Radish, anyone?

Catriona and I went to a church fete this morning. We had a nice visit, bought a lucky jar, some spare Tupperware lids, a set of 12 Prismacolor pencils, and this gorgeous Johnson Brothers bowl with a radish design. I told the lovely lady, it's the last thing I need, but she offered it to me for 50c!

Oh, and we had Sudanese donuts too. Multiculturalism completely rocks!

Oh no, my tea pot's broken!

If you know me, you'll know how much I rely on my teapot to keep me sane.

When things get stressful out in the world, I always want to go-home-have-a-cup-of-tea. That's one word.

My pretty little teapot (bought from Robert Gordon out in Pakenham, an awesome place because you can paint your own stuff there!) lost a substantial chip from the inside rim. It was substantial because it landed in my finger when I was rinsing the pot out! I had to call Catriona (who aspires to study medicine one day) to bandage it up. Now the pot is to sharp and dangerous to use. I've already broken the lid and substituted a non-matching one, so I guess it's time.

Here's a picture of the old pot in its heydey.

So I'm looking for a new teapot. I have a temporary one, bought from the op shop near work (a good place to get stuff with some character, and also donate a few buck to charity). But the temporary one has a bad case of drip-all-over-the-counter, so it's not going to stay. May have to give it to Lizzie for her ornamental collection.

The new pot has to be small, has to be gorgeous, has to keep the tea hot, has to pour really well, and has to be gorgeous. So I'm looking.

Et tu, Brute?

It's Night of the Notables soon. That's a special research project year 7s get to do at the kids' school. They pick a notable person (doesn't have to be a hero, could be a villain, just someone interesting), research them, and do a presentation evening all together.

We have William Shakespeare... Yorick here is a money box, a "second" from Smiggle being sold at the market. It was black but very scratched, but now it's pearly white. Jonathan has asked if he may use it as his own money box afterwards.

Yorick was going to be played by a very sad dolly I bought from the op shop - with a bit of surgery, her head would make a nice skull. But she's safe now ... so, another creepy toy for the collection instead.









And Julius Caesar... He's going to make an "olive" wreath tomorrow I hope.

And yes, this is as far as my sewing skills/patience extend. Slap a belt around the lot, it'll look fine.

Tea and Stamping

Tea and stamping ... it's a nice Saturday afternoon activity. But my friend Gail combined them brilliantly with this (you'll have to go and look at the link). It's a coffee mug with a very smart design; and she lifted the design, and recreated it in the card. We all thought it was fabulous!

So I had a look at my china ... surely I can play that game too.




Here's an effort. I haven't put the plate away yet, because I'm not there yet. But I had to post this, because Lizzie described a project she was going to have a go at, and it sounds dangerously similar (so I thought I'd get in first).

Pretty China Elephant

Oh boy, my regular shipment of junk arrived!

Another trash and treasure sale - this time a china elephant came home. I thought it was pretty "retro kitsch". That's cuteness and nostalgia rolled into one!

Cool Op Shop Finds

Last weekend I took off on my NEW BIKE (yes, I have a bike, it's lovely, thanks), and had a ride around the neighbourhood. I managed to stop, at around morning tea time, at a small shopping center. Had a coffee, supported the little cafe, and also visited the op shops. There are two in this block.

Here's the haul, and very interesting, eclectic haul it is.

First there's a book (had to have something to read with my coffee). There's something very recursive about buying a book about looking in junk shops from a junk shop. The book dates from the early 1960s, and is actually a great read. The author recommends buying up bedroom crockery (washstands and basins) now (i.e. then) because modern plumbing in making them redundant and people are just throwing them away. But soon they'll be valuable. And what do you know, he was right!


Next we have a handful of dice - a coupla d6s, a d10 and a d12. Yea baby. If you played games that required n-sided dice, you'd be pleased. I'll just toss them into the bulk dice storage.







Then there's this bowl made by Crown Lynn in New Zealand. They make my favourite tea cups, and this is such an interesting design. What to do with it? I don't know. Photograph it, I suppose.










