Rose Wednesday!

Time to show us your roses! Jan @ Jan & Tom's Rose Haven is our gracious hostess for Rose Wednesdays. She has some lovely things & a beautiful blog...stop by & say hello to her!


I love this flue cover I have hanging in my guest room. It's just a reproduction & that usually turns me off but in this case, I don't care. I love it's look & of course the roses but even more, I love the Bible verse. It's always been my favorite! Because that just says it all, doesn't it? I mean, all we have to do is love each other & life will be good...it's really that simple.

Be sure & stop by Jan's to see the other Rose Wednesday posts. Have a good day everybody!

Tablescape Tuesday

Our 25th anniversary is soon approaching (it's the 30th) so the event has been on my mind & plans are being made. We're taking the family out to Reata (it's Grady Spear's wonderful restaurant) the night of to celebrate but we'll also do a private home party, just between us that weekend, the way we always celebrate it. Some women want to be taken out to an expensive restaurant on their anniversary but I alwasy want our home time. We so enjoy hanging out in the kitchen & making the meal. We've made a lot of good anniversary memories that way. This year I get to do both!



Note sure how I want to do my table yet...I do know that I want to use a 25th anniversary apothecary jar that hubby & I bought while 'tiking this week-end. I love it & will leave it out always. Anyway, back to Tablescape Tuesday..... I thought I'd share my past anniversary tables w/ you.... I'll share one this week, one the next & then the following week, I'll share this year's table.

This table was from '07. I went w/ a pink, white & chocolate color scheme. For teh centerpiece,I used snapdragons instead of roses, added some eucalyptus & some lacy fern & put the arrangemnt in an ironstone urn. I love roses, y'all know I love roses *grins*, I just prefer another variety of flower for anniversarys & Valentine's because roses are so typically used then. I used vintage lighting globes as votives & added pink ornaments set on silver candlesticks.

(click on any picture to enlarge)

Love the vintage postcard on board. I bought it on eBay. I keep planning on making some myself but haven't followed through yet...maybe this is the year! ;o) The beads weren't as glaring as they appear...they really grab th light!

For teh placesettings I used square glass plates (from the dollar store!) on a crushed velvet brown placemat (Big Lots), pink & brown paisley napkins (Tuesday Morning), mismatched crystal goblets & an old, treasured photo of the 2 of us in a rhinestone frame. Just for fun, I added a pink-wrapped candy. I served pureed parsnip soup in the shooter (ala Top Chef) w/ rumaki alongside. Pink rose water granita was served in the sherbets & the entree was lobster ravioli w/ a vanilla beurre blanc. I lost all the photos of the food in a puter crash or I'd share them with you. This was the first meal I ever took photos of.

Wait til you see last year's table...it's soo chic & romantic! If you want to see more of my tables, just click on the label "tables" under this post & it will pop them up for you. And don't forget about my blogaversary countdown give-away...leave a comment on Friday's post to get your name in the hat.



Be sure & thank Susan @ Between Naps on the Porch for hosting this for us. She sure puts the fun into Tuesdays, doesn't she?

I'm in the pink!

Today is my first time to participate in Beverly's Pink Saturday blog party. I have quite a few pink things & I love parties so why not? You all were having too much fun & I wanted to play too. ;o)





For my very first Pink Saturday post, I'm sharing a couple of treasured bone dishes by Ardalt....the pattern is 6699 B but I've never seen any others like them. I bought them many, many years ago, when I first started thrifting.


I love the painted dots on them...I like to rub my fingers over them ...it reminds me of the Braille books we had in elementary. I used to love the feel of them too.

And look at the teeny-tiny hand painted roses! Aren't they sweet?

I hung the pair of these lovely bone dishes (it's not what they're made of...it's what they're for...they sat at the head of the dinner plate & bones were deposited in them), upstairs in my guest room, on either side of a beveled mirror. The framed picture on the mirror is actually the cover to a piece of old sheet music from the early 1900's. I'll share more of it, as well as the rest of my collection, in a 3 or More Thursday post soon.

If you like pink, run to Beverly's @ How Sweet the Sound & see all the other participants. There's a lot of pink eye candy in them!

Drum roll please......

ratatatatata....the winner of Nell Hills Entertaining in Style by Mary Carol Garrity, from my 100th post giveawy, is Lisa from Simply Blessed Bliss. Congratulation Lisa! I used random.org to pick the winner this time. It randomizes your list of names....the winner is in the first spot.

