Goings On At The Tearoom (Including News of a Giveaway!!!)

Hello Dearest Friends!
Giveaway??  Did you hear me say it??  Yes you did!!  My friend Colleen of Butterfly in the Attic has put together such a fun Christmas in July giveaway!  Many of the artists and vendors she networks with from Etsy and Artfire have gotten together and donated so many lovely items!  You can find out more about it and register for the giveaway HERE!  You don't want to miss it!

I made up a special package of my Christmas Digital Collage Sheets from Velvet Revived especially for Christmas in July!  It is the same package of sheets that is included in the giveaway, but you can take a look at what's in it here in my shop!

And, just so you don't forget (although I simply don't know how you could!), tomorrow is the day we have all been waiting for:  The Mad Tea Party!!  Be sure and come back here to The Tearoom tomorrow and see what we have planned for you and also be sure and visit our friend Vanessa of A Fanciful Twist at her party and to see the list of all the other participants you can visit as well!!!  Little Victorienne will hardly sleep tonight from the excitement of her adventure in Wonderland tomorrow!!

Wishing all Dear Friend of the Tearoom sweet dreams under the light of the moonily-moon tonight!

I Love Summertime (Part 2)...

Oh Yes, Dear Friends of The Tearoom,
I do so love Summertime!  Sitting out on the porch, watering the flowers, tending to the hummingbird feeders, walking through the grass barefoot, drinking iced tea and limeade, not to mention all the foods that we love in the summer!  But, as it turns out, I am not the only one who loves this time of year!  My Doll Family takes after their Mummy and they enjoy a day out in the fresh air and sunshine as much as I do!

Here are some pictures I took of Dear Thursday, enjoying the pansy garden!

Thursday and I would like to wish you a lovely

summer week ahead and remind you to come back

and visit us here at The Tearoom on Saturday

for the Mad Tea Party!

We can't wait!

An Introduction and a Gentle Reminder...

Hello Dear Friends,
I do so hope your summer is going well!

Life is busy for us here in The Land of The Tearoom, but I wanted to take the time to introduce you to something fun that has been inspiring us here as of late and also to remind you of something fun coming up.

First of all, we have discovered a wonderful band from Lyon, France called Ödland.  Their music is comprised of beautiful melodies and gorgeous vocals in French and English, piano, violin, but also various vintage toys and items such as a typewriter and a saw!  Entirely fun to listen to and great music to create to!  Many of the tracks from their first album "Ottocento" make references to Alice in Wonderland...







...which leads me to my reminder!  I hope you are as excited about the Mad Tea Party on July 12th as we are!!  Such hurryings and scurryings about to prepare!  So, here is just a tiny taste of what you might expect when you come back to visit with us on that day!

Now you see who the other part of "we" is when I speak of us 

getting ready for the Mad Tea Party!

I am so excited for you to see the rest of her adventure!

And coming soon, more on my love of Summertime...

A Full-Moon Friday the 13th Sale...

Dearest Friends,
Here at The Tearoom, we like things a bit sweet, but also a bit spooky, so we don't tend to have a tendency toward being superstitious regarding Friday the 13th!  However, this one is a bit special!  Dear Old Friend of The Tearoom, Mademoiselle Moon will be full tonight as well!  It's not something that happens just everyday and even though here in The Land of The Tearoom, it is rainy once again today and quite unlikely we will actually get to see it, that doesn't mean we don't want to celebrate it anyway!

So, here are four collage sheets on sale this weekend in Velvet Revived...

Vintage Sepia Butterflies

Halloween Spooky Doll Masquerade Party - Two

(this one is featured in the BNS on Butterfly in the Attic!)

Halloween Spooky Doll Masquerade Party - One

Victorienne's Halloween Party

...and three items on sale in The Gossamer Tearoom shop...

Women in the Moon -  Handmade Card Set One

Women in the Moon - Handmade Card Set Two

Mademoiselle Moon Handmade Card

We always say that Everyday is Halloween here at The Tearoom!

Wishing all a lovely weekend!

A New Toy...

Today, I have a fun new online toy to play with!

Colleen of Butterfly in the Attic is amazing at finding new networking opportunities!  This week, she introduced me to Amazine, where you "clip" pictures and articles, magazine-style, to make your own online magazine!

I'm actually a recovering magazine junkie, so I'm having a lot of fun with this!

I found a cool photo I took a couple of years ago to use as the wallpaper and I've added a link in the sidebar, so please take a moment to check it out!

I Love Summertime (Part 1)...

