"Kam ein Vöglein geflogen ..."

This is the beginning of a German children's song: "There came a little bird, sat down on my foot. In his bill it holds a letter, greetings from my mother." (It sounds much better in German!) Now, we all know that bloghopping can be rather dangerous - you might discover cute salt & pepper shakers in the shape of two birds, which were sold at Target earlier this year (or was it sometime last year?), but because you don't live in the USA and you've never been in a Target anyway, those cute salt & pepper shakers are not for you. How cruel! But then you look around on ebay (good, old ebay!) and lo! and behold, you find even cuter birdie salt & pepper shakers. You wait a few more weeks, months, before you actually buy them and then they are YOURS!

Well, mine, actually. Not yours. *g*

And here are the two little chaps. Aren't they adorable? And kitschy. But adorable nonetheless.

And now back to the dratted diss and teh horribel dragonz!

Preparations for my Opa's Birthday

Still alive, dratted diss still not finished, hence still slaying dragons. *sigh*

In August my grandfather will celebrate his 90th birthday and we'll throw a party for him in our backyard (will the duckies & the ducky-poop be gone by then?). I'm responsible for the cake (or at least that's what I'm trying to tell my Mom - the whole party-planning thing is freaking her out). And because I've got those very, very cute tea cake & petit fous tins, I've decided I am going to bake several kinds of mini-cakes (red wine cake, egg liqueur cake, coconut & white chocolate cake, redcurrant cake) and some tartlets (oreo tartlets filled with tangerine cream, orange curd tartlets) as well as a big fruit cake. The great thing about those itty-bitty mini cakes is that you can bake them in advance and put them in the freezer. Take them out an hour or so before serving, let them defrost a little, then pop them into the oven for 5-10 minutes, and voilà - the fresh cake taste has been magically restored. :)

And because it's Opa's 90th birthday, I need some kind of elegant cake stand and colour-coordinate all the displays, right? Soooo .... have you ever seen those old, English folding cake stands? Well, I've just won one of those on ebay, and it's very pretty indeed, if you can trust the picture (well, I do hope you can trust the picture!) Have a look:

Isn't it pretty?

And now I have to slay some more dragons. Wish me luck!

Fantastic Finds

Remember my lovely new armchair for the library?

All this time I protected its seat with a pink woolly blanket from kitty claws. A very, very pink woolly blanket. In a lovely shade of pink which clashed uncomfortably with the reddish fabric of the armchair. Not goodz.

So I was on the look-out for another blanket when I found this lovely Clayre & Eef quilt on ebay:

This is the picture from ebay, which was originally even darker than this copy here. As a result the quilt looked somewhat drab, but! those itty-bitty flowers on the backside looked as if they just might be the same shade of red as the fabric of my armchair. Furthermore, the quilt was only 19,99 € (instead of 70 €). And so I finally bought it (took me three days of carefully thinking it over *g*).

Half an hour ago it arrived and, oh my gosh!, it's gorgeous! And the itty-bitty flowers on the back? They *are* exactly the same shade as the reddish colour of my armchair. :)

Me iz happy.

Tea Sets, Tablecloths, & What Comes Next?

Aprons. :)

I found these two pretties for 5,50 and 6,99 GBP on ebay.

The first is just perfect for baking an old-fashioned Victorian sponge cake, isn't it? And it will look great with jeans!

And this darling ... well, it's obviously been made for baking cupcakes. :) It's a feel-good, happy-happy, what-a-glorious-day apron.

The Easter Bunny Loves Cake Stands

It's true! Not only does the Easter Bunny love baking with Sandy, no, the Easter Bunny also loves cake stands! How extraordinary! Obviously, the Easter Bunny and I, we understand each other. So he was very happy indeed whe I found this on ebay:

Isn't it pretty?

I was looking for a cake stand to go with my "Wiesengrund & Bergeshöh'n" china (Meadows & Mountaintops - the name never fails to make me smile. It's such a happy, cheerful name, just perfect for this pretty series!) as I've discovered the joys of itty-bitty mini tea cakes (hehe), and the best way to display these is on a cake stand, right?

Right.

Now I've already got a white, 3-tier cake stand, which you've seen here, but obviously it doesn't really fit the egg-shell coloured, gold rimmed china. But this new cake stand - ooooooh! It will look so pretty with the Wiesengrund & Bergeshöh'n tea set:

Hmmm... *dreamy sigh*

I see ...

I see ...

... many tea parties in the future. (After all the horrible dragons have been killed, that is.)

Taking a break from marking exams

I'm wondering whether these armchairs will look good in my flat. Hmmm... I need a small comfortable armchair for my library, and the other one would go into the sitting room.

Playing with the Dishes

Today more of my lovely red transferware plates arrived. Naturally, I had to see whether they look indeed as nice on the new tablecloth as I imagined. And they do! :-)

Dooodledoo

More China

You totally must move to the Rhine-Main area: I now need plenty of occasions to host dinner parties. *g*

Wedgwood, River Scene

Royal Tudor Ware, Coaching Taverns

Myott, Tonquin (my favourite among this bunch!)

Broadhurst, Constable Series

I can't wait to get these goodies! (And please consider moving to Frankfurt...)

Soup, anybody?

A few weeks ago I fell in love with red transferware. I blame it all on the series Old Britain Castles - the form of those dishes is just too cute! (The tea pot, the creamer, and the lidded sugar bowl all have tiny, itty-bitty feet.) The red (which is acutally more of a reddish-pink colour) goes well with the overall colour scheme of my dining area, so I thought it would be nice to collect dining plates etc. for festive dinners. Thanks to ebay I'm now the proud (future) owner of 12 soup plates of Myott's Country Life. So, would anybody like to stop by for soup? :-)

Look here and here for some lovely decorations with transferware. (Now you know why I like the Little Red House blog so much! *g*)