Tag Archives: China

The Rains Came Down…

…and the puddles came up!

 

What a miserable day for a garage sale. Thankfully we live in the Northwest and weather does not deter people from heading to garage sales. People here are used to doing anything in the rain. Dear created a amazing tarp canopy for us so we were able to put some tables out on our trusty blue tarps for the sale. I’m sad I didn’t get a photo of the creation for you (bad blogger!!) We had made space inside the shop for the rest of the stuff and for a nice shelter for the workers from the rain and cold. Friends of ours came to contribute to the sale. Their young daughters wanted to raise money to buy Bibles for people without them. So sweet! We had a good steady stream of people with only a couple lulls. We didn’t sell anything over $5.00 but still made $173.50.

The Rolo yummies in the collage were a great treat for us workers and I found the recipe at Sandy’s Reluctant Entertainer blog. So easy to make. One of the garage sale shoppers looked at me sheepishly and asked if she could have one. She had been staring at them for a good long time.

The highlight of the day was when our son and DIL Laura came with the ingredients to make us all dinner! What thoughtful kids I have. Josh had the two young girls that helped with our garage sale in there helping him make biscuits and corn muffins for the dinner. They really enjoyed their baking lesson from Josh! Josh and Laura are good friends with this family and even flew all the way to China a few years ago to visit them when they were living there. This picture is of them all at the Great Wall. You can see how much younger the girls were in this photo.

I’ll be adding my link to Mary’s Little Red House for Mosaic Monday and to Smiling Sally’s for Blue Monday. Hope you are all having a nice relaxing weekend. Now that the garage sale is over I’m doing some relaxing and recuperating…

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

Tablescape Thursday ~ Easter Revisited

For some of you that visit my blog regularly this will be a repeat. It’s time for Susan’s Tablescape Thursday so I wanted to post my actual Easter table for this week. Were you aware that tulips continue growing even after they are cut and placed in a vase?

 

I just realized that about all my tulips as I trimmed the stems each day when I added fresh water and they were taller the next day!

 

My centerpiece is the Traditional Russian Easter Bread (Kulich or Paska), Colored Eggs, and hollow Chocolate Russian Matryoshka dolls.

 

The china is Royal Albert Moss Rose.

We used our International 1812 Sterling. The stemware and napkin rings are Target clearance. Napkins are from a thrift store and the tablecloth is from Goodwill at $4.99. The runner is also from Goodwill but I forget what I paid.

 

Our traditional molded sweet cheese spread that is called Seerney Paska in Russian. The XB is for Христос Воскрес (Christos Voskress), Christ is Risen!

We squeezed 12 around the table and had a wonderful time celebrating the Resurrection of Christ!

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Let There Be White!

The time is here to show our white and Kathleen at Cuisine Kathleen is our lovely hostess. Click on over to join in or to see more white.

 

A lot of old white mixed in with new white.

 

I was happy to be able to pull out my white creamers to use as vases for the white flowers. The milk glass cake pedestal is from my MIL Verna’s collection that we ended up with.

 

 

 

The milky white hob nail dishes are from my MIL, too.

 

While I was putting together my white table I had an audience. My daughter Katie joined in the fun by putting the white flower in her hair while she ate her breakfast cereal…

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Thrifty Treasures!

Visit Rhoda at Southern Hospitality to see some amazing Thrify Treasures! Here are some of mine…

 

I’m back in Washington State and spent some time visiting some Goodwill stores in the Puget Sound area this last week. The platter and 3 cups and saucers cost me $12.99 for all 7 pieces. It is the Melody Pattern by Franciscan Staffordshire, England. The other cup and saucer is Myott Finlandia Stafforshire England and it cost me $2.99. Pink tags were half price this past Thursday-Sunday so the sweet detailed pitcher cost me $1.98.

 

I got 8 of these salad/dessert plates for $6.99. They are Floral Garden ~ Tomson Pottery.

Looking forward to seeing these new treasures on a tablescape in the future. Now I’m off to see what treasures you found!

Blessings on your new week…

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Tablescape Thursday ~ Twofer…

Welcome to Tablescape Thursday. I’m sharing two settings today with slight variations in pink green and white. These settings are from my livingroom in Washington in early Spring. I’ve been away from the computer a couple of days and had this post ready to go. I hope to share some photos from family festivities in Laguna Beach, California and The Happiest Place on Earth soon!

 

 

 

 

To see more Tables visit Susan at Between Naps on the Porch.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Tablescape Thursday ~ In the Yard!

When I was at my home in Washington State I thought it would be fun to do a tablescape outdoors. The weather was lovely and I raced against the setting sun to set this table in my front yard. The neighbors are probably wondering about me…

 

This is a vintage tablecloth that my MIL had in her stash. The hobnob little clear & milky plates are from Dear’s Great, great aunt Emma. The old silver flatware is from Dear’s parents too.

