downright exhausting.  I never know what I'm going to talk about until the fingers start typing.  To steal from Jerry Seinfeld... it's a blog about nothing!

Here's the very first picture on my disk this week, before any changes or retaking of photos. The reason I'm using some of the those pictures is that "test day" turned out to be the only halfway-sunny day with halfway-decent light. The rest of the week was rainy.  Notice I'd bumped the cup in the foreground.  Oops!

Today there's a cold cheek-biting wind blowing down from the mountain, gathering the clouds into giant fluff balls that repeatedly block then reveal the sun, thus thwarting any attempt at taking new pictures.  People think we don't have four seasons here in Southern California, but we do... Earth(quake) Wind, Rain and Fire.

No worries. If you've been here before, you know I serve up leftovers.  Same old table shot from the same old angle with many of the same old things.  Even though I'm shopping a lot, it takes a while to get everything needed for a tablescape, leaving me a little frustrated and overwhelmed.  Maybe I should slow down and only do one or two a month instead of every week.  I've got bits and pieces all over the dining room table for several different future plans, but finding something for today was a challenge.  So here's the same tablecloth from last week, topped with lace, and then the red pandam chargers and Italian Countryside plates you've seen before. I dug out my old Arcoroc ruby glass dinnerware for another Valentine's Day table with a bit of an old-fashioned feel.

The flowers are left over from last week, too, and were dropping petals as I was taking the pictures.  When hubby went to the store for the Valentine candy, I also told him to see if they had any red and white flowers I could use in my basket arrangement.  He called and said they had red and white carnations.  Okay, fine, that will do nicely.  Then he came home with mums and tulips. What the???? He actually said, "These aren't carnations?"  Time for a collective head shake, girls.... Men!  Well, at least the mums lasted two weeks...sorta.  The tulips were in this vase in the family room, and had a shelf life of five minutes.

The pierced plate is Victorian Rose by Gracie China, found on Amazon.com.  The tassel napkin rings are from Marshall's long ago.  I like all the different textures together with the ridges of the plate showing through the ruby glass.

Let's accessorize!  This tablescape needs leftover booze.

The Mikasa French Countryside goblets are another leftover.  The cordials were from Linens & Things a few years back.  I found the clear wine glasses in the back of the liquor cabinet when I got out the liqueurs.  I'd bought them years ago to hold dessert for a dinner party.   I came up with this great idea for fresh strawberries with a topping of sour cream, brown sugar and Grand Marnier.  It was delicious and I was so proud!  Who knew Strawberries Romanoff had already been invented?  *sigh*

Every time I look at a picture of the liqueur bottles, I want to grab a sip of the raspberry Chambord.   If these pictures  were in order you could watch the contents of the bottle diminish.

I like the reds and greens in this rare moment of good natural light.

Time for candlelight?

These stemmed candle holders came from an an antique store at Lake Arrowhead Village.  They aren't antique but I don't know anything about them.

Leftover votives...

  

The dead flowers look better in the dark.  The dark is leftover from last night.

Thanks for sharing my leftovers at A Cottage Under the Rainclouds.


I'll be joining Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Tablescape Thursday.

Valentine's Day Table for Two

It was an uneventful week here in the clouds.  Nothing funny happened, no bones got broken, and no squirrels were harmed in the filming of this week's episode.  I've got a cold and I really just want to go to bed.  So here is my red and white table for Valentine's day.

 I found the lacy metal chargers at an online store for decorative painting.   They were an ugly brownish antique finish, and you're supposed to paint your masterpiece in the center area.  I spray-painted them a white gloss with Rustoleum Painter's Touch.

I topped them with Valero-Red plates by Ambiance.

Followed by "Hand Painted Made in Italy- 7597" heart plates, found on eBay.
Cupid looks like he's saying. "Oops! Pardon me!"

The little white baskets are vintage Dept 56.  Hubby was going to the drug store and asked if I needed anything.  I said something like, "Could you pick up a bag of small Valentine candies to put in the little baskets on the table? Anything red, white or pink, or any combination, or wrapped candy in any of those colors would be fine."  It went through his man-filter and he heard Charlie Brown's teacher saying, "Wah wah wah wah Valentine wah wah wah anything red white pink wah wah wah wah wah."
So he got jumbo cookies.

I spray painted the flower basket with the same paint as the chargers.

The goblets and red flutes are Waterford Lismore.  When I bought my Mikasa red goblets and used them on the Christmas table, Hubby said, "Where did you get those?" and I said, "I found them in a box," and he said, "Oh," and walked off.  Lol, I expected him to say, "No you didn't," and I would say, "Yes I did. I found them in a box UPS delivered today."  So when I set the table with these new red flutes, I expected him to say something, and this time I was going to say, "Oh, I've had those for a while." ( I bought them in December, too.)  But he didn't say anything at all.  He must think they are the same red glasses I used at Christmas, lol.

I was going to make a three-layer heart-shaped strawberry cake.  I told Hubby he could take it to work after I took photographs, and he said they'd tease him if he brought in a heart cake, so I made it in a bundt pan instead.  The cake plate is Godinger Antique Reflections.  I just changed out the Christmas plaid ribbon for a red one.

