At This Time Six Years Ago....

...Mr. V and I were starting to welcome the guests to our wedding.

It was a very warm Washington night,

perfect for a wedding.

Waiting to walk up the aisle...

Thank you to everyone

who joined us on that memorable night

six years ago.

And especially,

thank you to My Best Friend,

who became my husband that night.

I love you.

B.

Oh Hoooray!!!! It's That Time Again.....

Dearest Dear Friends!

It is here, the invitation we wait for all year! 

The invitation to 

the Delightful Miss Vanessa's Annual Mad Tea Party 

at her blog, A Fanciful Twist!!!

I couldn't be more excited!

(And isn't Vanessa's announcement just too cute?)

Please remember to join us here on

Saturday, July 13th

for our party and also at

A Fanciful Twist,

as well as the rest of the lovely people who also

have Mad Tea Parties on this day!!!

You can keep the White Rabbit on retainer if you wish,

to remind you not to be late,

but I will be reminding you as well!

Best start planning what you will wear starting now! 

This is Eugenie....

...and she is my submission for the collage challenge at The Three Muses, where the prompt this week was "Black and White Stripes".

She is performing for the first time for Le Cirque de Bizarre, billed as "Eugenie, The Amazing Floating Wonder from Far-Away Purplandia!"  She is particularly graceful as she balances atop her Ball of Wonder, floating over the heads of the audience!  They seem a bit amazed!  I hope you are the same!

Most of the images I used for my collage were from sheets from the lovely Marsha of Tumblefish Studio.  The only exception was the face of Eugenie, which I adapted from my newest digital collage sheet, Beautiful Ladies of Paris - The Blue Hour, which can be found in my Etsy shop Velvet Revived.

And Still More New From The Gossamer Tearoom Shop...

The other day, I introduced you to the first of the new line of beautiful, fun and inspirational hand-made garlands featuring Victorienne.  Today, I'd like to introduce you to the rest...

First, this is the "Victorienne in Springtime" garland...

This one is decorated in the pinks, purples and chartreuses of springtime!

Victorienne is dressed in rompers depicting this lovely time of year, plus I added a rubber-stamped and glittered image of morning glories, rubberstamped and embossed images of daffodils, tiny purple birds flitting everywhere (also stamped and hand-glittered)....

All, in between the letters spelling out "spring", stamped and embossed with pale pink embossing  powder on black!!

I don't know about you, but I can't get enough of springtime!!

Next, the "Victorienne in the Rose Garden" garland....

Doesn't she look adorable in the reds, pinks, purples and sepias of the rose garden?

I started this garland by rubberstamping several images of roses and rosebuds

in various colors.

To some, I added embossing powder for gloss...

To others, I added some hand-coloring with 

stamp-pad ink and a q-tip...

And finally, I arranged them all together with the hand-glittered images of Victorienne

along with the letters of the word "roses", 

embossed in pale pink embossing powder on black!

And lastly, "Victorienne's Favorite Color" garland....

I started out with more images of Victorienne,

printed on glossy light card stock and then hand-glittered them!

I added rubberstamped images like this vintage teacup

and an angel asleep in a chair.....

....a  vintage candy label and a wiggly jello....

and strung all that together between rubber-stamped

ornate letters spelling "Violet", which I also

embossed with purple glitter embossing powder!!

I am having fun making these and they are all for sale in The Gossamer Tearoom shop on Etsy!

Of course, they would be perfect for a child's room
or a children's party, but honestly,
I made them as much for the child in us all as anything else.
I think they would make the perfect addition to
art spaces of artists and children of ALL ages!!

Climbing the Staircase...

Dearest Friends,
The challenge on Collage Obsession today had to do with stairways.  Since I'm in the middle of ever-more projects, I do so hope it will be OK if I re-cycle an image I made last summer for one of the Mad Tea Parties at A Fanciful Twist.

Actually,

the inspiration for this silly collage

 came from a dream I had where 

I was driving a tiny car 

like one in which you would ride at the carnival, 

UP THE STAIRS 

of some house I was in!!

Oh, the dreams...

You have no idea of how crazy my dreams are!!

So, if you'd like the see the rest of 

the Mad Tea Party this image came from,

please click

here .

Happy Mommy's Day...

This is my mother as a girl on a summer's day.

I'm sure Heaven is a much more beautiful place with her there.

Happy Mother's Day to My Dear Mommy

(frame adapted from my Still More Violets Digital Collage Sheet on Velvet Revived)

Something Too Cute This Way Comes...

New in Velvet Revived today...

...my newest, instantly-downloadable digital collage sheet, the Little Darling Buttons Card sheet!

