When afternoon tea was just fifty cents …

The New York Public Library has loads of digital images you can browse online, and these images of a 1914 menu from the Lord & Taylor Tea Rooms caught my eye.

It's interesting to see the various ice creams named. I could figure out what a Charlotte Glacée was, but the Coupe Julia Marlowe? No idea. (I did learn that she was an English-born American actress and fought for women's right to vote. Maybe the ice cream honored her popularity?)

And while I'd no doubt let them keep the stewed prunes, don't you wish we could still enjoy afternoon tea for just fifty cents?

A teacup needle minder

 

I love it when my interests overlap. Needlepoint is having a moment, and since I've been revisiting some old needlepoint canvases I've had tucked away, I learned that all sorts of new needlepoint accessories exist, including a new-to-me gadget, a magnetic needle minder. 

This one, shaped like a teacup with those famous British "Rich Tea" biscuits on the side, is one I found on Amazon. (The link is here.)

A tiny magnet is on the back of the card, and you use it to attach your needle minder to your needlepoint canvas.

It looks like this when in use, and then you don't have to continuously poke holes in your canvas when "storing" your needle away. Some stitching gadgets are a waste of time and money, but this one? I'm impressed. Are you a lapsed needlepointer like I was?

Bow-Tied!

When I got home from shopping last Saturday, a friend asked if I'd bought anything. I told her I'd just bought two cute coffee mugs with bows on them on clearance at Kirkland's for $3 each. She said, "I thought you weren't buying any more coffee mugs?" That's when I explained that technically, these were Christmas mugs, and I don't put limits on Christmas decorations and tea wares.

You see, last Christmas, I found these darling dinner plates at a T. J. Maxx or HomeGoods, but I wished there had been teacups or tea mugs to match.

Then I found the salad plates that matched the dinner plates. I'm aiming to go full pink with my Christmas decorating this year, so I'm glad I picked these dishes up last year (and I think I remember using rewards points, so they might've been free). While I would like to have found four of either the pink or the green mugs (or maybe both), at least I have two. While I can't stage a full tea party, I can have a friend over for "luncheon," as they used to say on Downton Abbey, and I don't think it's that big a deal that our mugs will be different. (Plus, who even knows what pink tea wares may materialize this Christmas.) And yes, I know it's not even fall yet, but when it come to seasonal décor, you really have to plan ahead!

Honey Lemon Black Tea from Nature's Hearth Tea Co.

Occasionally, I am lured in by a tea's packaging and decide to take a chance on a new tea vendor or tea flavor. This Honey Lemon Black Tea from Nature's Hearth Tea Co. caught my eye at T. J. Maxx last weekend, and the tin was so pretty, I decided I wanted it for décor and would take a chance on the tea (just $4.99 for 50 tea bags).

It's hard to capture in the photo, but the tin is an unusual shape. It's almost a pyramid (or a trapezoid, maybe), and the graphics make me think of fall. With temps in the nineties here in Georgia this week, I am definitely dreaming of cooler fall temperatures and new fall flavors.

And guess what? This tea was lovely! As soon as I opened the foil pouch containing all the tea bags, I caught a nice whiff of lemon. I steeped my tea for about three minutes and got a delightfully lemony brew. Now, if I could just acquire cooler weather as quickly as I acquire new tea!

In praise of a pretty plate wall

This is not a trick question, I promise, but what catches your eye in an antique mall? I mean, teacups and teapots do, I assume, if you're spending some of your valuable time reading this blog today, but besides that? For me, pretty plates are always among the items I notice first. (So my top five would likely include all tea wares, tole trays, rhinestone costume jewelry, Depression glass, and quilts.) Cups and plates and platters are all essential tea wares, so these caught my eye at Apple Barrel in Bremen recently.

A woman (Bessie? Bessie's granddaughter?) was just setting up her booth, so I stayed out of the way, but I was so charmed by her plate wall—and the faux wisteria cascading down—that I asked if I could snap a few photos, and she said sure.

