Happy 100th Issue to Daphne's Diary!

Daphne's Diary is celebrating its 100th issue, and I'm here for it! My friend Kathy and I both bought a copy of this issue at the Books A Million in Statesboro over the weekend, and I was stunned to realize she had never heard of this magazine before. Clearly, I have failed her as a friend!

I don't believe I've ever purchased an issue that did not have teatime graphics inside, and this time, these tear-out teacup postcards immediately caught my eye.

Across the page? A recipe for a Layer Cake with Lemon Curd that looks and sounds delightful.

I also liked these recipes and the retro graphics accompanying them.

This issue is brimming with projects, specialty papers, a removable poster, stickers, and even these cute die cuts that I will share with the little girl in my neighborhood. If you're a fan of Daphne's Diary as well, this is an issue you won't want to miss!

Road trip junkin' report

I've just returned from a trip to Statesboro to visit my friend Kathy, and boy, did we pack our days full! We had some delicious meals, watched the first three episodes of the new "Matlock" with Kathy Bates (a great show!), and shopped our hearts out! One of my favorite purchases was this vintage plate, a $4 antique mall find, because it features roses as well as some fall-toned florals. I love it!

And do you remember that violet teacup I showed you on Friday, the one with cutouts that look like either butterflies (my opinion) or teeth (Kathy's opinion)? Well, I've been gathering yellow and lavender goodies for some Easter projects next year, and along with that new violet teacup, I think this $2.50 crocheted doily will be perfect.

Another find in yellow was this dinner plate to match my Royal Winton Welbeck tea wares and dessert plates. It was marked $30, but the whole booth was half off, so yay!

And finally, I spotted (in an antique mall!) a Bath & Body Works hand soap I actually needed, this one with a yummy Sweet Tea & Lemonade scent. I came home with about three bags packed full of loot, but these were some of the more tea-ish finds that I wanted to share with you. Have you done any antiquing or junkin' lately? If so, what did you find?

Do you see what I see?

 

I've generally developed sales resistance when it comes to acquiring new teacups, but when I was in Goodwill this week, I saw this beauty for just $3.99 and couldn't say no. I have a real fondness for reticulated teacups, but I have a question for you.

Do these cutouts look like anything to you? They do to me.

A quick Google search revealed that this back stamp, marked Royal Halsey Very Fine, is from Lipper and Mann (the L and M on either side of the crown), which imported wares from Japan. But seriously, what do you see in the cutout shapes?

The Christmas magazines have arrived!

I love a pretty magazine more than anyone, I promise you, and I am so happy when the Christmas magazines start to arrive on newsstands. Here are five I wanted to share!

The issue that I most look forward to each year is Flea Market Decor's Holiday Issue. I know I will find lots of yummy ideas, and this year's magazine is no exception. From tinsel trees to Santa mugs and old-fashioned felt stockings, it is brimming with all that kitschy stuff I adore. Alex particularly enjoyed all the festive vintage decor I put out each Christmas, and I am going to make the effort to decorate as much as ever this year and have several friends over to celebrate.

Inspired by this issue, I am toying with doing this on a wall in my house. I certainly have enough plates to be able to do it. Would you?

My favorite cover this season? This Better Homes & Gardens Christmas Classics magazine. Isn't that wreath delightful? This magazine features vintage recipes and vintage Christmas crafts, so this is right up my alley. (And it reminds me of my own Vintage Christmas Cookbook, so those of you who liked that book will enjoy this magazine!)

Country Home always has me wanting to gather pine cones and wire my own greenery. It's definitely a more rustic look than I prefer, but it's such a pretty magazine that I always buy it at Christmas anyway.

Victoria's Christmas issue is especially pretty this year and features photos of some gorgeous Christmas tables and tea wares.

And the November/December issue of Tea Time arrived yesterday, and I think that White Chocolate, Pistachio, and Cherry Cake on the cover is one of the prettiest Christmas cakes I've ever seen. I do love a nice drizzled icing, and this one is stunning. So what have I left out? Have you read any Christmas magazines I need to add to my list?

The flavors of fall

I popped into my local Ollie's store last week, and I was pleased to discover some seasonal Twinings teas for just $1.99 a box. I continue to keep a variety of tea bags on hand for when my six- and seven-year-old neighbors visit for teatime, and the six-year-old had mentioned that he would like to try some pumpkin tea. Done!

Naturally, I had to try the teas myself, so I tested the Pumpkin Spice Chai first. This tea didn't taste bad but wasn't as robust as I'd expected, but that may be just fine for the kids, who probably wouldn't like the super-spicy chais I prefer!

I did, however, find the Spiced Apple Chai surprisingly good, and it had an almost sour-apple taste, which I just love. I've always liked sour-apple beverages and candies, and this tea had a little hint of that. When my six-year-old friend tried it yesterday, he said, "Mm! This is really good!" That was my thought, too, and I was happy to have it seconded. Do you have any suggestions for fall tea bags to add to my stash?

