A Happy Day!

Good Morning to you, Dear Friends,
I'm happy the sun is shining because it is a very special day!  It is the birthday of Mr. V, my husband and best friend!  Happy Birthday, My Love!

Here he was in an earlier time, apparently making a phone call!

Happy Tuesday!

Good Day to you, Dearest Friends of The Tearoom!
Even though it is still cold and the mountains of snow outside our windows are nearly high enough to be Peeping Toms (!), the sun is shining today and it is warm and cheery here.  Spring comes to us slowly here, but in our hearts, we are already surrounded by spring green and blooming flowers!

And, because it is once again Tuesday, I am once again participating in the Linky Party at Butterfly in the Attic (Colleen has once again featured my Pastel Easter collage sheet from Velvet Revived!  Thank you, once again, Dear Colleen!).  In the spirit of springtime, I have been working on this lilac alphabet sheet and have finally finished it and listed it in Velvet Revived:

Lilac Alphabet Digital Collage Sheet Set

And, because there is no place we would rather spend our springtime than Paris, I am featuring my French Tea Party Collage Sheet and Paris Tea Party Printable Invitation in the Linky Party as well!

French Tea Party Digital Collage Sheet Set

Paris Tea Party Printable Invitation

Wishing you all a lovely Tuesday!

Saturday Film Festival at The Tearoom. . .

As we sit in the dark today, bits of blue buttercream still on our noses from yesterday, we sip our Earl Grey and watch this delightful little video, the first in our new Saturday Film Festival here at The Gosssamer Tearoom!  As our faces are lit by flickering movielight, I am reminded of Saturdays as a child, sitting cross-legged on the gymnasium floor of my grade school, watching movies after having paid a dime (and one more as well, as I was treating my friend!).  I think we were given boxes of milk to drink, but we are now grown-up aesthetes and this is The Tearoom, so buttercream pastries and steaming tea are our ideas of the perfect movie-watching treat!

From the Gustave Doré exhibit at the Musée D'Orsay in Paris

This has also brought to our attention the lovely

music from this French group, Ödland

And, in very exciting news,my digital collage "Flying Fish Tours"
was selected as a sample of the work submitted at
Sunday Postcard Art!!
Thank you to my new friends there!

A Cooking Lesson from The Grand Budapest Hotel...

As I chatted about here last week, here at The Tearoom, we can't wait to see the new movie Grand Budapest Hotel.  And the thing that we will be very interested in seeing is the role a pastry called the Courtesan au Chocolat will play!  Now, a featurette has been released which not only gives the recipe, but shows you how they are made!  And so, may I present, a cooking lesson in making this pastry at home!

Zero and Agatha of The Grand Budapest Hotel

Zetti. . .

I hadn't yet done any of my collages in a Zetti style, but decided to give it a try (I'm not sure what I do is so far away from this zany style anyway!)  So, here is my submission today for Three Muses Collage Challenge:

(Please click to see larger.)

This little girl and her dollies have had such a fun time today, 

dressing up just as wacky as possible!

Most of the images in my collage today came from 

Marsha of Tumble Fish Studios.

The faces of the dolls are my own dear dollies!

We Do So Love Our Parties...

Dearest Friends,
If you have spent even just a small amount of time here at The Tearoom, you know how much I do love parties!!  Anytime we are here, gathered around a cup of tea once again, in the company of friends, is a lovely time!  So, it makes me so happy to once again this week, participate in the Linky Party at Butterfly in The Attic!  My friend Colleen has honored me by once again featuring one of my digital collage sheets from Velvet Revived, Pastel Easter, on her blog!  That's so sweet of you, Colleen and once again, I do thank you!

In the meanwhile, we are still gearing up for Easter and Springtime (in spite of it snowing again today!).  Oh well!  Isn't the point of Our Little Tearoom of The Imagination that we should have a place to go for refuge from Real Life?  I know it is my place to go when I don't want to look at life as it really is and I do hope you will feel free to visit here in the same spirit!

Our Easter and Springtime preparations today continue by creating a whole new set of pretty spring outfits for our Dear Victorienne!  She is wearing lots of sweet little dresses, perfect for chasing bunnies and chicks and picking flowers!

Victorienne's Easter Parade, new on Velvet Revived

Wishing All Dear Friends of The Tearoom a Most Beautiful Day!!

