Paper lace valentines and rose petal tea

 

A heads-up: Valentine's Week Giveaways are just around the corner and will begin Wednesday, so please visit on Wednesday, Friday, and next Monday, when I'll be sharing tea-themed vintage valentines and some fun treats! But first: check out this really vintage valentine I found at a thrift store on Saturday. It is absolutely the most stunning valentine I've ever seen! It's about 6 x 9 inches and has so much detail.

The paper used for the base of the card is as thin as a sheet of copy paper and very fragile but blessedly intact!

It has layer upon layer of embellishments, and I have quite enjoyed studying it.

I'm thinking the blue flowers are forget-me-nots. What say you, gardener friends?

Every time I look at this piece, I see something new, like the garlands along the gold at the bottom.

The timing of this find was interesting. You see, I pull out my vintage issues of Victoria magazine all year long, mainly because they are the prettiest magazines ever published and the content is often "evergreen," meaning it ages well, especially the info on history and collectibles.

The other night, I was perusing the February 1992 issue and came across this feature on "paper lace" valentines. According to the article, for many years, "these froths remained the monopoly of England and France. Only in the 1880s did Americans finally discover the culprit responsible for their inferior product. The reason was so simple! American paper had traditionally been made of wood pulp, but only paper of a high rag content (with its correspondingly stronger fibers) could sustain the clean-cut, delicate incisions necessary to produce fine paper lace." So how 'bout that! My new-to-me piece doesn't list the maker, but the details are so fine that I'm guessing it's English. My valentine wasn't priced, and the thrift shop owner told me to just take it for free, but I insisted he add a little something to my bill since proceeds benefit a local ministry. I got home and started researching these pieces on eBay, and let's just say I should have made a much larger donation!

"But enough about valentines," you say. "Where's the tea in today's post?" Well, here it is. The tea I've been sipping as I prepare for Valentine's Week is this China Rose Petal Leaf Tea from Taylors of Harrogate, found on Amazon.

I do love a floral-scented tea every now and then, and this one was delightful, with just the right touch of rose fragrance and taste. It was the perfect tea to sip while reading such a froufrou magazine about such froufrou valentines. I don't believe I'd ever actually seen a "paper lace" valentine before acquiring this one. Have any of you?