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Wednesday, February 26, 2014

English Artist Jane Perkins Makes Art of Vintage Junk...That's Recycling...

I had to share this....



This fab portrait of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge was made by an English artist Jane Perkins of junk and found objects....buttons, trinkets, charms, broken bits of this and that!



Winston Churchill as well...I am just amazed. Vintage bits and pieces into new art....there are such clever folks about.

For more of Jane Perkin's art...click HERE for Yahoo news article I found these smashing portraits in!

Also a reminder: Antiques And Teacups has a 15% off sale until Feb. 28th with coupon code LOVE.



Boxed new William & Kate English bone china wedding mug
click the photo for more info at Antiques And Teacups

Have a wonderful day.....vintage lives!
I am joining the following blogs:

Vintage Thingie Thursday
 Mrs. Olson ~  http://jannolson.blogspot.com/
Share Your Cup Thursday
Tea Time Thursday

Pink Saturday


Sunday, February 23, 2014

Tuesday Cuppa Tea - A Princess And A Queen


Welcome to Tuesday Cuppa Tea! Today is themed around an exhibit we saw last month while visiting Southern California with family called A Royal Exhibition - A Princess And A Queen at the Queen Mary ocean liner, now a hotel in Long Beach California.


My choice was dictated by the rest of the post...


My teacup today was made in 1981 by Wedgwood, England to commemorate the Royal Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer...


The applied bits are very thin and are applied with a palette knife...very painstaking work. We used to love visiting the Wedgwood pottery in Barlaston near Stoke-on-Trent to watch the process.


The teacup is made of a type of porcelain and stoneware called jasperware, and the white is hand applied by craftsmen onto the already formed and bisque fired base layer. 


The mark is hard to see. For later commemorative wares, Wedgwood added a print dedication or commemoration mark as well, but in 1981 it was the impressed mark only. Lady Diana Spencer became Princess Diana or Princess Di and became known as The People's Princess because of her empathy with the people she met in all walks of life.  As we all know, the Princess was killed in a car accident in 1997, but her popularity remains. Hence the exhibit we went to see...


The exhibit of Royal memorabilia and about 40 of Princess Diana's dresses has toured the country. The exhibit passes on 50% of the proceeds in each city to charities in the area. This exhibit benefited The City Of Hope cancer center in Duarte, California and another breast cancer charity in the area. The exhibit was founded by 5 wealthy southern women who loved Princess Diana and combined their accumulation of things related to Diana and the British Royal family with a way to give to those in need.


The famous and venerable Cunard ocean liner Queen Mary was built in 1937 and retired as a hotel and conference venue in Long Beach in 1967, her 516th and final voyage.  We have been on Queen Mary 2 several times, but never sailed on this Queen Mary...wish we had...





The interior still has much of the gorgeous art deco wood paneling. I LOVED the elevator grill...


There are a number of tours available...here is a poster for one in the elevator heading for the Sun deck where we were seeing the Princess Diana exhibit and having tea in the tea room...


We peaked down a corridor where the hotel rooms are...cabins that are now period hotel rooms...


We also passed the bridge...which is roped off, but we could see what was once state-of-the art-propulsion and navigation equipment. Looks a bit different that being on the bridge last year of the Celebrity Millennium...


We weren't allowed to take photos of the exhibit but I found this on the website for the exhibit.......


Here is our ticket for Tea With The Princess which was what the package of the exhibit and tea in the tearoom was called...



We were there just before noon and it was quite quiet. We had tea in the tearoom, which was one of  the original dining rooms on the ship...




We had a set tea of :
Our choice of teas...we had English Breakfast, my husband's favorite...(he really likes PG Tips best!)



sandwiches: 
Shredded chicken and dried mango tossed in a a light curry aioli on wheat bread
Deviled egg salad and micro dijon greens served on pumpernickel bread



Scones:
Dried apricot and pecan scones
Devonshire cream, raspberry jam and lemon curd



Sweets:
Petit eclairs
Lemon tarts
Black & White mocha cake

We were so glad we had this mini tea, because others had twice as much at some of the other tables, and we could never have eaten it all! And since we were heading out on a cruise with the family the next day, we figured it would have gone to waste...or waist....



This is the Queen Mary from the hotel just around the bend we spent the night at. The Carnival ship we went out on, having just returned from the Panama Canal spent the night next to the Queen Mary...



We stayed at the Hotel Maya, a Doubletree that was more like a South Beach hotel, with a great outdoors South American restaurant called Fuego where we had a fabulous dinner...so good we forgot to take any photos! Very romantic....



And as we walked back to our patio room from the restaurant, we took some photos of the Queen Mary and the Carnival ship lit up and the bridge into the main part of Long Beach. A wonderful time!



So thanks for joining me on what was a wonderful trip and experience. Click on the photo logo of the exhibit above for the Queen Mary Princess Diana exhibit info plus a video and more info.  

For more info on the Wedgwood Royal Wedding teacup at Antiques And Teacups, just click on the photos.

The linky is below for Tuesday Cuppa Tea and a list of some of the blogs I'm visiting. Have a wonderful week!

