A few of my favourite things - teacups and saucers

First, I must own up that for the majority of the time, I have my 'cups' of tea served in an enormous mug, but we do try to use 'proper' cups and saucers at the weekend, especially as I have a few vintage sets. The photo below shows some of the cups and saucers we use.

Since I was quite young I have collected cups and saucers (some with plates), with some being vintage and some new (though these ones are usually seconds). I also added a couple to my collection when my Mum and Dad down-sized to a smaller house.

Vintage/antique teacups

This Susie Cooper cup and saucer was one of my Mum's.

This teacup and saucer have hand painted birds and flowers on it. It was probably bought as a blank and painted at home as the paint is on top of the glaze. I like to imagine that it was painted by a genteel lady of leisure.

If I had to choose, I'd say this trio was my favourite as it has one of may favourite colour combinations, green and pink.

This trio (cup and saucer plus plate) doesn't have a marking so may be foreign, but I love their faded beauty.

A quartet of trios:

New (when bought) teacups and saucers.

This Aynsley cup and saucer was a present from my sister and her husband, I'd spotted whilst shopping in Selfridge's in Manchester over 10 years ago (where does the time go?).

These Royal Albert cups and saucers are seconds and bought over a couple of years. I like the juxtaposition of the flowers against the black background.

Strictly speaking, this may be a coffee cup, but I liked the pattern!

What are your favourite things?

TTFN

Louise.

Bauble envy

First of all, Happy New Year. I hope 2012 is kind to us all!

Those of us in the Elsie May and Bertha world had a lovely christmas and a peaceful new year (we don't do the staying up till past midnight on the 31st December thing).

Today I'm going to share some photos of christmas baubles with you. They were all on two of my sister's christmas trees (she does 3), I think they're all lovely and could have quite easily swiped them, regardless of the fact that they don't go with my christmas colours of red and gold! However, being the good big sister I just took photos!

This first set of photos are from the tree in her (enormous) living room, which is decorated in blue and gold (the tree, not the room).

The second set of photos are from the tree in my sister's hall and are all Disney ones. I love Eeyore's pink bow on his tail - and the wonderful thing about Tiggers are Tiggers are wonderful things!

Did you covet any baubles this Christmas?

TTFN
Louise.

Merry Christmas

Have a happy Christmas and a great new year.

Lots of Love

Louise @ Elsie May and Bertha

I'll be back blogging in the new year

TTFN

Louise



Christmas is coming - christmas cards

I don't always have time to make christmas cards every year, but I decided to this year and here are some of those that I have made over a couple of days. I've used bits off old christmas cards, scraps of fabric with some simple embroidery, stars cut out of some old music manuscript and the gift tags that came free with the December issue of Homes and Antiques.

TTFN
Louise

Christmas is coming - christmas stockings

When I was small me and my sister had two stockings, a plastic one that had our main christmas presents in and a knitted one. This knitted one has been a pair of socks that had belonged to my Mum's grandfather. They were hand-knitted and there was always a Terry's chocolate orange (in place of a real orange I presume) in the heel. These knitted ones have now disappeared, and although I have stockings hanging up as decorations around the house, I don't usually have one to 'open'.

The history of christmas stockings (with thanks to Wikipedia ).

There are many variations of the origin of christmas stockings, but basically the story went like this:

A long time ago, St. Nicholas was passing through village when he heard villagers talking about a very poor old man who had three daughters and who was worried what would happen to them when died.

St. Nicholas wanted to help, but he knew that the old man wouldn't accept charity, so he decided to help in secret. During the night he crept into the house through the chimney (hence the Father Christmas story of him coming down the chimney). He had three bags of gold with him, one for each of the girls, and whilst looking around to find somewhere to hide them, he noticed the girls' stockings hanging at the mantelpiece. He put a bag of gold into each of the stockings and he left. When the old man and the girls woke the next morning they found the gold coins and were overjoyed.The girls were able to get married and lived happily ever after.

This story led to the custom of children hanging stockings up and waiting for gifts from St. Nicholas. The oranges that were traditionally placed in stockings, may represent the bags of gold.

When the tradition began in Eastern Europe children put up their own stockings, but eventually christmas stockings were made for the purpose.

You can now buy, and make, christmas stockings in all shapes and sizes and bring them out every christmas.

All of the stocking pictured in this post are available from Elsie May and Bertha.

TTFN
Louise