And I'm combining posts today because they're all related. I'll start off w/ my thrift finds recently. Can you believe I got this bounty in one trip to one GW? It's one not very near my house so I don't get to it much but it's always worth the trip. I forgot to get pics of the brown & white toile cups. They match a set I used in this tablescape tuesday post. I now have a set of 6...dinner plates, bread & butter plates & teacup & saucers. Cool! I also didn't get pics of the ivy topiary. I must have gotten distracted in the middle of taking the pics & then thought I was done.

(click on any picture to enlarge)

I got 6 boxes (12 to a box) of these feather birds for $1 a box. There's all different colors of them so they should be very versatile for projects.

Another set of votive holders that can double as mini-cloches. I see a truffle candy under these....wouldn't that be cute? I buy these wall cherubs any time I see them. They can be used as appliques on furniture too & at a couple bucks a piece, the price can't be beat.

Love this sweet robin by Lefton.

I already have 4 lidded bowls this color of blue, 5 of the salad plates & believe it or not, one lone dinner plate that matches these 3 exactly. Now I have placesetting for 4. Can't wait to use them in a tablescape! Love the lines of the silver gravy boat.

And the curves of this lampshade!

The mugs are oven proof, & microwave proof so I can bake chicken pot pies in them, serve soups, microwave "cakes in a mug" & hubby can use them for his coffee (I drink my coffee from a bone china cappuccino cup ;o) ). I forgot to take a picture of the cuckoo clock you can barely see here. It doesn't work.... the cuckoo guy still comes out & cuckooos but it doesn't keep time ...for $3 it's worth having it looked at to see if it can be fixed. I soo want a cuckoo clock & am determined to have one.

Silver candelabra. It looks like cheap silverplate so it may not polish up well. It could always be painted white & jeweled up some. And see that ugly "arrangement in a cage" behind it? Look how cute that old birdacge is now! Someone recently painted it all silver. I'm going to scrape some of the paint off & leave it outside to rust some & then put a nice vignette in it.

LOVE this old cherub!

Now onto my blogaversary countdown giveaway! I know you're wondering what in the heck that has to do w/ my thrift finds. But it does because I decided to share one of them w/ you. I love this little cherub (you'll see it in several of the photos above). It has such a sweet expression on it's face, don't you think? And the glaze & the coloring is wonderful. I couldn't leave it sitting on the shelf @ GW, homeless & forelorn, but I have so many already & while cute, it's not vintage. Then I thought that one of you could give it a proper home if I included it in on my give-away.

She's all packed up in the old tin (w/ the vintage hankie I added last week), ready to go home w/ the lucky someone who wins my blogaversary countdown giveaway. I'll be adding something every Friday & will draw a name on Feb 25th. You can see the original post here.

To get your name in the hat, just leave a comment on my blogaversary countdown on Fridays. For every Friday that you leave a comment, a slip w/ your name goes into the hat. If you want 3 more tries added to the hat, add this button, w/ a link back to my blog to your sidebar & let me know about it.

This give-away is restricted to the continental US...sorry! And you don't have to have a blog to enter but you must leave an email address so that I can contact you. Good luck!

Is it Tuesday again already?

Hello! I love Tuesdays, don't y'all? Today, I am playing in 2 blog parties.... Tablescape Tuesday & Trash to Treasure. And I am also sharing 2 tables w/ y'all today, hope you don't mind.

This past weekend was a grand weekend. We kept the 4 older grands Saturday morning.... we all snuggled up & watched Firehouse Dog & Grouchy made us pancakes & sausage. We spent many a week-end morning that way when our kids were young. Good times! Then baby Noah spent the night Saturday night so his parents could have a night on the town (Clifton looked sooo good that it brought tears to my eyes!). We were determined to squeeze in a nice dinner but needed to keep it easy. We chose a couple of Ina Garten recipes & set a very simple table. Wish I would have used a battenburg square or runner under the centerpiece. It needs something!

You've seen me use the Lace chargers (from JCPenney.com) a hundred times. The dinner plates are from Tracy Porter's Octavia Hill line. They're from Target but I got them at a thrift store (of course I did!). The rose china bowls are Johan Havilland...another thrift store find. I think I got 8 of them for under $15.

Hubby bought me a bunch of alstroemeria...look how great they look in my thrift store vase (which is my trash to treasure post). The vase is Jay Willfred by Andrea by Sadek.

The soup bowls are lovely & the coloring matches the alstroemeria perfectly.

Sweet little rose creamer.

I got this set of crystal, individual salt & pepper shakers on eBay a few years ago....I have 4 sets of them.

Since we were keeping it easy, we used a pre-made soup from a carton for an appie. The soup was Smoky Corn Chowder, at least I think that was name of it. I know it was by V8. Don't buy it! Blechh!