Cake, cookies, candy, chocolate-dipped strawberries.... well, they do say "Feed a cold," right?

The Moroccan lantern is from Amazon.

I'm taking the strawberries and heading for bed. 

Sweet Dreams from A Cottage in the Clouds.



I'll be joining Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Tablescape Thursday.

Farewell, Old Friend

For the longest time, my everyday china has been Blue Danube. I'm not sure why I started collecting it... maybe because I was intrigued by the huge variety of pieces they made, maybe because it reminded me of the Blue Onion tea set my sister and I played with as children, maybe because it always went on sale for half price. Or maybe an obsession with purchasing china. In any event, I accumulated a lot of it over the years.

 

That's not even all of it, some is stored elsewhere.  I think we started with the normal amount - eight place settings.  Then we probably saw it on sale again and thought it would be nice to have twelve.  At some point we thought it would be a good idea to have twenty four so we could do two tables of twelve for large dinner parties or family gatherings.  And then of course we needed the bowls, serving pieces, linens, etc. And it grew and grew, until one day I realized I was sick of it.  That happens with busy patterns you use every day.

Then last Christmas I was trying to come up with an idea for a Christmas centerpiece, and in the course of googling for pictures I discovered Susan at Between Naps on the Porch, and all those Tablescape Thursday links to other beautiful blogs. Oh my goodness, there was a whole world of tablescapers out there who had all sorts of different china patterns instead of tons of all-the-same!  I had no idea! At last my china obsession could have meaning and purpose!  I just needed a nice set of white dishes and then I could create different looks with bowls and accent plates.  And chargers. And linens. And glassware. And, and and... You know the drill, but I hadn't quite realized all that at the time.  

So I got the bright idea that I could sell the Blue Danube on eBay, and that would pay for new dishes. Soon I had new Christmas dishes and Italian Countryside for my new everyday dishes.  But I took my sweet time sorting out the best place settings of Blue Danube to sell.  Finally I got the listing up, one five-piece place setting for a "buy it now" price, eight available.  And nothing happened. For two months I checked eBay every day. No one was even looking at it. 

Then one day I didn't sign on to eBay.  It was Tablescape Thursday and I was busy with my blog and looking at other blogs.  When I checked eBay on Friday, someone had bought all eight place settings Wednesday night! Unfortunately my listing said I would ship within two days, so now I had to scramble to pack eight place settings, create a shipping label, shower, dress, drive to the post office... yikes!  And to top it off, the eBay shipping calculator "combined shipping" and only charged her for one 12x12 box... as if all forty pieces would fit in the same box as the one for an individual place setting.  She saved $70.00 and I was going to take a hit.  Finally I got it all bubble-wrapped and loaded into the box the Italian Countryside came in.  But I couldn't lift it.  Did I mention I've been housebound with a back injury, broken ribs and a fractured foot bone?  Even if I could lift it, it probably wouldn't fit in my sports car.   So I found two smaller boxes and started over. 

Next I had to create a shipping label.  That took a while to figure out, but when it was all done, it wouldn't print out.  Apparently Firefox's last update messed up something and it won't print from the internet.  So I had to start all over on Internet Explorer.  The clock's going tick, tick, tick and I can feel myself getting more nervous.  All done!  I swung around and jumped up out of the computer chair and smacked into the two boxes of china I'd forgotten I'd set there.  I re-broke the bone in my foot. This is going so well!

I get done with the shower, hair and makeup and look for something to wear. Remember I've been inactive for a long time and living in sweats. Nothing fit!  I was ready to get the party canopy and cut armholes in it when I spotted a black wool sweater-knit pants and top I purchased a few years back for a plane trip to the northeast in January. Perfect! Stretchy knit pull-on pants!  Of course I wasn't pleased with how my fat self looked in them now, so I topped it with a large black raincoat. Here I am decked out in heavy black from head to toe, in Southern California on a sunny day.  All I needed was a veil with an eye slit to complete the look. For a moment I reconsidered the party tent. Too late, it was 4:45.  

  

I carried one of the boxes to the car, opened the trunk to put it in, and the trunk smacked down on my head. A fine time to discover something's wrong with the hydrolic thingie.  Repeat with the second box and I'm on my way.   I get to the post office minutes before 5.  I get a box out of the trunk, get smacked on the head again, and scurry-limped across the parking lot and up the steps, stepping on my long coat with each step.  The postal worker is at the door, keys in hand, ready to head home.  "Prepaid?" "Yes."  "Okay, I'll take it for you."  I've got one more." "No problem."   Back to the car, another hit from the trunk lid, and I get the second package up to the man waiting at the door.   "Thank you so very much," I said.   "You're welcome, Sweetheart. You have a nice evening."    Awww! He called me Sweetheart!  There I was all fat and limping and frumpy and stressed with a bump rising on my head and a stranger made me feel better with a simple kindness.  

 

So far I've sold twelve place settings and eight bowls, and made $800.00 to spend on new china. But it still takes me forever to get it wrapped and packed and shipped.  I don't envy eBay sellers who do this for a living.

Be sure to visit Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Tablescape Thursday.