Blackbird...

My submission for the collage challenge this week at Take A Word:

Mr. Blackbird is waiting for you to come to tea with him.

He has left a cup for you

and

a blackberry on a plate.

Because in bird-world, blackberries are like

the most beautiful of pastries to us.

He does so hope you will join him!

Images used in my collage today:

The Graphics Fairy

Asunder Ephemera 

(on Etsy, now sadly closed)

Mr. Blackbird is from Wikipedia

Flying Fish . . .

Today, I am participating for the first time in the collage challenge at Sunday Postcard Art!  The host this week is the amazing Marsha of Tumble Fish Studios!  I admire her work so much!  I just love the way she designs collages of cute little girls holding fishes like they were teddy bears!!!  So, it was no surprise to learn that her prompt for the challenge was "Fish"!  I have to say that I don't think I have ever used fish in one of my collages before, so thank you, Marsha, for getting me to stretch creatively for this challenge! Here's my submission:

Once again, Our Paperdoll Daughter
Victorienne goes on an adventure!

The Flying Fish take her on a tour of Paris at night!

How exciting!

Images used in my collage from the following:

Tumble Fish Studios

Holliewood Studios

My personal collection

More Sweets for The Sweet...

All of the talk of sweets yesterday has made me decide that today is a very good day to show you something new I have made for The Gossamer Tearoom Etsy shop!

Les Blancmanges de Fantasie Print

I own a large collection of rubber stamps.  The one of this molded dessert is only one of them.  Of course there is nothing too fancy about that most famous molded dessert that begins with the letter "J".  But a Blancmange, now that's something else!  Although it started out as a food to serve to invalids, I'm having a lot more fun than that with it here!  I enjoyed coloring the little desserts with different pigment and metallic stamping inks and cotton swabs (one of my favorite artists tools)!  This print includes typical flavors for desserts of this type and ones that are more... improbable.  It's part of my new line of hand-stamped prints I'm doing.

And here's another:

Dickens Quote Print

"An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself." I just love this quote from Charles Dickens!  I find it inspirational, yet mysterious as well!  So, this is the second in a series of hand-stamped quote prints I am making available for sale in The Gossamer Tearoom Shop on Etsy.    Keep watching for more!  I'm having fun making them!

And, by the way, what are your favorite quotes?  Would you like to see them done in this hand-stamped format?  Don't hesitate to let me know!  I love doing custom orders!

Be sure and stop by my friend Colleen's blog Butterfly in the Attic because today is Networking Saturday!!  Have fun and find new ways to promote your blog and shops there too!

What I Will Be Looking For...

As I mentioned yesterday, I can hardly wait to see the new movie "Grand Budapest Hotel".  There are so many things to be excited about:  the great cast, all the details that Wes Anderson has created for the film, but there is one thing that is of particular interest to us here at The Tearoom.

I know it has been a while since I have chatted about pastries here at The Tearoom, we have never lost our love for them.  I dream of the day we will return to Paris and get to visit patisseries once again and have our senses flooded with the tastes, scents and sights of beautiful pastries!  And so, when I was exploring the website for the movie, I found that Wes Anderson has provided us something very interesting to nibble on, so to speak.  Saorise Ronan plays Agatha, a pastry maker for the fictional patisserie Mendl's in, which supplies pastries to the Hotel.  She makes a pastry called "Courtesan de Chocolat".  I was pleased to find the recipe for them by clicking the green button in the upper right hand corner of the webpage entitled "AcademieZubrowka.com", in Lesson Two-The Lutz School: Beaux Arts, Literature and Culinary Evolution, Page 1, Section D.

Many times, I have featured the famous French pastry the Religieuse in our now-famous Tea Parties of The Imagination.  Just as a reminder the word "Religieuse" means "nun" in French.  I am beyond delighted to see that Mr. Anderson has created a delightful (albeit slightly naughty) play on words with his creation the "Courtesan"!  The recipe in the website even goes so far as to indicate the colors of the frosting for each of the three sections of choux (cream puff pastry), even the color of the buttercream used to decorate them as well as including a recipe for the chocolate creme anglaise filling!

Religieuse de verveine

from Hugo et Victor, Paris

My interpretation of the

soon-to-be-famous

Courtesan au Chocolat!