I love finding little bits and bobs of vintage ephemera on Etsy and bringing it back to life!  This is the most adorable button card I have ever seen, probably made in the 1920's or 30's!  When I bought it, there were two precious little mother-of-pearl buttons left on it, just hanging by a worn old thread.  I captured them, tied them together so they won't miss each other and put them in my cherished collection of vintage mother-of-pearl and glass buttons!!  Then, the card, as cute as it was, was in sad shape and in need of some love from Photoshop!  So, on the trusty scanner it went,  and with a bit of tweaking, became a sheet of eight different-colored versions, with only enough of the age and wear digitally removed so she is perfectly charming again!  How many of your fun projects could you use her in?

Old Items Find New Friends....

Dearest Friends of The Tearoom,
I just have to tell you I am so excited today!  One of my vintage items that I sell in Mirabella Morello on Etsy has been featured on a very cool blog, The Junk Drunk!  They have done a feature today on decorating a white-washed porch in vintage items and they have included the dear little German Transferware pitcher and bowl that I found stashed way, way back on the very top shelf of the kitchen cupboard in our house.  That means it belonged to my Great Aunt Edith!!  I had to do a bit of detective work on this set and I write about that in the listing!!

So, won't you please go visit Erika and Cathy at The Junk Drunk?  Their blog is fascinating and features sections on Food, Drink, Travel, Leisure and Antiques!!

The Sunshine in The Tearoom Today...

Debuting today in The Gossamer Tearoom shop on Etsy:

This is the first of the banners, debuting today, featuring our charming little Victorienne... (click on each image to see even more close up!).

This one is 39 1/2 inches long, plus 16 inches of extra ribbon on each side for hanging!

It is called "Fruit and Flowers" and includes ornate rubber-stamped letters, decorated with glossy purple and magenta embossing powders, spelling out the letters, rubber-stamped and embossed images of fruit and flowers and in between it all, images of Victorienne in rompers depicting all sorts of juicy red and purple images, printed on glossy light card-stock and then each is hand-decorated with bits of glitter!

The perfect banner for your child's room or party, but also perfect in your art space to keep you company and make you smile!!!

Only available, here, in The Gossamer Tearoom Shop on Etsy!

Plus, keep watching for more banners, art dolls of Victorienne and her friend (who is a purple kitten) and brooches!!!

The Paper Doll In Residence...

To celebrate Victorienne's impending debut at
The Gossamer Tearoom shop on Etsy,
a short film:

Coming soon...

...banners to brighten any space you hang them...

...huggable paper dolls...

...purple kittens...

...lovable brooches...

Wishing you all a Happy Springtime Sunday!

Busy-ness at The Tearoom...

There are so many things going on here in the world of The Tearoom!

First, a reminder that you only have four days left to sign up to participate in the postcard swap for National Postcard Week!  The deadline to sign up is Friday, the 26th and you can get more information about the swap here.

Next, I have been busy adding new digital collage sheets in Velvet Revived:

This is my first sheet of inchies, inspired by my love of springtime and my wish that it would finally come to The Land of The Tearoom, so that we would stop having to send so much money to The Land of the Electric Company in order to stay warm!!

This is the sheet I made to share the fun I had making my logo and avatar for National Postcard Week! These letters I scanned from the fronts of some of the vintage postcard folders I have been collecting since I was very young and putting them together to form words is was just too much fun!

And this is the most recent sheet I have made shows our darling Victorienne in rompers depicting her summer vacation (lots of thinking ahead to summer here!!).

All are available in Velvet Revived on Etsy.

And what is our Princess of the Dimples up to here?  It's a secret for now, but soon, all will be revealed!

The Written Word...

Something different from me this week in the way of collages...

This is my collage for the collage challenge at The Three Muses this week.  The prompt was "The Written Word".  I decided to make a cut-and-paste work this week instead of a digital one.  I used strips from old book pages I have and pages from a shorthand magazine my mother collected.  I stained torn pieces of old map pages with purple chalk ink (and my favorite tool for staining, my finger!!) and then rubber stamped this inspirational quote from Franz Kafka with three different alphabet stamp sets I have.

I'd like to thank Kirsi of the blog Itkupilli in The City of Angels for her inspiration for this piece.  She posted this quote recently and when I read it, it planted the seed in my mind for this piece!  Thank you! Her creativity continues to amaze and inspire me!

A Word (or Two) Regarding....

Dear Friends of The Tearoom,
Most people who follow me here know I have a love of vintage items of many kinds.  But, of all the items that I have sold and bought, some of my very favorites are ephemera, especially post cards.

I was so fortunate to have inherited the postcard collections of my mother, my grandmother and great grandmother.  I have scanned much of it and transformed a great deal of it into the digital collage sheets I now sell at my shop Velvet Revived on Etsy.  But my own collection dates back to one that I began when I was in grade school!  My parents and I used to frequent a flea market where I grew up in Casper, Wyoming.  I just loved the old linen-finish postcards!  I love the colors and it seems to me that there are combinations and shades of colors used in them that don't seem to be used together anymore.

