A Christmas Eve Adventure...

Hello to you, Dear Friends!
Thank you for visiting with me here at The Tearoom on this lovely Christmas Eve,

Tonight, we take a special trip!  Victorienne has been such a good girl all year and so we have promised her a special Christmas trip!  Tonight, her Daddy and I take her on a special overnight trip by starship to Paris!

This is the photo her Daddy took of her just before

we left to go to the Aerodome by taxi.

Doesn't she look just adorable in her new

taffeta cape?

(Don't forget to click the pictures to see them a bit larger!)

We arrive at the Aerodome late at night to begin our journey...

Here is Victorienne, 

waiting patiently to begin her adventure!

As you can see, it has begun to snow...

When the time comes to go, 

her Daddy picks her up and carries her

as everyone boards the ship....

Her Daddy is so good to her and lets her have the window seat!

Thank you, Daddy!

The Starship Etoile is full of interesting people tonight!

Isn't it fun to see so many different people when you are travelling?

Of course this is the deluxe flight to Paris tonight,
so the dinner is catered by Dalloyau of Paris!

We start with these luscious amuse bouches,
Mini-Gaufres Salées

Artichoke with pepper sauce and black olive tapenade,

salmon gravlax with whipped cream and smoked salt,

chicken mousse and cream whipped with mushrooms,

all on mini waffle bites.

We then proceed to this,
as beautiful to the palate as it is to the eyes:

Charlotte de Homard et Asperges Vertes,

a delicate fennel mousse,

surrounded by tender asparagus and

topped with lobster.

And for dessert,
something absolutely fun,
but still pure Dalloyau style:

Sucettes de Saint-Honoré

(Saint-Honoré Pops!)

The classic dessert Saint-Honoré,

puff pastry, filled with cream chantilly,

topped with melted caramel,

now made in miniature form and

served on a stick!

And to drink?
Of course, there is champagne for the grown-ups!
And for the little ones, orange juice with a splash
of grenadine in the bottom to make it festive!

(Be sure and click the arrow to watch the film!)

How lovely that we get to see this vintage film during our flight!  Victorienne is entranced by the dancers!  She asks me, "Mommy, when we get to Paris, will you buy me some scarves like that so I can dance in the snow in the Luxembourg Garden?"  How can I tell her "No"?  I know it is something she will want to show her dance teacher when she returns home from her trip!

Even though she might be too excited to sleep, I manage

to convince Victorienne that she shouldn't miss getting to sleep

in the sleeping compartment!

I tell her what my mother used to tell me,

"You don't have to go to sleep, just close your eyes."

She's not the only one too excited to sleep.

Her Daddy and I sit up all night, 

looking out the window of the starship.

Paris is sleeping under a blanket of snow as we land...

Victorienne does not wake up as her Daddy carries her into the hotel

and we put her to sleep in a bed in our City of Dreams....

On Christmas Morning, we wake up in a beautiful hotel.

Outside, the snow is still falling...

Inside, it is a warm and happy Christmas Morning!

Victorienne begins her Christmas Day with

a big mug of hot chocolate in bed!

We venture out of our warm and cozy hotel room,
The Luxembourg Gardens are not far away,
and so, dressed in our warmest clothes, hats and gloves,
we leave our footprints
in the fluffy snow.

Wisely, Victorienne has decided that it would just be too cold

to dance in the snow in anything other than her 

new flowered coat and purple gloves and beret!

Thank you for joining us on our Christmas adventure!

We are wishing you all a Christmas Eve

 and Christmas Day filled with magic!

Images used in the collages for today's post from

Cemerony, Tumble Fish Studios, Itkupilli, 

The Graphics Fairy and

vintage postcards from my personal collection.

The Dollhouse at Night

Today, we take another tour of The Little House of Sometimes,
 this time, at night.
(The first two photos are ones that I took,
but the rest are the very creative work of my darling Mr. V!)

Charlotte Framboise, Evelynne Rose, Peanutbutter the Elephant

and Nutkin the Squirrel love getting toasty in front of

the fire in the upstairs sitting room.

The Kitty Family and The Doggie Family are snuggled around
the fire in the livingroom downstairs just before bed...

The little kitchen is done making tea and oatmeal and toast

for the day...

Everyone has gone to bed now...

It is quiet here now and even the embers in the fireplace

have gone out.

Upstairs in the sitting room, all is peaceful.

But, quietly, if we tiptoe...

...so as not to awaken...

...two little girls are having sweet dreams...

...Oops!  It looks like we caught Charlotte Framboise still awake!

In the attic, all of the pets are cozy in their nests.

One last peek at the should-be-sleeping

Mademoiselle Charlotte!

Thank you for visiting us again!

A Tour of The Dollhouse

Today, we go on a tour of The Little House of Sometimes, the dollhouse project I've been working on lately.

