"Will work for teawares"

Saturday my friend Liz's sweet daughter Cydney graduated from high school, so while the family celebrated I had fun playing "storekeeper" during the afternoon shift at Cydney's Alley, the store in Senoia my friend named in honor of her two daughters. I have never worked retail in my life -- unless you count the summer in high school when I worked the snack bar at the local park -- so I wondered how hard it would be. It was actually a lot of fun, and I can ring up a credit card customer in no time, I learned! I was more than happy to do this for my friend, but she actually had a nice thank-you gift for me, and I couldn't be more pleased. First, this great 12-inch platter, above, will be perfect for serving up teatime cookies.

I love the contemporary design of this piece. Yes, I like my frilly Victorian serving pieces, and the fancy bone china, but I also like to have some "hip" things as well. This certainly qualifies!

As if that weren't enough, she also gave me this great mug from a neighbor business in Senoia. I have the Sereni-tea mug but did not have the Par-tea mug, so I was quite happy to receive it.

Speaking of Par-tea ... here are some more great Par-tea items I recently received as gifts from two other tea-loving friends. With the coasters (top left), note papers (top right), napkins (in matching Lucite holder), and the mug above, I am definitely being encouraged to develop the "Par-tea" mindset, wouldn't you say? Three different friends, three different towns -- and they all gave me a wonderful tea design I didn't have. Amazing! (And much appreciated!)

Before my shift at the store, I ran by the Carriage House to see my longtime friend Nancy Roy, who I was pleased to see had more of these darling little tea design embroidered bags.

And at Miss Wendy's in Senoia, I found a beautiful vintage teacup in that pretty robin's egg blue color with lots of roses on it -- and for just $10. For lack of storage space, I've almost stopped buying teacups, but when it's this pretty and this reasonably priced, well, I'll make room. It's a Royal Albert pattern called "Gaiety - Two Step." (Gaie-tea?) Turns out there was a line of these with names like Tango and Two Step and ... well, those are the only two I know about. The things you learn when researching teawares!