The winner of the fall teatime treat is …

 Donna G! Congrats, and I'll soon have this headed your way!

When new floors lead to new place mats

I am slowly putting my house back together after having to move everything out for the repairs. Prior to the great ruptured-pipe incident, I had a distressed-white table in the foyer, and it's now being used as my TV display stand since I wanted a change from the old one. But when that white table was in the foyer, I had displayed on it a cheery silk flower basket a dear friend gave me for my birthday this year. I loved it and wished the spring colors would work for fall too. Well, I went to T. J. Maxx and found some pretty scalloped floral place mats by Rachel Ashwell of Shabby Chic fame, and with the light-orange colors, these work great with both the flowers and the olive-green ruffled dishes I scored at Goodwill a year or two ago.

I love the way the fall light hits the dishes, especially the teacup with its pretty ruffled saucer.

One change that shocked even me was that I realized how much more spacious my small dining room seemed without my beloved tea trolley in it. When I moved it to the garage a few weeks ago before the flooring went in, I discovered how rickety it had gotten. The wheels wobbled precariously, and that cart was probably a dangerous place to display some of my most treasured tea wares. I'm sure I'll come up with another place to display tea wares, though, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, I now have LVP flooring everywhere downstairs except the kitchen, which is a renovation project for another day. I'm loving the clean look but didn't realize how much sounds would echo without the carpet there to muffle them. Amazon will be bringing me a nice big rug today to help take care of that. And I may get one for the dining room, too, to use underneath my dining table and chairs. I'm so glad I bought a distressed set twenty years ago, because I still love that look today. And now that I've enjoyed my first quiet week with no workmen traipsing in and out of my house, I can say that I'm glad the only thing "distressed" in this house is some furniture!

It's always time for tea

I've bought souvenirs for friends during my travels over the years, but it is still always such a wonderful surprise when a traveling friend brings home something for me. On Sunday, my friend Patti showed up at Sunday school with this cute box of tea that features the clock face on the Elizabeth Tower, aka Big Ben! She was part of a group that went on a spiritual heritage tour of England and Scotland, a trip I'd like to take myself one day.

Isn't the tea bag packaging cute? I don't believe I've ever seen a tea bag packet that used a tea bag *graphic* in the design before. A fun idea!

And when Patti gave me the tea, she laughed and said, "It's probably terrible, but here it is anyway." Well, I know from experience that sometimes, souvenir teas are indeed terrible, but this one wasn't! It was a brisk black tea I find so typical of the English, and with a little dollop of honey, it became a fine cup of afternoon tea, sweetened by both the honey and the friendship.

Fall Giveaway: Tea & Shortbread

This is the time of year when I start to seriously think about gift giving, and when I was at T.J. Maxx over the weekend, I was surprised (but shouldn't have been) to realize that fall items are already on clearance and Christmas items are appearing on shelves. My home repairs were finally finished last week, and I feel like celebrating, so I thought it was the perfect time for a giveaway!

T.J. Maxx always has tempting teas, and this Taylors of Harrogate Mandarin & Ginger Tea sounded like a fun new blend to try.

And of course shortbread is always perfect to pair with your tea. Want to win this teatime treat? Just leave an "Enter me" type comment to this post between now and 7 a.m. EST on Friday, October 18 (making sure I have a way to contact you if you're the winner), and you'll be entered to win. Good luck!

Celestial Seasonings Lemon Honey Drop Tea

My fall allergies have kicked in a little, so when I checked out the tea aisle at Kroger this week, I was compelled to buy a lemon herbal tea I didn't recall seeing before, this one with Vitamin C.

This Lemon Honey Drop Tea from Celestial Seasonings really does contain both lemon and honey! The ingredients list reads: Lemongrass, Orange Peel, Hawthorn, Licorice Root, Blackberry Leaves, Lemon Powder (Crystallized Lemon [Citric Acid, Lemon Oil, Ascorbic Acid], Evaporated Cane Syrup), Natural Flavors, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Dried Lemon, Honey.

What I liked most about this tea was that it was such a great blend of lemon and honey, not too tart from the lemon and not too sweet from the honey. Also, since my young neighbor kids are fans of honey, I thought they might like this tea, too, and we're all looking forward to another tea party very soon!

A new cookbook I absolutely love

After getting the news about my friend Katherine, I found myself scrolling through her old Instagram posts, and I remembered that she had provided the illustrations for a cookbook I'd meant to order. I don't need any more cookbooks, and I'd never heard of the author, but I'd meant to order the book anyway just because Katherine's artwork was in it. So over the weekend, in between the contractors banging away at my new floors (pray for me, y'all), The Very Vera Cookbook: Occasions arrived.