Last of all we have this odd item. It's made of dark coloured glass. Most strange. I've already used it! I took it to stamp club and showed Cathy. So that counts as 50c well spent. We thought it might be a test piece made by someone who was learning to slump glass. Well of course!

It's fete season again!

I love September and October. Sure, spring starts, and all that, but it's also the start of the Fete Season! Every church, primary school, and community group puts on a fundraising fete, and that means I get to buy home made cakes, sift through trash and treasure, peruse old books, and bid on silent auctions!

Today's T&T haul includes some smart things for the home :

There's a willow pattern style cup and saucer made by Crown Lynn, the New Zealand ceramics maker I like to collect. Not the ultra gorgeous shape that is my official collection, but who can pass up such a pretty design?
















Then we have a Fire King glass mug, with a cool orange decal on it. These mugs are getting very popular, and they are nice to hold, and nice to drink out of.



















Then there's an awesome egg cup, made by Arabia (from Finland!). Would you say this is the prettiest Finnish egg cup you've seen all day?




















And finally, I was highly amused by an old (1974) Melways street directory. Here's the map of Chadstone Shopping Centre, biggest in Melbourne. See how nervous the convent and schools are looking!

Yet another pretty cup

You know how strongly I feel about drinking tea out of a variety of attractive cups. I like to choose a suitable cup for each drinking occasion - it's on the of the little pleasures of the day.

Some good church ladies sold me a most pretty little mug on the weekend. It was 30c. It has a few scratches on it, so it's in no danger of being valuable to anyone but me. I spent some time trying to get a flattering photo of it. It really is a joy to drink out of. Would those be crocusses?

And what a lively colour combination! Yellow-orange, and purple, with green. Hmm.

Sigh! So pretty!

Ah, that's just what I needed, a new thing to love. This is Poole china, from the Twintone range. In the 1950s, or it might have been 40s, the Poole folks started combining pairs of colours to make pretty, functional dinnerware. Some colour combinations lasted years in the range; others were dropped after a year.

The satiny glaze makes them very nice to hold.

Here we have (from the bottom) Lime Yellow and Moonstone Grey (lasted a year in 1956). Next up is Peach Bloom and Seagull (1953 to 1968). Seagull is a dappled pattern, very soothing. Then there's Ice Green and Mushroom, a gutsy choice that's not as common. Finally we have the very satisfying Mushroom and Sepia, which lasted right into the 1980s.



Want more photos? Sure you do! I spent the better part of an afternoon photographing teacups in various moody poses, so you definitely have to look.

Another pretty cup and saucer

The good ladies of the Uniting Church came through this weekend - at a church Trash and Treasure sale, I found this excellent saucer, that goes with the cup I already had! It's a Crown Lynn cup, and the saucer comes from the same factory (although they used a lot of different brand names there).

Help! A man came and took my toilet away!

Yikes, it's gone - what shall we do?















Quick, there's the guy, after him!

























Oh, wait, he seems to be a plumber. Here's what he replaced it with :





It's a Caroma Profile 5, for those who love good loos. Uses heaps less water than the old one (of course) and has a handbasin built in. The best bit is ... the tap actually fills the cistern. So when you wash your hands, you aren't pouring any nice fresh water down the drain - it goes to the next flush. Mr Old Toilet was running pretty badly, and had already had one plumber visit. It was time for him to be retired.

Now we need to fix the paint on the back wall, and get that silly sticker off. But that's no trouble, because we have a marvellous toilet!

Paperific part 4 - my li'l owl

At Pipedreamink, I got to make an owl! Here he is. He's chipboard and Opals, and a little glitter too.

But check out his spooky soulmate from the church fete. Once again, I contend that he followed me home. And can I keep him?

Now this is just getting silly...

Wherever I go, squeaky plastic animals want to come home with me. These ones came from Saturday's church fete. They even glow in the dark.

What a great Trash and Treasure. I could hardly carry all my haul. Had a lovely conversation with a lady about how pretty those Peach Lustre Fire King mugs are; and how we both collect them. I still didn't let her have the one I was holding, though.