Last year, I started a new collection of postcards:  brightly colored French photographic postcards from the 1910's and 1920's.  Now, I use them, along with the vintage floral postcards I have inherited (and some I have bought from Etsy) in the digital collage sheet designs and other projects.

This weekend, I was very excited to have been invited to join the Pacific Postcard Team on Etsy!!  The team captain is Colleen, and it is from her that I learned about something very fun!  May 5th to May 11th is National Post Card Week, where people who appreciate postcards of all kinds celebrate their love of postcards by participating in post card swaps!  Colleen is hosting one as well and you don't have to be a member of her postcard team or even be registered on Etsy to participate.  If you are interested, please contact her, she will take your mailing information (only for use in the swap and no other purpose) and she will be sending each of us a list of all of the addresses of the participants.  Then, you either make or buy (or use vintage postcards you'd like to trade) postcards and send one to each of the participants and you will receive them in return!  Fun!!

I will be participating and am hatching plans to create some extra-fun rubber stamp postcards!!

You can learn more about National Post Card Week and the postcard swap on her blog Butterfly in the Attic.

Won't you please consider playing along?

Victorienne's New Dresses...

What a lucky little girl Victorienne is!  Here she is in her latest collections of adorable rompers!  You can see the rest of these collections by viewing the newest digital collage sheets from Velvet Revived.

Here, she is so happy wearing the myriad of colors found in a rose garden!

And here, she is wearing her favorite color, which also happens to be mine: Purple!

And,

very soon,

Victorienne will make her debut

at

The Gossamer Tearoom shop on Etsy...!

The Airship Impatience....

(please click for larger image)

This, Dear Friends, is The Airship Impatience, piloted by our own Violette!  She is so dear!  After hearing me complain endlessly about how long spring is taking to get here, she has gone to get me spring flowers!  I don't know where she has gone to get them, but I am grateful!  And, as is always the way just when you think something will never happen, of course, it does!  Today, in The Land of The Tearoom, it has finally been warm enough to feel like springtime!  Soon enough, I will be be planting little flowers in the pots on our porch in my favorite pair of barefeet!

(This is actually my submission for the collage challenge at The Three Muses this week.  The prompt was "Transport".  The background and airship of my collage come from Marsha of Tumblefish Studio's newest sheets!)

Another Twinkling Night in Paris...

Having fun, doing collages today...

Here is my entry for the collage challenge on Collage Obsession.  The prompt this week is "Cities".  Of course I can't miss a chance to create yet another collage having to do with my favorite city!  The background is from Marsha of Tumblefish Studio's brand-new kits inspired by the film-maker Georges Méliés.  You might remember him if you saw the movie "Hugo" or have seen his famous film from 1902 "A Trip to the Moon". The scene from Paris is from my private collection of vintage postcards of Paris.

Easter Greetings...

Dearest Friends of The Gossamer Tearoom,

Victorienne and I wish you the most wonderful Easter!

Betty

A Digital Paper Doll...

As promised, here are the first two digital collage sheets, featuring Dear Little Victorienne!

In this sheet, she is dressed in rompers of pink, green and purple, in shades of blue bird, pink roses, freshly-bloomed violets...

...and in this sheet, ripe purples and reds, shades of cherries yellow and red, bucolic gardens and even more violets and pansies....

Please visit her at her second new home Velvet Revived!  She is waiting to say "Hello" and show you all of her favorite new clothes for spring and summer!

Victorienne....

Dearest Friends of The Tearoom,

May I introduce to you the newest member of The Gossamer Tearoom Family?   This is Victorienne!  She is a magical little girl and sweeter than strawberries in July!  She is my most recent digital collage project, made from vintage postcards and a vintage paper doll.  But she will soon be making her debut in the material world as I am currently creating art dolls, silk art brooches, banners, as well as digital collage sheets with her image, wearing her extensive wardrobe of adorable rompers and soon, I will be debuting all of these items in two of my Etsy shops, The Gossamer Tearoom and Velvet Revived!  Please check back later today as I will be debuting the first two digital collage sheets of images of our new little girl!

Victorienne is such a friendly little soul and she can't wait to meet you in person!

Immediate Gratification...

In my Etsy shop Velvet Revived, I have super exciting news!  I have joined the Prototype Team for Instant Downloads of Digital Files!  Why is this so exciting?  It means that all of my digital collage sheets are now available for instant download!  As soon as your payment is confirmed, you will receive an e-mail from Etsy with the links to the sheets you have purchased, usually within just a few minutes!  So, with Easter only one week away, you still have plenty of time to order my Easter and Springtime sheets to make cards or decorations!

What could be better than finding what will work with your projects just perfectly and having it to use almost as soon as you order it?  Thank you, Etsy, for making this wonderful new service available for sellers to use!