She didn't even get the wall finished before she was selling pieces off of it, which tells me that she had good instincts in setting up her booth this way. So tell me, would you have stopped to look here?

Red, white, and blueberry teatime

Last Thursday, I had my "Grow Group" girls over for tea. We all really bonded while doing a church-based discipleship program together a couple of years ago, and even though we've long been finished, Beth, Paige, Kristi, and I continue to meet up on a regular basis just to check in with each other and see how life is going. I forgot to take very many photos, but Kristi (the tallest of the four) always manages to get a selfie so that we can at least commemorate the occasion.

As you can see, I'm still into my "patriotic summer of 2026" décor, so I decided the foods should follow suit. We had chicken salad served in tiny glasses, star-shaped cucumber cream sandwiches, a Boursin and mozzarella breakfast casserole, blueberry scones, fruit skewers, and gluten-free chocolate cake with chocolate icing from the Publix bakery.

We all agreed the cake is fabulous, especially the cream filling and the ganache, and cut into thin slices, it can work on a tea table.

I also made star-shaped sugar cubes using a star-shaped plastic candy mold I found at Michaels years ago. These are so easy to make. Just pour a cup of sugar into a bowl and add a tablespoon or two of water and mix until the sugar has the consistency of wet sand. Then scoop into the mold, pack down, let sit overnight, and voila, you have sugar cubes when you wake up the next morning. I've also made these with heart-shaped molds and tinted them pink for Valentine's Day.

Beth said she thought these gluten-free blueberry-and-white-chocolate scones were the best yet. Yay!

They also enjoyed the Ginger Sweet Peach Tea from Tiesta Tea that I recently reviewed here, and I was happy that they're always willing to try any tea I serve them and are turning into quite the tea connoisseurs. We used new silver napkin rings and teaspoons thanks to a recent gift from my friend Kathy. I was grateful for the silver touches!

I wish I'd thought to get a few more photos, but I was so excited to see "the girls" that I didn't worry about photography very much. And really, who can feel bad about that!

New jewelry for the tea table

 

I read somewhere that silver is the jewelry of the tea table, so I'm happy to report that I found a new piece of "jewelry" for mine last week! Do you know what this is? Here's what it looked like when I rescued it from the thrift store for $9.95 …

And here it is after a little polishing with Wright's Silver Cream!

It's a sugar caster, so named because back when sugar was considered a luxury, the wealthy could "cast" their sugar onto foods on the table (and it's also known as a sugar sifter). I'd long wanted one of these but never seen one in the wild before. This vintage English one from Mappin & Webb was a fun find!

Ever had Peach Tea Granita?

My gift subscription to Our State—Celebrating North Carolina continues to delight every month, with features I actually read and recipes I actually make. They are always spot-on with their themes each month, including this one, College Towns Roar.

But what I loved most in this issue? An article on sweet tea! Doesn't this photo invite you right in?

I'm intrigued by this recipe for Peach Tea Granita & Cream Parfaits, and it happens to be available online, so you can check it out as well. If I can get my hands on some good fresh peaches soon, I'll be making this! Go here to check it out for yourself.

Another way to make teacup shaker cards

Remember last week when I made that shaker card? I loved the result, but boy, did it take a long time to make. Well, I needed to make birthday cards for two dear tea-loving friends, and I suddenly had a eureka moment and remembered that I bought some teacup-shaped plastic inserts and cards *five years ago* that I had never used. They were too precious to mess up at the time, and I wasn't sure how to use them, anyway. These days, I'm more of the "What have you got to lose?" mindset, so one YouTube video later, I figured out how to use these cute plastic inserts from a company called Jillibean Soup. These cards took significantly less time to make than last year's card, and I'm just as happy with the result!

Here's the pink card I made for the friend whose birthday is today…

And here's the lavender card I made for the friend whose birthday was last week. I was pleased with these cards and decided I'm ready to experiment with the other plastic inserts as well!