How Much Fun You Can Have Close To Home

We went to a fete today - it was at the local retirement home (the same one that ran the Art Show). I'm a little under the weather, so I dragged my driver along, which meant the kids came along too. That turns a treasure hunting expedition into a Family Outing. Cool!

I bought jelly cakes at the cake stall. I thought they were pink lamingtons, but it seems the cake is somehow coated in actual jelly. Mmm.

The kids got showbags, which included these rather smart sunnies.

And we won the hamper raffle! Some wine, chocolates, bikkies, toys, a kettle, writing paper, more stuff, all in a big basket. I was just needing a big basket for the next hamper raffle prize that *I* have to pack. Some of today's hamper could well get recycled for the school fete, but that's what hampers are all about. I can't see the chocolates getting out of the house alive though.





And at the trash and treasure stall, I bought an almost-complete Griffin and Sabine letter-writing kit for 50c. Now that is cool!

Also a great Anchor Hocking plate, the one that goes with the famous peach glaze mugs. You know, these ones. This may end up on eBay (there just isn't room in the house for all the pretties I collect) but I will be enjoying it for a few days at least.

Barney Banana Joins the Gang!

In the last big bag of treasures from the scout hall garage sale was this - a sixth cup for my Crown Lynn collection. Except that it's not Crown Lynn, it's marked "Made in England" - hush! Chris saw it and declared it was "Barely Banana". Now, I'm not one to argue with her encyclopaedic knowledge of the Stampin' Up catalogue - well, yes I am, I checked it immediately. And there it is, Barely Banana. Which of course puts me in mind of that delicious icecream of my youth, Barney Banana. Mmm...

Anyway, kettle just boiled, so onto the next thing...

Cookie, anyone?

Thomas baked on the weekend - he's 10. He made a batch of Black and Whites, a great chocolate chip cookie from a Mrs Fields recipe book. We use Dutch cocoa now, having found a local source, and it's very black! In with the batch of regular cookies he made one HUGE one. He wanted to photograph it (before eating it) and so we set this up. I tried to demonstrate that putting it on a small plate with a smallish teapot would emphasise it. Yay!

This tea cup is one of the first I "collected". It was in a local op shop, and very pretty. I bought it, but didn't leave the shop right away. The lady working there ran up to me and said "Look what I've found!". It was the matching side plate! I said I would be buying that, just as soon as I finished browsing. By the time I got back to the counter, she was glowing with pleasure - "I thought you might like this!!". It was - not the matching saucer - but a similar one that looked rather nice with the rest. The saucer is Shelley, a famous English china company that even I've heard of. So this turned out to be my first trio. Delicate enough to feel really posh, but well worn, and not at all too precious to actually use.

Possibly the nicest cup of tea in Melbourne

Ahhh, that's a nice sight. Yesterday I had to do a test at the hospital - nothing major, but the preparation was NO tea or coffee (or chocolate, for that matter) for 24 hours. Easy enough, except that my naughty sons kept offering to put the kettle on for me.

Afterwards, I asked the nurses where the best coffee was (you can trust nurses to know that stuff) and they directed me to the private hospital across the road, with a pretty coffee shop in the foyer. That was where I had my emergency cappuccino, and it was lovely. But this morning's relaxed pot of tea has a special place in history.

Another interesting note is that I'm now radioactive, and not allowed to hold small babies for several more hours. I sure hope none come to visit. At least not until the afternoon.

Crown Lynn Tea Cups

These are my favourite teacups. I've been collecting them for a while (all from op shops). They are a classic 50s shape, and so nice to drink out of. They come from New Zealand. When she was visiting last, Gail pointed out that her cup was Wild Wasabi. Yes, a colour from the Stampin' Up colour range. Well, she'd know, she sells 'em. And what do you know, all the cups I have so far turn up somewhere in the SU colour chart. There's Wild Wasabi, Blue Bayou, Purely Pomegranate, Creamy Caramel, and just this week I added Really Rust. They are just gorgeous together!