For a great review of the movie, please read this one from The New York Times.

Here's another good one at The Dissolve.

And for some great stills, as well as some amazing details from the premiere of the movie in Paris last month, please check out this feature from Vogue.

By Flickering Movielight...

Welcome Dear Friends,
As we sit in flickering movielight on most nights here in The Tearoom, I thought I would let you know which ones I have enjoyed the most (and which ones I can't wait to see!).

Here's a partial list of some movies I have especially enjoyed:
Anything by Jean-Pierre Jeunet - Delicatessen, Amelie, The City of Lost Children, Micmacs - some are darker than others, they are all amazingly imaginative!
Several from Wes Anderson - The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic of Steve Zissou, Darjeeling Limited and Moonrise Kingdom - All of them fun with quirky characters!
A couple from Jim Jarmusch - Night Train and Night on Earth - more interesting people in strange circumstances!
Two from Jacques Tati: Les Vacances de M. Hulot and Mon Oncle - both in French, but with limited dialog, both of these movies cheer me up so much when I'm sad.
Harvey - very sweet and charming
Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, in fact all of Tim Burton's movies!
Cold Comfort Farm - so funny and lovely
Basquiat - a good portrait of this unique artists's life.
Frida - another great portrait of this great artist's life and loves.
The Fall - a visual feast and a beautiful story
Bread and Tulips - a woman escapes to Venice, from a life she no longer enjoys.
In the Realms of the Unreal - a great portrait of the outsider artist Henry Darger.  Beautiful and unique.
The Science of Sleep - Gorgeous and surreal
Melancholia - A beautiful but terrifying movie.
Hugo - So enchanting!
Marie Antoinette - Sophia Coppola blended history and pop culture in a gorgeous way with this film.
Midnight in Paris - Like taking a trip to Paris in two hours!  So much fun!
Hotel Splendide - Strange, quirky and beautiful
Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast - One of the strangest and most beautiful movies I have ever seen.
The Enchanted April - The movie you watch when you can't wait for spring to arrive!
Shadows and Fog - So many great characters and just a great atmosphere
Wings of Desire - Very beautiful, in German with subtitles.
Chocolat - Gorgeous with a great cast.
Priceless, The Valet, Welcome to the Sticks - all very funny French movies.

All of these films I can say make the wheels of my imagination spin!

And what am I looking forward to seeing?

I cannot wait to see "Grand Budapest Hotel"
the newest masterpiece by Wes Anderson!
I think I will probably want to move in once I see it!

(I have something else to chatter about regarding

this movie tomorrow!)

The other film I can't wait to see this year is "Mood Indigo" with Audrey Tautou and Romain Duris.


Romain Duris was so good in so many movies (Le Divorce and Paris, to name only two), and of course, Audrey Tautou is so lovely and charming.  Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep) directs, so I am sure it will be a treat.

What movies are you looking forward to seeing?

Signs of Life...

And once again today, I'm participating in the Linky Party at Butterfly in the Attic (and I would like to thank Colleen once again for featuring my Secret Garden Printable Invitation on her blog Butterfly in the Attic! Thank you, thank you, thank you Dear Colleen!)

Yesterday, we saw a robin for the first time this year!  Spring can't be far away now!

I have two new collage sheets ready for Easter and Springtime projects in Velvet Revived:

This is the Pastel Easter Digital Collage Sheet

and

 The Easter Bouquet Digital Collage Sheet

Both are now available in Velvet Revived.

And don't forget to visit the Linky Party!

Please come back tomorrow when I will be chattering about some of our favorite movies (as well as those we can't wait to see!)

What Is Going On Here?

Is this a herd of chickens?

The Fraternal Order of Party Chicks?

No, it's simply the Spring Chicken Easter Parade,

my newest digital collage sheet

from Velvet Revived!

They would so love to come marching

through your Springtime and Easter projects!

Creative Visualization...

Hello Dear Friends,
I have always been a big believer in creative visualization.  So, maybe if I keep thinking about spring, it will materialize a bit more quickly. We have good things coming our way, but they are just not here yet. Patience is essential!  Here in The Land of The Tearoom, the mountains of snow do not appear to want to go away any time soon. We know that the arrival of spring will bring with it not only warmer weather, but also a new chapter in our lives!  More on all of that later...

