Bastille Day!

It was just hours after I posted this that the world heard about the tragedy in Nice, France.  My prayers and heartbreak join so many as we struggle to understand what is happening in this world.  Please take a moment and reflect in any way that you feel comfortable. 

WISH FOR PEACE!

One of my favorite places on earth is Paris!  Love, love, love.  I could certainly live there, at least part-time.  As such a Francophile, I decided to celebrate Bastille Day with a red, white, and blue breakfast.  In France, this is called La Fete Nationale, and it always falls on July 14th.

I photographed this in the early morning sun, so it may be a little washed out, but Hey!  It's breakfast!

This is set up poolside on the upper terrace.  With the sounds of the waterfall from the spa into the pool, it gives the illusion of being a tiny bit cooler.

But here's an example of the actual heat.....if you look carefully at the butter in the Emile Henry dishes, you can see it is melting faster than I could photograph it.  And those English muffins?????  I know, I know.  You are thinking I've lost my mind.  You see, I sent Mr. Pressed Pants to the store for croissants, and he brought home muffins.  (I guess he has other good points.)

Can you see that the butter dishes have been removed already?

These Cynthia Rowley dinner plates serves as a charger here, because the French "Bonjour" plate is large enough for this simple little breakfast.  That black blob is my shadow.  Sorry.  

The glassware is two different French designs.  One is a heavy stem with the Eiffel Tower pressed into the glass, and the tumbler has a French phrase, "Un Verre d'Amite" etched on it.  That translates into "A Glass of Friendship".   

I was stumped about the napkin ring, so I went to my craft room and put together some red, white, and blue ribbon with some scraps and came up with this.  The fleur de lis is a traditional symbol of France, and I had a this stamp in my stash!

I used a wine coaster with the pitcher, because I knew it would sweat in the heat.

Don't be confused by the shadow on these raspberries.

This milk jug came from World Market.

I had to include this glittered Eiffel Tower.  Mr. Pressed Pants gave it to me one year for Christmas to symbolize a surprise gift of a trip to France.  The best gift EVER. 

This navy reproduction French pot is topped with nothing but red roses.

A little jam?

  

Man, I wish those were croissants! I could have sent him back to the store, but I decided to keep it real here!

Yep.....those English muffins are dumb.

The coffee tray kept the red, white and blue theme.  Now, I know that vacuum pot is Blue Willow, which is oriental, but I'm not that much of a purist that I let it bother me.  The coffee cups are from a set of blue and white bistro dishes that I've had forever.

This guy IS French, though.  It's a pewter creamer, and the little dish catches any drips.  Isn't it dear?

The Eiffel Tower made one more appearance.  It still makes me so happy to see it.

Joining:

 Tablescape Thursday 

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designthusiasm.com

Share Your Style (Thurs.)

21 Rosemary Lane

The Creative Exchange (Thurs.)

The Happy Scraps

Four Friends for the Fourth

How many of you had rain-outs for the Fourth?  The weather teased us all weekend, and as you can see by this photo of our front door, it was gloomy, gloomy, and rainy as I planned for our small dinner party.

But, inside, it was cheerful and fun, especially after our guests arrived.  I had fiddled with dishes, planning the table, but when it came time to set the table indoors, rather than out, I settled on an entirely different look.

I started with this placesetting, and took some of these photos......

then I remembered the star bread and butter plates and added them.  Some of these pictures have them and some do not.  

Here's the table and the fun chandelier decorations. 

I've had these for years and never used them.  I planned on hanging them from the dogwood tree as we dined outdoors, but this was a really easy and fun plan B.

This is a flower arrangement I have used many times.  I wish it had photographed better.  All you need is a container, a piece of oasis, and lots of flowers.  Just trim and poke them in, starting with the rim of the container.  And these carnations will last and last.

I chose this glassware, but I only had four of these vintage red ones, so I used two more blue glasses.

These old blue and white pottery candlesticks are so versatile.  

I love these little individual salt and pepper shakers that have the iconic blue willow pattern.

Our dessert was served on these Old Glory plates.  It was a red, white, and blue ice cream torte, and for some reason, a lot of it ended up on that white tablecloth!  

What's fresher than a crisp red, white, and blue?

Add four good friends and great conversation and you've got an evening of wonderful memories.

I always carry the flowers or decorations into the powder rooms.  Here, I just added a zinc vase of more carnations and some fun hand towels.

Here, I picked a few additional flowers from our cutting garden to bring in all three colors of the holiday.

Well, in this photo, it's dinner time, and the sun is out again.  It was too wet and too late to make a move outside, but the sun was good news, since Mr. Pressed Pants had to grill our shrimp skewers.  I hope every one of you had a good celebration on this very precious holiday.  Happy Birthday, America!

