Teacup Tuesday

Now Spring has finally, I think, sprung, I seem to be getting in the mood for decorating. Not the usual stuff I do but a 'Spring clean' type of decorating.

I have seen so many inspiring pictures on Facebook lately, of pastel coloured rooms with oodles of vases filled with beautiful Spring flowers, of teacups with little posies of wild blooms. Or candles.

Photo courtesy Miss Rose, Sister Violet

And since it's Teacup Tuesday I thought I'd share a photo with you.
I know, I know, they aren't teacups. They are chocolate cups.

In days of yore when knights were bold,
And chocolate was served a lot
Piping hot, served warm, not cold
In a pretty little lidded  pot.

I have three pretty late 18th century Limoges chocolate pots with lids, which sit by my mid 19th century clock on a special little shelf made by my husband Stephen. The diamond shelf is painted the same colour as the walls and blends in nicely. ( A grey blue ).

But I digress.

For some reason, living where we do, we get quite a bit of pollution which settles as a grey sticky deposit on anything plastic, painted or fabric.
I did put it down to the proximity of the road ( never having lived near a road before, albeit a road that doesn't get much traffic ). Until recently I thought it was car fumes that were turning my pretty kitchen walls from a delightful pale violet colour, into a mucky grey.

I've changed my mind.
I think it's the plastics factory down the road. A long way down the road but in direct line for the south westerlies to bring it to my door....and window...and curtains...and delicately shaded walls.
So I'm hoping this bank holiday weekend to do some re-decorating of walls. Not before we get out the good old sugar soap and give them a good scrub.

I like decorating but I hate cleaning walls. Anyone like to come and help?

No, I didn' think I'd get any takers. ;)

So when I next post. I'll have a beautifully clean kitchen, filled with lovely shiny crockery and bright dust free fabrics.
I'll post some pictures when it's done.

Meanwhile here ARE some teacups...
My 1901 Hammersley hand painted set...every piece is different, too pretty to hide away!

And yes...I have to wash every piece by hand, because they too get grey with pollution. <Sigh>

Whatever you are doing this bank holiday, be it decorating the walls or filling vases with flowers, make it special.

A Pinch and a Punch

April is with us. It may not seem like it. But here, it is.
 I've been very busy with The Medlar House Mice and so haven't had much time to post on GYR.
However I've kept the Facebook page of GYR going.

There have been some pretty things which have taken my eye. I think that we needed some heart warming imagery when the weather has been so horrible. They lift the spirits, don't you think?

I just loved this flower arrangement for the colours..

Making flowers always lifts my spirits. Over on BoxCleva I have a tutorial about how to make flowers which are made from mulberry paper. The blanks can be bought almost anywhere and of course you can punch out your own blanks if you have some flower punches.

I have dozens of flower punches but opted for bought in mulberry paper ones, for my projects, so that I could try them out for my readers who may not have a lot of punches, nor indeed any.
Prima flowers
They have so many applications, not least decorating the boxes for which BoxCleva is named and for beautifying the little box stands which I like to use to elevate the Medlar House Mice, from the surface of the display table, when I go to craft fairs.

I went to one on Saturday with the mice, with my Gather Ye Rosebud silk flowers, with decorated boxes of course and with a new idea of mine..pretty decorated houses which light up.

We tried a few of these glittery houses at Christmas and I wanted to make them all year, so made them rather Eastery to begin with. They are also on BoxCleva.
Here are some links for them.

A re-flowering

And for those on Facebook...

Houses
Naturally, they too are festooned with flowers.

So I called this post and Pinch and a Punch, because flowers were punched out and I've pinched my own posts from Facebook.

Happy April.