Katherine illustrated the Table of Contents and …

The section dividers and a lot of individual food items as well. The artwork is all so lovely, as I knew it would be!

But what I did not expect was that I immediately fell in love with Vera Stewart, who apparently has catered lots of soirees in Augusta over the years, and she shares some of her secrets throughout the book. (I wish I'd had the opportunity to ask Katherine how she hooked up with Vera, but here we are.) And imagine my delight when one of the first things to catch my eye was tea sandwiches featuring carrots and pecans! I will be making these.

I also loved the look of these Sweet Little BLTs with Maple-Candied Bacon. What a sophisticated presentation!

And I would want to make the Lemon Cheese Logs even without the Santa mug being in the photo, but since I collect Santa mugs, I hit the brakes when I came across this recipe. When you slice the logs to make these cookies, you use the fork to press grooves into the dough before baking, then you dip them in chocolate. These will be so great for Christmas treats!

Vera herself appears to be a petite woman (earning bonus points from this five-foot-two reader) who is just a powerhouse. I had no idea I would love this beautifully photographed and illustrated cookbook so much, and I can't wait to use it. I feel like Katherine just gave me one final gift!

Remembering Katherine

Ten years ago, I first shared this photo here on Tea With Friends. I'd recently spoken with my artist friend Katherine and mentioned that I needed to order some nice business cards, something I just hadn't gotten around to. "I can design you a card!" she said. Katherine was creating a website for her custom stationery business, and we were both really busy with work, so I was surprised when she soon emailed me a beautiful watercolor of a teacup and pencil. The artwork was something Katherine had created just for me, inspired by the teacup pictured on my blog header at the time, and I was thrilled to have new business cards with her design. I have a few of them left, and the cards mean even more to me now, because in the early morning hours of September 27, Hurricane Helene sent a tree crashing through Katherine's home in Augusta, where she was asleep in bed. Her husband was away at a conference, and she and her Jack Russell terrier were both killed instantly.

Katherine wrote a column called the Thoughtful Gardener for the magazine I edited years ago, but she and I had been friends before that. If I had to describe our friendship, I would say we bonded over a love of Jesus and … pretty things! A nurse by training, she was a devoted homeschooling mom when I first met her, and we often talked about faith and creativity since she was into art and I was into writing. She went on to achieve many accolades in her artistic life, getting commissions for her work from all over the country, projects as varied as illustrating the invitations to the New York Botanical Garden's ball and creating eighteen botanical watercolors corresponding to the eighteen holes of golf at a certain little golf tournament they have in Augusta each year. She collaborated with designers and authors and all sorts of interesting people, and I love that she remained humble and gracious whenever I reached out to say congratulations on her latest success. To say I was proud of her is quite the understatement. I'm so glad her family chose an artsy photo of her to use with her obituary because it captures the spirit of Katherine—elegant, happy, and surrounded by the art and flowers she adored. (Here's a link to her obit if you're interested.)

Katherine once surprised me with the gift of a vintage Chinese teapot and tea set in a basket, and I loved it so much that I even wrote a short story about it in my book A Year of Teatime Tales.

The devastation caused by Helene seems to be in the news every day and will be for a while, and the grief I feel over the loss of my friend is no doubt being replicated many times over. I can only thank the Lord for letting our lives intersect during the sweet years that they did, and I trust He will comfort her family—and the families of so, so many others—in the days ahead. And I aim to use that Chinese tea set more in the days to come. I think Katherine would like that!

A "sweet" time of thanking the local LEOs

Yesterday, I got to join some friends in serving at the Public Safety Appreciation Luncheon honoring local law enforcement officers (or LEOs), and I'm happy to report it was another huge success! This year, our longtime leader, Norma, who'd been recovering from a brief hospital stay, arrived by firetruck, which I thought was brilliant!

This is about a third of the dessert table, where I serve each year. Eyes light up when the officers see all these homemade desserts. Sometimes, well-meaning folks try to sneak in a store-bought dessert, but Norma won't have it, and it immediately gets whisked away, out of sight.

I can report that banana pudding remains a fan favorite.

My friend Pam contributed a huge loaf-style pound cake, and less than half a (skinny) sliver remained at the end of the luncheon. (Guess who took it home to enjoy with her tea? Ahem …)

Peach cobbler disappeared before I thought to get a photo, and this strawberry cake got devoured too.

This chocolate cake was a hit as well.

My friend Susan, who works at the local hospital, was volunteering as well, and I love getting to work this event with her.

She was also part of the team working the beverage table, and their sweet tea is always delicious.

But most of all, I enjoyed getting to say "thank you" to the officers who came through the line! I know they got a nice lunch (pork loin, squash, green beans, mashed potatoes, and rolls) and plenty of homemade desserts, but that's such a small token of appreciation for keeping us safe during these crazy times!