photo courtesy of Lizix26

shall we?

it's that day of the week again when we gather to celebrate the joys of home sweet home and what could be more inviting than a 'cuppa at Teacup Tuesday and Artful Affirmations

so bring out your linens

prepare the wares

and

settle into your favorite chair

photo courtesy of Chrysti

then relax, look around you, read a poem

get taken away to my sweet savannah from etsy

or visualize Ann Wood's hangers

remember the dream

art by JoAnna Pierotti

it might be your only quiet time of the day to

stop

and

smell the

gardenias

and as always, the persons i would most enjoy tea and conversation with today

clementine and sir winston churchill

who proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that

"love is the passionate and abiding desire on the part of two people to produce together the conditions under which each can be,and spontaneously express,his real self; to produce together an intellectual soil and an emotional climate in which each can flourish far superior to what either could achieve alone"

written by another sir....William Shakespeare

isn't it a

IS THERE ANYTHING MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN NATURE?

This is the Polymita Cuban Land Snail. Last night I watched a PBS special documentary about the Island of Cuba where these snails have chosen their habitat and was totally blown away with their beauty.

Ale, let's paint them.  Since "a little of what we like does us well". 

painting by daniel serra badue

....and as to whether there is anything more beautiful than Nature.....only the smile on a friend's face comes close.

BLOG GIVEAWAY WINNER

...... and the winner is Par Tea Lady  of Tea & Talk from Georgia, USA. 

Isn't she beautiful?  Ah, the people one meets through blogging! Thank you all for participating.  I have now decided to make this a monthly blog MUST. 

So keep on coming back.  I love each and every one of you and always appreciate your kind words on my blog.

BLOG GIVEAWAY

making someone happy yields the best return, for me anyway. 
and i've wanted to do a blog giveaway forever and a day!  and the day has arrived.  i travelled up the coast, all the way up to santa barbara, to gather the goods i thought might make a good giveaway, with a little added something made by me, a set of altered art gift tag originals.  everything pictured is part of the giveaway. and since i am in the process of cleaning out my art supplies and closets, many new things will be added in the next few days.

i have watched you all be so generous of heart throughout this year, ironically called the year of the tiger in the chinese calender.  it sure has felt like it, an angry, vengeful tiger wreaking havoc around the world.  so, for all of us who protect what we have, our home sweet homes and all the hopes that are born of them, here are a few of my favorite things found to add to that comfort.

spread the word since the drawing will be sunday.  i like to blog regularly so a few days should be enough. i might even make this a monthly habit.

GOOD LUCK AND ENJOY!

it's Teacup Tuesday again and for the longest time i have been wanting to do a post on english cornishware.  having grown up in england and spent many a summer in cadgwith, cornwall, i naturally grew up with this tableware.  i still remember my mother making us soft boiled eggs for breakfast in our cornishware cups,

although we later insisted on getting the noddy cups, a cartoon character very popular in england during the 60's.  if there is any middle class tableware par excellence, it is cornishware.  simple and yet beautiful with that english country cottage feel.  it looks gorgeous on hutches when you put all the pieces together. ironically i have not one piece of cornishware in my home although i've bid on a few milk jugs always having lost to a higher bidder.  so most of the photos here are from Flickr. maybe it's time to renew the search in spite of my vowing to do with what i have for the moment, trying desperately to de-clutter the house.

Cornishware, as it is correctly known, has been in production since the 1920s when Tom G Green bought a pottery and started making breakfast ware. Now, there are collectors all over the world and rare and vintage pieces trade for hundreds of pounds. The factory had closed down in 2007 but was purchased recently and production is in full swing again with innovations; cornishware will now also come in red and white.

 
 
 
 
 

 

hoping martha is feeling better and thanking all my blog friends had  a happy week in expectation of an even better one coming up.

and the person i'd most like to have tea with today: julie arkell isn't she a doll?

ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER

....and sunday.  more clearing out, more going back to basics and the reaffirmation that "the true things in life ARE free".  free as in my friendship with my daughter, tatiana, whom i spent the afternoon with walking on the beach in malibu, exchanging stories on how we each see the world.  in spite of her youth, she is such a sage.  we both love to hike and i hadn't taken a decent walk since my hikes in chile so we made a date after she got off work to DO IT.  how we sometimes take for granted that we live only ten minutes away from the beach.  we should spend at least a day a week there.  apart from the exercise, the beauty of the sounds of the crunching sand underneath, the salty breeze from the pacific, and the spectacle of all those dogs enjoying themselves a plenty.  it was short, too short, but we caught the sunset on the way home and stopped for fish and chips at neptune's net, a dive that has been in malibu forever. the taste of seafood lingered and today i cooked myself some chilean langostinos for lunch, such an under-rated seafood the langostino.  the italians use it well in their seafood canneloni, one my favorites. 

Oh God how I LOVE YOU!

and now back to work on my etsy store which has been replenished.  please stop by to comment or browse, maybe you'll find something you like. no strings attached.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/boubelina2