Dearest Friends of The Tearoom,
Today is once again a bit gloomy, but we did have four lovely, summer-like days in a row this past weekend here in The Land of The Tearoom!!!  So nice!!  I was very inspired by it and was thinking a lot about how I spent my summer days with my mother when I was a child.  I will say that I did not enjoy the heat of summer as much when I was little as I do now, but my Mommy was very good at distracting me!  First of all, we spent a lot of time on the lawn in the backyard of our little house, surrounded by flowers and later, with my little dog Blinken romping around along with us!  We also spent time sitting around the round patio table, which sat on the patio next to the garage, bricked with large very pink bricks!  And it was here that we would have our lunches of cream cheese and olives on white bread and orangeade!  Such a treat!  It was also here that we had little tea parties with my little china dolls dishes.  My Mommy made the best "tea" to serve (it was really only sugar water, but I thought it was just too lovely!).  So, being inspired by these memories, I made these two new collage sheets:

This is my newest printable invitation design

Floral Tea Party Invitation

It is based on my Floral Tea Party Digital Collage Sheet and 

it makes me think of warm summer afternoons having tea

with my Mommy!

My other new collage sheet is another digital tea set!

This is the Little Darling Buttons Tea Set.

I designed it using a 1920's button card I bought from

an Etsy seller last year and some vintage postcard images.

It reminds me of other lovely times as a child when I had

play tea parties with my dolls!

I included both of these new sheets in my friend Colleen's

Postcard Party today at her blog Butterfly in the Attic, along with

my sheet Victorienne in Summer.

(Keep checking back because my next collage sheet

might be featuring our Dear Little Sweetie Victorienne!)

Won't you go take a moment to take a peek at Colleen's blog?

She has great networking opportunities for small businesses

for each day of the week!

She makes networking fun!

And getting back to thinking about tea parties,

don't forget that July 12th is the date for

The Mad Tea Party at A Fanciful Twist!!!

Now, back to our party planning!

Seven Years Ago Tonight...

I walked through these doors,

 into this lovely garden, 

on a very warm Washington night...

(image from Pinterest)

...and married my best friend.

Oh Hurray!!!

Dearest Dear Friends of The Tearoom!
It is a Most Special Day indeed!  Finally, Our Dear Friend Vanessa of A Fanciful Twist has announced the date for The Mad Tea Party!!  The very best things are the ones worth waiting for, after all!!!

Secretly and with much excitement, we here at The Tearoom have been busy pulling things out of attics and from behind secret bookcases, already preparing for another Extra Special Day of Great Madness!! This year, our preparations include packing a little suitcase for a Special Little Someone who is very dear to our hearts!

Won't you please mark your calendar, inform your social secretary that you will be unavailable for any other appointments on July 12th and whatever else you must do to prepare!  And, if the spirit so moves you, won't you consider joining as well?

We can't wait to see you there!

Still Wishing for Summer...

Oh Dear.  It's another rainy day here in The Land of Tearoom!!  Of course the rain is making everything a lovely shade of what Mr. V and I call "Hurt Your Eyes Green"!  Having grown up in the West, this shade of green simply did not exist in our world until we moved to the East!  But what I do miss the most about the West is the sunshine!  Over 350 days of it a year!  We could do with some sunshine here!

So, as we wait (sometimes not so patiently) for some lovely things to occur in our lives, we do what we can here in The Tearoom as well!

First, I have planted so many lovely pansies on the porch!  I'll take pictures of them soon!  We do so love having friends come to tea on the porch in the summertime!

Next, I have re-arranged my Pinterest boards around so that my Summer board and the one I created called "In A Dreamlike World" are closer to the top!

Click here to take a wander through my

Pinterest boards!

Next, we still eagerly await the announcement of our Dear Friend Vanessa's Mad Tea Party on her blog A Fanciful Twist!!  Oh!  It's so hard to wait for this one, but I'm turning all of that impatience into creativity and already have part of my blog post started!!!!  I can't wait to show you what I have planned for the festivities this year!!

And, finally, last, but by no means least, we find ourselves at Tuesday once again and if you have spent much time here, you know that means we are participating in Our Friend Colleen's Postcard Party at her blog Butterfly in the Attic!!  Sending a big "Thank You" to Colleen for being so nice and featuring my new Floral Bottlecaps Digital Collage Sheet in the party today!  In the spirit of encouraging summertime to finally come to this part of the world, I'm linking two of my collage sheets which include images of summer!  And because she brings us sunshine even on the rainiest of days, they both are sheets of images of Our Own Dear Paperdoll Daughter, Victorienne!