First, we visit the kitchen! We love our sunny mornings here, making oatmeal and tea!  (I made all the appliances and corner shelf with cardboard, glue and paper.  The wallpaper in this room is made from pages from an old shorthand magazine from the 1940's that my mother subscribed to.  She kept all the issues she received.  I love the way the little black squiggles look!)

Let's stroll through the doorway into the cozy livingroom...

We love how warm we are here in this room,

even on the gloomiest of days!

(I made the corner table and fireplace from cardboard, glue and paper.  I added a battery-operated candle to the fireplace for the look of warmth.  Bottlecaps make cute picture frames.  The chair and ottoman are a pin cushion set that belonged to my mother.  The white swan vase was one of my flea-market finds.  The tiny china tea-set belonged to my grandmother. Flocked decorative paper in different shades papers the walls and carpets the floor.)

We are so comfortable here, just dreaming our dreams...

Now, for a tour of the second floor...

Two little beds for two little girls.  Evelynne Rose and Charlotte Framboise sleep here.  (I made the beds from cardboard, glue and paper.  Pillows and mattresses are made from some of my mother's old handkerchiefs, the ones that were worn at the edges.  I made the comforters from printed silk and the edge of the re-purposed curtain I made into the facade, as I wrote about in this post.)

...we peek through the transom above the door,

into the cozy sitting room...

...and through the curtained door we go...

Such a cozy place to stay on warm spring mornings and cold winter nights. (More pictures, framed in bottlecaps decorate the walls. I made another fireplace for this room, with a battery-operated candle, similar, but not exactly like the fireplace for the livingroom downstairs.  I made the settee from scraps of eggplant-colored crushed velvet and cardboard.  The silver tea-set on the mantlepiece is one I've owned for years!  Lokta paper in vivid purple makes a rich-looking carpet.)

 

So warm and happy in the sunshine!

(The pastry tray in the foreground is made from an old doll's

sugar bowl that had lost its lid and I covered with paper and made

a tray to go on the top.)

In a third floor attic room, we keep our collections...

old keys, 

broken stop watches,

tiny spoons,

buttons from an imaginary elevator

and

other precious objects...

In the final room in the attic, a special room for all of the pets!

(I made nests for them from fluffy cloud-like batting

inside decorative cupcake papers and a vintage souvenir

tea cup from The Queen Mary!)

Here we are in the garden in front of our lovely house!

It is always sunny here and the flowers and trees

are always in bloom.

(The lawn is made from lokta paper and bordered with flocked paper, to mimic the parterre garden designs we saw at the Tuileries and the courtyard of the Musée Carnavalet in Paris.  I made a small flowering tree from a decorative cupcake paper, some white beans, glue and a vintage sprig of little paper flowers.  The purple flowers are paper hydrangeas that I had left over from having made favors for our wedding.  I used an old, chipped soap dish for the pool in the center of the garden and a glass bottle top makes a pretty, flower-shaped fountain.  I found some little black rocks in our yard to use in the garden.  The heart shaped pool at the front has a small, moss-covered rock in the center for Mr. Snappy the turtle to sun on.  I made the topiary tea party garden by covering old, mis-matched porcelain doll's dishes with green lokta paper and glue!)

Thank you so much for visiting with us today!

Won't you please come back soon to visit

the dollhouse at night?

Happy Shopping Weekend!

Dear Friends of The Tearoom,
It is that time of year again!  The first weekend following Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season and we do hope that you will consider missing the crowds and in the comfort of your jammies, sipping your favorite cup of tea, shop for your loved ones by buying handmade and vintage items.  But three of your choices...

Handmade silk brooches of delightfully dark and

wonderful whimsical design,

paperdoll banners, glittering cards and bookmarks,

from The Gossamer Tearoom on Etsy. 

SPECIAL:

FREE shipping within the U.S.!

Reduced shipping rates for international orders!

Vintage loveliness, waiting for a new life with you

or someone special,

from Mirabella Morello on Etsy.

SPECIAL:

FREE shipping within the U.S. on orders over $100.00!

Reduced shipping rates for international orders over $100.00!

For your art projects and Christmas crafts,

unique digital collage sheets

and printable cards and invitations,

from Velvet Revived on Etsy.

SPECIAL:

Buy ANY 3 sheets, receive ANY 2 sheets FREE!

Convo me for more information on any of these offers.

Happy Shopping!

The Word is Vintage...

Wishing all a Very Happy Thanksgiving!

My post today is my first submission to the Take a Word Collage Challenge!  The word prompt for this week is the word "Vintage".  Oh, I do so love all things vintage!  It was easy to find vintage images I love to put together for this challenge!

Our Dear Little Girl Victorienne loves to dress up so much!  And I love dressing her up just as much as  she loves dressing up!  So, when I found this sweet vintage postcard today on The Graphics Fairy blog, I just knew Victorienne would love dressing up as this sweet little snowman (or shall we say "snow-girl"?).

Even in the snow, she looks all cozy and warm, doesn't she?

Wishing all a cozy day, wherever you are!