With a little tweaking, Ina's recipes might be very good but they were only so-so as written. The salmon recipe is Eli's Asian Salmon ... I kinda expected the panko crumb coat on the salmon to be crispy but it was very soggy & quite salty. Hubby warned me that I should stick w/ a sweet glaze for the salmon & sadly, he was right! The Crunchy Noodle Salad was pretty good although next time I will cut back on the peanut butter some. Both recipes can be found at foodnetwork.com but I cannot recommend the salmon, even though it looks so tasty.

For dessert, we had Meringued Grapefruit. I saw it on Jain's blog & knew I had to make it. It did not disappoint! Isn't it beautiful? They were small grapefruits so I served them in my vintage Boopie sherbets. This will be a repeater! In fact, we got some HUGE grapefruits yesterday. I just think they're soo pretty!

Here's the recipe Jain shared w/ us....

pink grapefruits, membranes cut and separated

2 egg whites

1/4 brown sugar

whip eggs until soft peaks, add brown sugar and whip until stiff peaks. put rack on lower 3rd and turn on broiler. mound meringue into swirling peaks and broil for 1-2 until brown. serve immediately~

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And I know you're eager to go see all the other tables but I have one more to share today. Sunday, hubby & I picked out a cookbook from our collection (we went w/ A Cowboy in the Kitchen) & made a trip to Central Market. This meal will go down as one of our best. EVERYTHING was marvelous & no changes were made to the recipes. I'm OK with having to change up an allrecipes recipe to improve upon it but the pros shouldn't need to be tweaked, you know? And Grady Spears did not disappoint. I'll start w/ pictures of my table but you are going to wanna stick around for the food pics. ;o)

I printed a photo of ice dripping off a pine branch & used it on the salad plates. All dinnerware is from Target, the goblets are a thrift store find & the twig flatware is from Marshall's, TJMaxx or Ross. The twig placemats are from Garden Ridge.

For teh centerpiece, I used an old window & a knitted throw as a runner, added a couple of pine sprigs, mercury glass candleholders, a corbel & my collection of old glass stoppers.

First course was a stacked tomato & onion salad w/ a mango vinaigrette. I know mozzarella is typically used w/ tomatos but this meal was Texas'fied so I went w/ monterey jack. The avocado was a little unnecessary, it really didn't add anything to the dish .... hubby probably should have sliced them slimmer. The vinaigrette is going to be very versatile...glad we made extra!

Hubby pulled out his Texas brand & branded the Sweet Corn Pudding Pie. He thinks he is sooo tough! ;o)

The entree was Cornish Game Hens w/ a Molasses Rub (fantastic!) & the Sweet Corn Pudding Pie (another winner...it's really a cowboy quiche & would be great w/ a salad for dinner).

Dessert wasn't from Grady Spears cookbook....it's Alton Brown's Bruleed Bananas. We shmeared some caramel syrup on the plate, added the bruleed bananas (just sprinkle banana slices w/ sugar & torch like a creme brulee), a scoop of Coconut Sesame Seed ice cream (delicious! by Haggen Daaz) & topped it w/ a sugar doodad. It was soo simple, so beautiful & sooo delicious!

One of our very best dinners! Chris has earmarked several more of Grady Spears recipes to make this week so it looks like it's going to be a Tex-Mex feast all week. Fine w/ me! I'm not a big fan of typical Texas cuisine (I know, I know...blasphemy! ;o) ) but Grady Spear's kicks it up a notch & makes it elegant & tasty.

There's lots more beautiful tables over @ Between Naps on the Porch ...come check them out w/ me. And while you're there, be sure & thank our hostess for her hospitality! It's awfully gracious of her to host this week after week, don't you think?

Also Diane @ A Picture is Worth a 1000 Words invited me to link this post to her Trash to Treasure post today....stop by her blog after you leave Susan's to see how other bloggers have turned their trash into treasure.

Crowned!

It's been a while since I shared any of my wealth of images so I thought I would today. I thought these crown printouts would be great for your altered art projects.

Had to include this sheet music...."Crown Him With Many Crowns".

These crowns are lovely, don't you think?

I'm going to use one of these diadems on a photograph of Miss Caralyn. Her Grouchy has her convinced that she is a true Princess. While reading a story the other day, I asked her, "who lives in a castle" & she replied "Me!" *grins*

Hope you enjoyed them. I'd really love to see anything you make out of them! I'll share my "little princess" when I finish w/ her. I thought that instead of doing a "fairy in a jar" that I would do a "princess in a jar". I'll make it 3 dimensional & add a beaded scepter. Can't wait to get started on it but it'll probably be this weekend before I am able.