New Autumn Tea China & Giveaway!

Hello, dear friends!

Hope you had a wonderful weekend!

I am taking a quick little tea time today

and thought I'd share my new-to-me Autumn tea set

made in England by Gainsborough.

♥

I found 6 perfect teacups, 6 saucers and 6 little plates -

the perfect size for a teatime snack!

I don't have the teapot, sugar or creamer for them

 but my plain white ones will do just fine.

And wrap up the pot with a pretty

Autumn leaves cozy

and I'm good to go!

Yesterday I realized

 I have two copies of this autumn 2013

Victoria Magazine - and I don't need two!

So I am giving away my extra copy to one of you!

Sorry it's late in the season, but who knew?

So, if you want this sent to you please let me know

 via comments and I will randomly

draw a person and send out right away!

Of course if you already have it and don't want it

still leave a comment, I totally ♥ them!

(Will pick the winner sometime on Thursday morning.)

You needn't have a blog or even live in the US to win-

just leave a comment and check back to see if you won.

If you don't have a blog of course I will need your snail mail addy

(Please just send to me privately via email if you won!)

**************************************************

EDITED 11/6/2014: THE WINNER IS
 BETH L FROM CONVERSATIONS FROM HOME

Congrats, Beth!

As always, thank you for your visit!

♥

~Michele

Linking:

Mosaic Monday   *  Teatime Tuesday   *  Tuesday Cuppa Tea

Friends Sharing Tea   *  Inspire Me  *  At Our Home   * Teacup Tues

HALLOWTIDE

Nearly everyone knows the secular holiday of Halloween.

But not everybody knows it derives from a holy day, All Saints' Day on Nov. 1, which is followed by All Souls' day on Nov. 2.

The root word of Halloween - ''hallow'' - means ''holy.'' The suffix "een" is an abbreviation of "evening." It refers to the Eve of All Hallows, the night before the Christian holy day that honors saintly people of the past. "All Saints is a celebration of the communion of saints, those people we believe are in heaven, through good works and God's grace," said the Rev. Richard Donohoe, vicar of Catholic Charities for the Diocese of Birmingham, Alabama.

More than a thousand years ago in Ireland and Britain, a common custom of Christians was to come together on the eve of the feast of All Hallows Day to ask for God's blessing and protection from evil in the world. Often, they would dress in costumes of saints or evil spirits and act out the battle between good and evil around bonfires. That's the source of the modern observance of Halloween.

All Souls' Day is a day to pray for all souls. 

Among Catholics, prayers are offered for those in purgatory, waiting to get into heaven. On All Souls' Day, Catholic churches have a Book of the Dead, in which parishioners have an opportunity to write the names of relatives to be remembered. "That's placed near the altar," Donohoe said. "That's done all through November. It's an All Souls' tradition."

The ''Dia de los Muertos,'' or ''day of the dead,'' in Latin countries

 keeps alive some of the tradition of honoring souls of the dead. 

"All Hallows was considered a time when evil could manifest itself,"

 Donohoe said. "We do believe in the visible and the invisible.

 There is good and there is evil. There is invisible evil and invisible good.

 It's an acknowledgement of that existence."

{source}

1. Allhallowtide, Hallowtide, Allsaintstide, or the Hallowmas season, is the triduum encompassing the Western Christian observances of All Hallows' Eve (Hallowe'en), All Saints' Day (All Hallows') and All Souls' Day, which last from October 31 to November 2 annually.

So light up a candle and say prayers today

 for all your loved ones

who are now resting in peace waiting for the Risen Lord.

May your heart be light remembering them.

♥

As always, thank you for visiting.

Hugs and prayers for you and yours,

today and always.

~Michele

Happy Halloween!

It's All Hallow's Eve!

It's HALLOWEEN!

It's Fright Night!

(When the beggars ask for a treat, or threaten a trick or two!)

Let's hope "Smell my feet" isn't one of the tricks-

 though last night my eldest daughter

had trick or treat and a cute little beggar actually said it to them!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here's the Parade of the Jack O'Lanterns

 from our annual Pumpkin Carving Party this year!

Our eldest daughter Evelyn carved the witch

 and my youngest daughter Katie
 created the traditional happy-faced one!

My younger sister Teresa carved the spider

 and my hubs did the demon one.

And that elongated gourd-like pumpkin

is a fluke that grew in our garden from last

year's pumpkin carving.

 We had 6 matching perfect pumpkins.

Was a nice surprise not having to buy ours this year!

My youngest niece Reagan made the Ninja turtle one, 

our youngest daughter's fiancee Jeff created the scary skull,

and our son-in-law Daniel carved the happy one.

Our friend Sarah created the black cat

 and her husband Kyle carved the Frankenstein!

I'd say all in all there are very talented carvers in our midst!

We weren't the only ones who grew pumpkins this year -

here's Katie holding up a perfect round little one

from the garden they keep at Jeff's.

I love her "Day of the Dead" tee shirt.

BTW - there is a new animated movie musical out

 called Book of Life

that's kinda neat and all about Day of the Dead's history.