Victorienne in Summer

Victorienne in the Rose Garden

Keep watching for even more about Victorienne 

in some of my up-coming projects!!

News from The Tearoom...

Hello Again to you, Dear Friends,
It's been a busy time for Mr. V and I as we prepare to move this summer.

But I have found the time to develop some new digital collage sheets for Velvet Revived!  Here are the three newest designs:

Floral Bottlecaps

Grungy Typewriter Keys

Floral Butterflies

And since it's Tuesday, of course I'm participating in my friend Colleen's Postcard Party today at her Butterfly in the Attic blog (where she very kindly has featured my Floral Butterflies Collage Sheet this week!).  Won't you please stop on by and check out the postcards there and if you sell postcards or something made with postcards yourself, won't you consider adding some links to your items there?  It'a a fun way to promote what you do!

And...that time is very nearly here again!  Our Dear Miss Vanessa of A Fanciful Twist is getting ready to announce her annual Mad Tea Party Blog Party!  We are so excited!  I say we because, well, someone will be having an adventure this year!  I won't say who, but I will give you three guesses!  Keep checking back here for more details!

Happy National Postcard Week!

Hello to you, Dear Friends!

Lots of Real Life things occupy my days, but I'm still working hard to keep My Life in The Tearoom up and running as well!

First, I would like to thank all of my Fellow Fans of Vintage Postcards a Most Happy National Post Card Week (May 4th-10th)!  In honor of this week, this is the postcard I designed:

I am participating in a postcard swap for the second year in a row with Colleen from Butterfly in the Attic and this is the design I am using for the postcards I will be sending out this week!

And, if it's Tuesday, you know it's the fun Postcard Party at Butterfly in the Attic as well!!  In keeping with the fun, eclectic feeling of my postcard, I am linking these fun collage sheets this week at the party:

Entrance to Dreamland, Coney Island

Bottlecap Beauties

Flying Fish - An Original Digital Collage

Please don't forget to visit with us at the Postcard Party and celebrate National Post Card Week by sending postcards to your friends and family!

Portrait of a Circus Family

I haven't been able to participate in any of the collage challenges lately because we are in the process of packing all of our belongings real and imagined as we prepare to move!  I will still be doing my best to keep up on all of the goings-on in The Aether, but if you don't see me for a while, this will be the reason.

I'm happy that after much time of cleaning and organizing our house and putting it on the market to sell, I had time to participate in today's challenge on Sunday Postcard Art!  The prompt today was "Life is a Circus" and for some reason, this family of circus performers appeared in my imagination.

Today, I have used images from the following:  Itkupilli Imagenarium, Tumble Fish Studios and The Graphics Fairy.

Whew!  My work here is never done these days and now, along with more Real Life tasks, I also have a Mother's Day card to design and make for my mother-in-law as well as a design for some postcards I am making in honor of National Post Card Week!

Better Late Than Never (I Hope)...

Dearest Friends of The Tearoom,
Our Further Adventures in Real Life have kept me away a bit recently, but I didn't want to miss out in wishing all of Our Dear Friends a Most Happy May Day!

I do so wish we were all gathered together this evening in a café in Paris, nibbling on muguet macarons and drinking lime-blossom tea.

Here's hoping it it will be a lovely, creative and productive spring for us all!

In the Gloaming...

Gloaming...isn't it a funny word?  It is a rather archaic word meaning "dusk" or "twilight".  I am reminded of words like this when visiting at Butterfly in the Attic today, where our friend Colleen is hosting her weekly Postcard Linky Party!  Today, she is showing some night scenes in vintage linen postcards, for sale in her Etsy shop.  They are so beautiful.  You might take a peek!

I'd like to thank Colleen, as she has very kindly named my "Victorienne in The Rose Garden" Digital Collage Sheet as her featured ephemera at the party!

Victorienne in The Rose Garden

These are the sheets I picked to link to for today's party!

They are all made in the colors of twilight,

dusk or as it used to be called

"The Gloaming"!

Vivid Violets & Purple Pansies

Scenes of Paris Past

 Beautiful Ladies of Paris - The Blue Hour

Won't you join us at the party today?

Could it be you?

Will the next beautiful collage sheet you purchase from my shop Velvet Revived on Etsy be my 50th sale there?  And if so, what lovely gift is waiting for you?

What's New in The Tearoom...

Outside, the blustery wind huffs and puffs, but inside, we remain cozy, waiting for the rest of spring to arrive...