We bought these beautiful daffodils at Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle. I loved the fullness of them and the added orange.

 

Oh and looky here Jack Sparrow and Sparra Queen Warbeak made it into an actual tablescape!

For more Tablescape Thursday please visit Susan at Between Naps on the Porch!

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Tablescape Thursday ~ Yellow & Blue

Welcome to Tablescape Thursday hosted by Susan at Between Naps on the Porch. The table I’m showing you today is set up in the living room of my home in Washington State.

 

I’m using an off white cloth with a smaller round blue and yellow cloth as a topper. I have always enjoyed blue and yellow together.

 

I used my Chippendale dishes on top of my Mikasa Italian Countryside dishes. Yellow napkins with white rose china napkin rings.

 

I ended up using several of my pewter pieces for the centerpiece instead of the vase with the hydrangeas…

To see more Tablescapes visit Susan at Between Naps on the Porch.

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

Tablescape Thursday ~ Friendship Tea

It’s time for another fun day of viewing tablescapes in Bloggy World. Susan at Between Naps on the Porch is our hostess for this event so click on over to her blog to see all the links to different tables set for us to enjoy.

Welcome to my Friendship Tea. I’m a table leader for our Women’s Bible Study at my church and I invited the ladies over for tea. It was fun putting together a tea table. Our Bible Study Women’s Leader is part of my table and it happened to be her birthday on the day of the tea so we had an extra celebration.

 

The Places were set and designated with these fun vase place card holders.

 

We had 3 different types of tea,  an Earl Grey, Peach Herbal, and a Russian Black Tea.

 

Cucumber- Basil sandwiches, Chicken Salad Sandwiches, Scones, Dream Cookies, Heart shaped Red Velvet mini cakes, Mock Clotted Cream and Lemon Curd and Strawberries.

 

Thank you for visiting my Friendship Tea.

Before you go I just wanted to show you my actual Valentine Tablescape that Dear and I ate at on Valentines Day…

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

 

 

Metamorphosis Monday With Blue ~

For this weeks Monday Posts I’m combining Met with Blue. Susan at Between Naps on the Porch and Sally at Smiling Sally are the hostesses of these two weekly events. Met Monday is all about transformations, before and afters. Blue Monday is anything Blue.

We have been on the lookout for some bookcases to replace a small folding one we’ve been using between our living room and dining room. We wanted to add some width and height to the space. On Valentine’s day we found the bookcases at Target and Dear put them together.

 

 

 

Both Dear and I think this space has a more “grown-up” look now instead of college dorm.

 

 

Some closer shots of the shelves where I can put some of my china, too. See the blue :0)?

 

The photos in this frame got a “Met” job too. I purchased mats and shuffled the photos. These are our children. I really like the transformation with the added black mats.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today. Have a great week.

For more Metamorphosis Monday visit Susan here.  For more Blue Monday visit Sally here.

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

Tablescape Tuesday ~ Silver & Black that Sparkles!

Welcome to another Tablescape Tuesday hosted by Susan at Between Naps on the Porch. This week I’m sharing a silver and black table with lots of sparkles. There are snowflakes and mirrors and sliver mirror garland that adds to all the sparkle.

 

This was a fun table to put together. I was cleaning out cupboards when I was home in Seattle and found a bag full of silver accessories that were left over from a January Dessert I helped decorate for our church several years ago. I got out a small folding table and set this table for 4 in our guest room with stuff from the bag and added goodies from my entertaining stash.

 

My table confession for this week is that I didn’t have any black or silver cloth napkins so I used a white cloth napkin that was a bit too white by itself for the look of the table so I added a black paper cocktail napkin to soften it up. :0)

 

The Snowflake candle is sitting on a small raised serving piece with silver garland underneath.

 

The little plates with a Stratford on Avon scene are on top of a cut glass plate with a silver doilie below it. The tablerunner is a silver shimmery piece of fabric.

 

The Sterling is from Dear’s mother Verna that got passed along to us. The Pewter goblets were a purchase Dear and I made in England the summer before we were married (1974). The etched glass goblets were a find at Goodwill. The cut glass plates with a fleur de liss pattern on them were a clearance purchase at a specialty grocery store we used to have in the Seattle area called Larry’s. The sterling candle holders are also from Verna. The napkin rings are silver ribbon with a sparkly embelishment hot glued on them.

To see more Tablescapes visit Susan at Between Naps on a Porch.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007 to 2015 hostage and has replaced them all with ugly black and grey boxes asking for a ransom to have them re-published. Such a frustrating bother as I go through each post to delete the ugly boxes.