That's what we did on her birthday, Oct 17th -

at her request all went to that movie together.

She's been collecting DofD artwork, and making her own

for quite some time now.

Have another fun and wonderful Halloween!

And don't let those tricksters getchya!

♥

~Michele

Linking:

Show and Tell Friday

Tea Time Halloween Style

Today please join me for tea time

Halloween-style!

There's no frills, no lace, no pinks or roses -

but there's lots of black, orange and leaves!

Fun & smiling spooky guests are

 warmly welcome!

A nice hot pot of tea is awaiting you!

We'll use my simple, plain black pot

with its sugar & milk jug,

and keep the pot hot with the perfect cozy!

Black cat kitty wants the milk jug, I bet!

There's yummy sweet treats

 inside the candy corn box

 my eldest daughter gave to me last year.

Everything is sitting on a pretty

Autumn place mat my youngest made

back when she was in grade school.

As always, thank you for your visit!

♥

~Michele

Linking:

Tea Time Tuesday   *  Tuesday Cuppa Tea   *   Friends Sharing Tea

Inspire Me Tuesday  *   Tweak It Tuesday   *  You're Gonna Love It

Teacup Tuesday

Halloween Mantle Decor

This is how our mantle is decorated for
Halloween this year.

Making its debut to blogland is our

 perfect little black wooden plant stand.

It is the best thing for showcasing a carved pumpkin!

This pumpkin lights up electrically from an outlet
 hidden on the top part of the mantle.

There is no way I could safely have a real one burning 

with curious Romeo Kitty Cat
 around to rub against it and maybe it falls.

Remember my telling you recently (here)

 about my tea sister-friend Karen

 whom was one of many

I recently visited out of town for my birthday?

Well this cute little hidden burlap birdie

was my birthday present from her.

It is quite happily situated at Finch Rest - I just love it!

Those tea sisters really give the greatest & most thoughtful presents!

And what All Hallow's Eve is complete

 without a raven, a jack O' Lantern, black cat

 and a black metal lantern with a pumpkin?

This is what is one the front of that cute book

the birdhouse is sitting on above.

It's a little cardboard book box!

(I did a little happy dance when I found it at GW!)

This old PB lantern is a timeless classic staple

all year long for us around here.

Filled with candles, pumpkins, pine cones, nests,

 eggs, ornaments.......

it always works for every season!

I was tickled to pieces when I brought up my Halloween box

because I forgot I found this

 wood and wire painted pumpkin garland

 after autumn season on sale. 

So today it's making it's blogland debut!

If you missed my post yesterday about nifty recycled favor cups

 for our carving party guests

be sure to pop in and check them out! 

I love how they turned out and how inexpensive 

they were to make!

As always, thank you for your visit!

♥

~Michele

Linking:

WOW US Wednesday    *   Tuesdays AT OUR HOME   *  Share Your Cup

Home and Garden   *   Treasure Hunt   *   Feathered Nest

Show and Tell

Halloween Party Favors/ Tutorial

I wanted to share the party favors 
I made for our annual 

Pumpkin/Jack O'Lantern Carving Party
 we had this weekend.

And boy, oh boy! Did I ever have fun playing with Pic Monkey!

Seriously, if you haven't tried it you are soooo missing
some super-de-duper FUN photo editing!

I especially like it for Halloween!

Start with eating lots & lots of yummy yogurt.
This is by far my most favorite....Chobani Greek.

After you finish your delicious snack, stop yourself
from taking it to the trash.....

Clean.

Rinse.

Repeat.  < just kidding, that's just shampoo, right?

Now just spray paint those clean cups you saved!

(Or get handsome husband to do it for you.)
Thanks, honey. You know I hate those fumes.


He is a GREAT spray painter,
but sunny-day-pics-with-shadows,
well this beggar isn't complainin' just esplainin'.


: - p

Buy some grape-vine cloth covered wire
 at your favorite hobby store.

You will need wire cutters, an ice pick gizmo
 and some needle-nose pliers.

Yes, for those attention-detailed readers,
 the needle nosed pliers are missing from this picture,
fact is one of the other spiders brought it a little later
 after we were nearly done.

And yes, my tools are old and rusty and secondhand and fine. Just fine.

Cut 10 inch wire strips and make handles.

 Mine are 9 inches and were a tad too short.

Use your needle nosed pliers
 to kinda crimp the edges at the ends of the handles kind of into itself
(so the sweet little hands going for snacks don't get scraped.)

Of course the very BEST part...........

Buy all kinds of little snack sized candy

 and fill those little cups to the brim with goodies!

I suggest getting kinds you loathe so you don't 
scarf it all up when you are filling your favor cups!

No Resee's Cups were harmed
 during the making
of this craft.

It's really fun to create new uses with trash!

I shall be sharing our carving party later this week.

So stay tuned!  

AS ALWAYS, THANK YOU FOR YOUR VISIT!

♥

~Michele

Linking:

Met Monday   *  What We Accomplished   *   WOW Us  *  Treasure Hunt