I'm very grateful that Colleen featured my new Printable Floral Bunting Collage Sheet this week on her blog Butterfly in the Attic! Thank you, Colleen!  Because Mr. Linky was not playing nice, I was only able to post one submission for her Linky Party last week, so this week, I'm posting my other new sheet, Secret Garden Party Printable Invitations.  They match the bunting from last week!

Keep your eyes open for several new Springtime/Easter-themed sheets in Velvet Revived!

And who is this?  

I guess you'll have to come back to find out!

CloudArchitecture

My submission for The Three Muses Collage Challenge for this week:

(Please click to see the details up close!)

Our prompt this week was "Architecture".

I've always thought it would be fun to have a house made

from a cloud!

This one has balconies,

a rose arbor of sunset-colored roses,

trailing purple morning glories...

I will wave as I float over your house in mine!!

Images used in this collage from:

Tumble Fish Studios

The Graphics Fairy

My personal collection

Is it Summertime Yet?

Update:  I'm participating in the Linky Party at Butterfly in the Attic and I see that Colleen has had the same ideas about distracting ourselves from the snow as I have!

Just as we expect still more snow, here in The Land of The Tearoom, I am dreaming of Spring and Summer...

My newest digital collage sheets from Velvet Revived on Etsy, a printable invitation, perfect for a Secret Garden Party and a matching bunting, in sweet shades of lilac and lavender, spring green and butter yellow!

Secret Garden Party Printable Invitation

Printable Floral Bunting

And to remind myself of warmer days ahead,

I created a new board on Pinterest called

"Lovely Summertime".

The Garden Parasol (c. 1910), detail

Fredrick Carl Frieseke

And my next project includes tulips -

absolutely armloads of them...!

Can't wait to show you!

Down the Rabbit Hole Once Again...

Hello Dear Friends!
Since I'm still recovering from having had a bad cold for a couple of weeks now, I've been keeping myself busy in quiet ways!  My comfy chair is surrounded with half-done projects and sketches of things I'm working on.  I am planning on doing some rubberstamping later on today, so you should keep up your visits to The Tearoom for the unveiling of more of my hand-stamped prints!

In the meanwhile, I have still been hard at work on another new collage sheet!  Since my Alice in Wonderland sheets are so popular (a big Thank You hug goes out to everyone who bought my "Victorienne in Wonderland" sheet so far!!), I decided that I'd make some gift tags you could use for your next Mad Tea Party!

"Alice in Wonderland Tags" are available now

in Velvet Revived on Etsy!

As always, Dear Friends, thank you for your visit to The Tearoom today!

Betty

Love...

This is my collage submission for The Three Muses Collage Challenge this week.  The prompt was "Love", done in art journal style.

And, even though in The Land of The Tearoom, everyday is Valentine's Day, Mr. Calendar tells us it is getting to be that time of year once again...

(This collage was made up of images from Tumble Fish Studios, The Graphics Fairy, Cemerony and my own personal collection.)

February Begins at The Gossamer Tearoom. . .

After having had a bad cold for a couple of weeks last

month, I'm getting back to my projects!

Once again, this year, I have sent some handmade Valentines

to the Brooklyn offices of Etsy.  They will be handing them out

to recipients of Meals-On-Wheels in the New York City area.

These are the Valentines we made this year.

(Mr. V helped me!)

I used square Stardream Silver envelopes,

rubberstamped with Brilliance ink in "Victorian Violet".

Mr. V hand-lettered the labels with a Gelly Roll pen

in "Metallic Sepia".

I printed out some of the valentines I made for my

Print and Cut Valentines Collage sheet,

backed them with violet paper and added

dark red organza ribbon to them so they can

be hung as an ornament!

We then signed the backs of them all,

put them in their envelopes and sent them away!

We hope they make some people's days brighter!

And, it just isn't enough that

Our Dear Valentine Sweetheart Victorienne

is making a journey to New York City,

she is also dressed up as her favorite

characters from one of her favorite stories,

Alice in Wonderland,

here, in my newest collage sheet,

Victorienne in Wonderland!

Here is our little girl,

dressed as the bottle of liquid

labelled "Drink Me" that made

Alice small enough to begin

her adventures!!

Keep checking back

because Valentine's Day and February

are special times to celebrate,

here in The Gossamer Tearoom!