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Ready for Some Blue and White

 

Join me, as I repost this at a new linky party that the wonderful Jennifer at

The Pink Pagoda

is offering called the Blue and White Bash.  If you don't already follow her, you'll want to!

 

I know I've been MIA for a long time, but travel is done for a while, Mr. Pressed Pants is feeling better, and I'm feeling more like a member of the human race.  Between sickness and "stuff", we haven't entertained hardly at all since before Christmas.  But today I feel the urge to set a cheerful table and celebrate our good fortune.  (More later.)  Out came my favorite blue and white dishes to dance with three little pots of tete-a-tete daffodils.

I'll serve breakfast here tomorrow, but since I can't photograph that early, I set this up today.  As you can see, blue does not exactly complement my breakfast room furnishings, so it sits on the shelf most of the time. Since Mom is visiting and she's a blue and white girl, this is the time to give it a whirl.  

This little wood and wicker stand holds three terra cotta pots perfectly.  I added a ribbon of yellow and white gingham.

I further used yellow in the rick-rack edged napkin and the straw coaster.  That's enough.  Just a hint of sunshine here.  The dishes closely resemble Royal Copanhagen's Blue Fluted dinnerware, but they are much heavier and much less precious.  They are actually vintage and made by Shenago Pottery.  I've been collecting it for years. The blue flatware is so old that I can't remember where I got it.  I didn't get a good picture of the napkin rings.  They have a blue willow pattern on them.  I used a mixture of delft, blue willow, and transferware with these dishes.  They all like each other!!!!!  

Here's a close-up of the individual salt and pepper shakers taken frrom a post of a Labor Day table.  You can see it here.

The juice glasses are just a generic blue glass.  Maybe from Pier One???

I have not been able to find the matching saucers for the coffee cups, but I did find the plain blue line saucers, and they are working just fine.

Since I'm serving fruit, I am using these Delft handled fruit knives.  We won't need all six, but they look so nice in the holder that they all get to come to the party.

Don't you love them?

I'll serve milk in this sweet French reproduction milk bottle.  I found it at World Market at Christmas time and gifted myself with it!  It came in red, too, and I'm very proud of myself for not buying the red as well.  (yet)

Here's a special little treasure.  You have no doubt seen lots of old wooden boards that are carved with "bread".  There are also old wooden handled bread knives with "bread" carved into the handle.  This was designed to go with them, but for some reason, very few of them survived.  Probably because the little tiny transferware plate broke and they were thrown away.  I'm very careful with it, because I'd probably never find the right size plate to replace it.  The mother-of-pearl handled butter knife got to join us just because it has a white handle! 

Not far from us, there was a horrific tornado yesterday that did a huge amount of damage.  Some of our friends were impacted, but not physically hurt.  There was a death, and I'll hold that person's family and friends in my prayers.  Although the rest of the loss was material, I am aware that some of that "stuff" was precious and irreplaceable and I'm so sorry for anyone who has to put the pieces back together from this storm.  The flooding is now another issue and it can only add to the misery.  This awful situation has snapped me out of my inertia and reminded me that I should celebrate every day!

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Cuisine Kathleen

Memorial Day 2011

Whew!  That was quite a weekend!  Between golf, graduation parties, and a bit of gardening, we only had one chance to sit down together for a nice meal, and it just happened to be breakfast.

The weather called us outdoors, and I really wanted to take this one opportunity to do a Memorial Day tablescape.  It was just the two of us and we took  time for a long, leisurely breakfast.

I started with these hand-painted blue and white Portuguese plates made by Mesa.  I have service for four.  Why didn't I buy more? 

I used the "matching" bowls for cereal.  Blueberries and raspberries on Cheerios made it red, white (sort of), and blue! 

The flatware is from good old Target!

These red and white striped napkins are so old, I don't remember where they came from.  In place of a napkin ring, I used a double faced satin ribbon with a Martha Stewart rosette glued on it.

These star plates were picked up at Walgreens.

This tureen became the flower vase.

The white hydrangeas and gerbera daisies came from Whole Foods, and the blue hydrangeas are from our gardens.

Gerberas don't like to be smooshed into oasis, so I created a grid with tape and just placed all of the flowers directly into the water.

It seems that almost all blue and white goes together, so I used this coffee pot in a blue willow pattern from Royal Wessex.

This reproduction sugar and creamer are also blue willow.

Blue willow shows up again on this set of individual salt and pepper shakers.

I like that the coffee mug that goes with this placesetting keeps coffee warm for a long time. 

I think these blue juice glasses came from Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

Sunshine, the morning newspapers, Mr. Pressed Pants and Cheerios!  It doesn't get much better.

I'll be participating in Susan's Tablescape Thursday at Between Naps on the Porch.

http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/