First of all, I have just finished a new sheet for Velvet Revived, this one an original collage called "Flying Fish":

Flying Fish Original Collage, available now at Velvet Revived

Also, I have applied the new layout to my Twitter account.  If you haven't seen it, there are lots of new changes.  If you had a background wallpaper, that is now gone from your background of your home page.  However, your avatar is bigger and there is a large area at the top of your page for a new wallpaper panel/logo.  This is my new design, which I have added today:

Wishing all Friends of The Tearoom a

swiftly emerging springtime!

A Most Happy Easter...

Dearest Friends of The Tearoom,
Just look what our Dear Victorienne has discovered for Easter:  a nest of peeping, fluffy little chicks, in a nest made of pussy-willows and lavender!!

Here at The Tearoom, we would like to wish all of Our Dear Friends, old and new, a Most Happy and Beautiful Easter!!

With biggest hugs from Betty, Mr. V and Victorienne

P.S.  Please don't forget to come visit with my friend Colleen at Butterfly in the Attic for her fun Networking Saturday Linky Party!  You can add one link for each of your Etsy shops, your blog, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any of your other social media contacts and discover new shops and sellers too!

A Rainy Tuesday with Tea and Networking...

Hello to you, Dear Friends!
Here at The Tearoom, it is a quiet, rainy afternoon.  I sit here, sipping my Breakfast in Paris Tea by Stash (yummy flavors of bergamot, lavender and vanilla), enjoying the sound of rain on the windows of The Tearoom, knowing it takes away the last of the snow and brings green to the lawns!  Spring may finally be here!

And today, being Tuesday, is our day to visit with our Dear Friend Colleen at her blog Butterfly in the Attic!  Tuesday is the day that she brings to us another of her wonderful networking opportunities when she hosts her "Wait A Minute Mister Postman" Postcard Party!!  Everyone who is a Friend of The Tearoom knows how much I love vintage postcards, so this is one of my favorite days of the week!  About a year ago, she very kindly invited me to join her Pacific Postcards Team on Etsy and I am so very glad I did!  Colleen is such a nice lady and she's always coming up with new ways we can network to get more sales in our shops!

This week, she has featured my Spring Wishes and Apple Blossoms collage sheet.

Spring Wishes and Apple Blossoms,

available now in Velvet Revived

So, this week, the sheets I have selected to post at the Linky Party today are some that can be used for your last minute Easter cards or decorations!  Remember, all of my sheets are instant download, so there is no waiting to receive them!  You begin creating right away!

Victorienne's Easter Parade

Easter Bouquet

Floral Bunting

If you love vintage postcards or if you sell them, won't you please come pay a visit to Butterfly in the Attic today?

A Small Exercise in Minimalism...

This is my collage for the challenge at Sunday Postcard Art today.  The prompt was "Still Life". Thank you to the folks at Sunday Postcard Art for featuring my collage from last week "The Hotel Unusual" as one of the samples of work for the prompt last week! 

In January, I made a collage for The Three Muses, also based on the topic of still life.  I'm including it today, as I designed this second still life to match the first and I think they look pretty fun together!

The images I used in my collage today are as follows: background from Shadowhouse Creations, tulips and yellow moth from Rijks Studio from Rijksmuseum, cherries and French postcard from my personal collection.

A note about the Rijks Studio from Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam:  Did you know that this museum has made 150,000 of their works of art into open source images that artists can pretty much use for whatever they wish?  You can register on the site and make your own collection for your projects.  Also, the museum holds a contest every year, asking people to enter their submissions using these open source images.  I entered this year and this was what I submitted:

This is my five-panel design, made of images from 26 works of art from the Rijksmuseum open source collection.  I printed one out, assembled it and sent it to my mother-in-law for her birthday.  She loved it, so, perhaps later this year, I might have this produced for sale in The Gossamer Tearoom shop on Etsy.

A Less-Than-Scientific Explanation....

In anticipation of the lunar eclipse next week, I present you with my collage today.  Here, our new friend Madame Noire is travelling from one point to the other in a Moon Balloon, trailing the haunting scent of black roses behind her.  What a lovely way to travel!  And with contraptions like this floating around up there, how do we really know that the "scientific" explanation of what will temporarily block our view of The Moon is actually the real one?  Perhaps Madame Noire's diaphanous red scarf will trail out behind her, giving the appearance of The Blood Moon?  Who knows?

(This is my submission for the collage challenge at The Three Muses.  The prompt was "Transportation".  Images I used in my collage came from Tumble Fish Studios and Itkupilli.)

Don't forget to keep your eyes open for the eclipse on April 14th-15th!