Monday Marketplace
Terri~  http://artfulaffirmations.blogspot.com/ 
Teacup Tuesday
Teatime Tuesday
Tea With Celia
Kathy~  http://blissfulrhythm.blogspot.com/
Victoria - A Return to Loveliness
Tea On Tuesday
Miss Kathy ~http://www.thewritersreverie.com/
Tuesday Tea
Tea Cup Tuesday
 Just A Little Southern Hospitality ~ http://justalittlesouthernhospitality.blogspot.com/
Tea On Tuesday
Tea On Tuesday
Time For Tea
Tuesday Tea Time
Tea On Tuesday
Bernideen’s ~ http://blog.bernideens.com/
Tea In The Garden Tuesday
Lavender Cottage  Tea Time
Tea In Texas
Playing With My Camera Teatime           
Tuesday Blog Shop
Poetry In A Pot Of Tea

What’s It Wednesday                                           
Home On Wednesday

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Office Cats...And I thought I had problems...

I found this video about office cats and my Tinker said I had to post it...he's my office manager....



Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Another Winter Olympics...Vancouver 2010 Flashback

As the Olympics continue in Sochi, Russia, I came across a few photos I had from the Vancouver, Canada 2010 Winter Olympics that I thought I'd share for fun. We were visiting our friends in Richmond, just south of Vancouver and New Westminster to the east of Vancouver just before the games and a few months prior. 



This was taken by our friend from Stanley Park, just across the bay from Canada Place. The fuel barge you usually see had been outfitted with the Olympic Rings for the duration of the games in February 2010.



This is foot traffic during the games on Robson Street downtown, leading to the Olympic Plaza. The weather was often nice. This was sent by the friend in Richmond whose daughter lives downtown....



This is the Olympic Cauldron at Coal Harbor, just down from Canada Place during the games...



This is the Olympic Oval speed skating venue in Richmond, about a mile from our friends house. We took this photo a month before the games on a visit....



This photo I took of my husband...in the front...and his best friend Harvey...in the back, on a bobsled used in the Olympics when we visited Harvey in New Westminster in May. We headed up to Whistler, where the ski venues had been and we had visited judt before the games just to see what things looked like. A great few days just knocking around with a dear friend...

Brought bacvk lots of memories, and so glad I came across the photos!

And here's another Olympic piece by Bing & Grondahl, Denmark from Munich 1972 at Antiques And Teacups At Etsy....


Sunday, February 16, 2014

Tuesday Cuppa Tea! It's Our 40th Anniversary!

Hello and welcome to a special edition of Tuesday Cuppa Tea, because today is our 40th wedding anniversary!



Besides being time for our weekly meme Tuesday Cuppa Tea!



The special day decided my choice of a teacup for today....



I found I had an anniversary cup and saucer, perfect for today!



This pretty bone china teacup was made from 1959 to 1966 by Princess Anne China, England...a subsidiary of Shore & Coggins. 





Shore And Coggins manufactured fine china in Staffordshire between 1911-1966, which was when many other potteries closed as well, including Shelley China.  I love the way the words are made of blossoms, petals and leaves. So pretty! The saucer also has lighted candles amid the flowers. Very romantic!
For more info on the teacup at Antiques And Teacups, click on the photos.



But...here is our vintage moment...40 years on....



Our big day, February 16th 1974. Soooo 1970s.....



I couldn't find my wedding album for more photos...things have been a bit bananas around here with the burst pipe in the garage just before as we came home from our family holiday, followed by insurance adjusters, ServPro, nights in a hotel, and then got home and found out our heat pump wasn't working. So we are a bit disrupted. We were to go out to dinner for our anniversary to a favorite restaurant today, but my honey caught a cold out supervising things in the cold garage, so that's postponed. No worries...after 40 years...for the best really, it's 5pm and pouring and windy and snow expected tonight....possibly 4 feet just out of door in the Olympic Mountains, so we are glad to stay home and watch the Olympics and Downton Abbey and go out when he's better.



We were married on the San Francisco peninsula...we worked in Menlo Park and Palo Alto, so we honeymooned in Carmel. The fun thing, was when we got out to my blue mustang (which was running better than John's car at the time) after the reception to leave for the honeymoon, the best man & friends had decorated the wrong car!  WooHoo!



Going to the Lone Pine was special, because my grandfather, who was a Listed Artist, painted it and we now have the painting in our living room...



Our favorite thing was breakfast or tea at the Tuck Box tea room. Tuck Box is an English boarding school term for the allotment of sweets you are allowed to have held and doled out to you each term, so for us Brits that was perfect. That was before everyone photographed food, so the next 2 photos are from TripAdvisor of a teapot and the Scottish scones they serve and served then....




I bought this kit to cross stitch when we visited Carmel last, about 6 years ago when John's sister and brother visited from England. The design is by painter Marty Bell, but I haven't gotten to it yet....



I hope the weather has cooperated for you wherever you are, and that you had a wonderful Valentine's Day...ours was with ServPro....Below is some of the blogs i will be visiting and a linky for you to link your tea related post. I'd love to hear from you. It's a honor to have you visit and share our special day with us!


Monday Marketplace
Terri~  http://artfulaffirmations.blogspot.com/ 
Teacup Tuesday
Teatime Tuesday
Tea With Celia
Kathy~  http://blissfulrhythm.blogspot.com/
Victoria - A Return to Loveliness
Tea On Tuesday
Miss Kathy ~http://www.thewritersreverie.com/
Tuesday Tea
Tea Cup Tuesday
 Just A Little Southern Hospitality ~ http://justalittlesouthernhospitality.blogspot.com/
Tea On Tuesday
Tea On Tuesday
Time For Tea
Tuesday Tea Time
Tea On Tuesday
Bernideen’s ~ http://blog.bernideens.com/
Tea In The Garden Tuesday
Lavender Cottage  Tea Time
Tea In Texas
Playing With My Camera Teatime           
Tuesday Blog Shop
Poetry In A Pot Of Tea

What’s It Wednesday                                           

Home On Wednesday