Altered Cards and Another Trip to The Dollhouse...

Dearest Friends,
I do so love the serendipity and synchronicity which visits The Tearoom on occasion!  (Not often enough for my taste, actually!  How do you suppose you can get it to visit more?  Offer cupcakes, perhaps?).  Anyway, this week, I was VERY inspired to continue on with my dollhouse project based on the challenge offered by The Three Muses!  Their challenge was "Altered Playing Cards" and it was something that had been cooking in my head for a while in conjunction with my extra-fun dollhouse project, which I debuted here a few days ago.

I call my dollhouse project "The Little House of Sometimes" because there are a lot of things that sometimes happen in the lives of Charlotte Framboise, Evelyn Rose and their pets.  And so today, I am happy to show you the altered playing cards I made the other day and show you what happened to them when I brought them into the world of The Little House of Sometimes!

(It is a bit of a gloomy day here in the The World of The Tearoom, so I had some fun colorizing the pictures I took today!)

Here are the cards!  First, I tore and stained pieces of a vintage road atlas and added them to the corners.  Then, I rubberstamped some tiny roses and birds in shades of purple, pink and brown (I also added more colors to some of them with more stamp pad ink and a Q-tip.  That's one of my favorite altered art techniques.). Then, I added Stickes to make them twinkly! On the back side of the cards, I used more atlas pages, stained purple with chalk ink, my "Mademoiselle" stamp from a Cavallini set I have, stamped the word "Rose" in various vintage rubberstamp alphabet sets I have (I got one at a flea market once and the other my mother got for me from the toy section of the grocery store when I was little!), stamped larger roses, colored them with ink and Q-tip, added them to the cards and then finished with tiny dots of more twinkly Stickles!

I brought them to The Garden of The Dollhouse...

...and just as I suspected...

Sometimes,

Charlotte Framboise and Evelyn Rose like to play cards 

in the garden.  (But admittedly, it does take them a while.)

(No cheating allowed, although it is hard not to

look at each other's hand!!)

Thank you so much to

The Three Muses

for their continued creative inspiration!!

My Latest Project...

Dear Friends,
Here in The World of The Tearoom, one can almost always find oneself tripping over the makings of an art project or two on the floor!  I am never happier than when I am on the floor, surrounded by my latest creative endeavor!   I love challenging myself artistically and I find that one of the most interesting challenges can come from limiting yourself in some way.

A few weeks ago, I happened upon a wooden box that my mother had built to store something she did not want to get damaged.   I found myself being very inspired by this simple wooden box and began to take cardboard, glue and brown paper bags and convert this box into floors and walls to make a dollhouse!  I realized there were many things around this house I could use to make not just the house, but also the furnishings and even a garden!  And so, I challenged myself to do this project using only things I found around the house!  I will admit to you that I cheated only twice.  First, I used quite a bit  of glue and had to buy more twice ($1.29 per bottle X 2) and I bought two electric candles and I will reveal their purpose soon ($1.00 for two candles).

Once upon a time, when Mr. V and I lived in Washington, DC, my job there was at Paper Source in Georgetown.  If you have never been in one, there are many kinds of paper sold there, much of it used for crafting projects, card making, scrapbooking, etc.  I knew when I moved to this microscopic spot on the map in Maine, there would be no place to buy such things, so I bought as many art supplies as I could before moving.  It was another challenge to myself to use some of my stash to make this project.  Sometimes, one must use what one has in order to make room for more in one's life!

The dolls and animals that live there are all vintage items that I had or that I found here that once belonged to my mother or other relatives.  I have furnished the house with items I found around the house or made myself.

And so, today, here is the first of several posts, introducing you to the dolls and animals that now live in this little world.  Please keep checking back to see the rooms in detail and take a tour of their beautiful garden!

In this picture, some of the rooms of the house were finished and decorated.  I had made floors and walls from corrugated card board and then covered them with old book pages and then the decorative papers as walls and flooring.

Welcome to The Little House of Sometimes

Here is a closer view of the facade.

(I made the facade from a re-purposed curtain of

sheer dotted swiss and then I printed the

windows and door on printable organza fabric

and hand-sewed them on with transparent nylon

thread for a see-through effect!)

May I introduce to you the tenants of this elegant house:

This is Charlotte Framboise

and Evelyn Rose.

(Here they are in the garden.)

They have quite a few pets.

This is Velvet and her kittens Silly and Sooty

This is Blackie the Scotty Dog

(hiding in the shadows), 

and Chloe and her puppy Charlie, the Boston Terriers

Nutkin the Squirrel (with Evelyn Rose)

Peanutbutter the Baby Elephant and

Mr. Pinchy the Turtle,

sunning himself on his rock in the pool.

Dandelion the Duckling

and Forget-Me-Not the Bluebird

are trading birdie secrets with one of the statues

in the garden.

Won't you come back very soon so I can continue

to take you on a tour of the house?