Three or more Tuesday cups with or without saucers

Of course we all have cups and saucers in the house. I do too but I also have a few very special ones and these I want to show you today.
The first one is from the famous Irish factory of Belleek. For those who do not know it, this factory is famous for its paper thin porcelain. A lot of their earlier collections are in the form of shell's. So is this delicate cup. You wonder if ever anybody drank tea out of these cups. You can see right trough the porcelain. They also call it eggshell porcelain. That is a very good name for this kind of porcelain.
Sadly I do not have the saucer but I will surch to find one so the set is compleet.

This is I think a very old cup. It is what is called Lustre ware. You see the shiny rosy golden stripe on the rim and on the foot. On the one side there is a landscape with a castle and on the other side is a lady in 1820's dress walking a lurcher.

This is a very,very old cup and saucer. It must date from about 1780! You can tell this by the fact that it has a very deep saucer and there is no rim to hold the cup in place in the saucer. This is something you only see in very old saucers.
The saucers is handpainted with a Chinese scene and is very fresh in colour with all that pink and green and red.

This is a totally different kettle of fish. These cups and plate (it is not a saucer) is made by the for us well know porcelain factory of Maastricht. This is a Dutch company that does not exist anymore. It was situated in the town of Maastricht. This town sits on the border of Belgium and Holland. I had an uncle who worked in that factory in the sixty's.

This is from their childrens range of Little Red Riding Hood. It is such fun. I hope that in a few years my little granddaughter will enjoy it.

For next week I promise some other beautiful cup and saucers.

Three or more candle holders

Despite the fact I hardly ever burn candles, this is because I can't trust the cats around them, it seems I have a lot of candle holders. The ones I show you are not all the ones I have. There is in the house at least another pair of slender wooden ones and a very tall modern single candle holder that I can think of.
The candle holder above is Art Deco in style and was made by a Belgian company called Thulin. I collected some of its ware a while agoo. This range called "Airain " always has the green and black color combination. A very typical Art Deco combination. I like the shape of this piece very much.

This candle holder holds special memory's for me since it was a gift from my late father. He had a friend who was cleaning out his garage and he wanted to trow this candle holder away. My father asked if he could have it because, I think this would be something that my daughter liked, he said. He gave me the candle holder on my next visit and I indeed liked it. I does not do it's job very well. I never have found a candle that would fit the thing so candles always topple over. So this is one never to be used but also never to trow away....

A very cheap wall sconce but I love it. It is modeled on an antique one. You can take the candle away and close the sconce so it will take less place.

Anonther antique Art deco piece. This is from one of my other collections. It is made by the world famous Val saint Lambert crystal factory's in there Luxval depression glass range. It is still a very handsome piece and I love the strong Art deco lines.

This last stately candle holder is one of my price finds in a second hand shop. I was abble to buy it for the equivivalent of 20$. If I wanted I could replate it and it would be very pretty on my table. But I like its shabby chic feel and I will keep it like this.

Thanks for looking. See you next week!

Three or more birdcages...and a babygirls room

Once again it is Tree or more Tuesday hosted by http://gypsycorner.blogspot.com/

Today I showcase the birdcages I have collected in the last few years.

These little vintage birdcages are all the rage in Belgium and Holland for the moment. Everyone thinks they are so decorative. I was charmed by them too so I started my little colletion with the white one on the bottom right. It once was black and is a cage for exhibiting birds in on bird shows. You see them quite often on fleamarkets and so and they are still inexpensive to buy.
The very small one on the bottom was my latest find. I bought it at an brocante fair last year and painted it white to fit the baby room.
The blue one is my favorite. This one I got from a forum friend who also has a small antiques shop. I love this one very much.
First all these little cages where in a corner of my livingroom together with the little nest and the oil painting of the doves. But then I found this light garland with the birds at Ikea and I knew I had to incorporate these with the birdcages to go in the baby's room. I makes a nice feature at night for my granddaughter.

I finally finished my granddaughters room. It took a bit longer then I had planned but I is ready now. It could do with some more finishing touches but it is almost there.
Next to the bird cage wall is the bookcase. I am sad I did not have a vintage bookcase to put here but I had 4 of these Billie bookcases from Ikea in this room before it became Anne-Fleur's room so I had to use at least one of them. For years I have been collecting Pop-Up books and now there is finally a little girl who will for sure enjoy them in the coming years.

Next to the bookcase is a little vintage desk and the chair from my grandmothers kitchen. I still see her sitting on that chair peeling potatoes and so. I also have her kitchen table but that one was to big for this room. I want to paint the little table white I think. This is one of the things I still need to do. If you then turn to your right you then will see the bed my parents bought for me to sleep in when I was a little baby. I painted it a aqua kind of blue and matched it with a quilt that I made myself and some lace Ikea curtains. The old red chair is to be recovered. That is the second thing I still want to do but I am hessitating to do it myself because it is a difficult but beautiful shape. This is one of my better vintage finds. I only paid about 35 dollars for it.To your left under the window, stands this also vintage and very small baby's highchair. I bougth it many years agoo to display the replica porcelain doll's in that I made some 20 years agoo. This one sitting in the chair is the very first and one I made and the only once I made handmade clothes for. The doll sits on one my very first babyquilt. It is more then 20 years old.This delightful metal flowering walllight I bougt from the same lady where I bought the blue birdcage from. It was just perfect for this room.Anne-Fleur's daddy made this drawing when he was 5 or 6 years old. I found it last year when we where clearing our attic out. It fits the room perfectly. Anne-Fleur's room was her daddy's room for almost 25 years !I you turn again, you see the dresser and the shelving unit. The dresser was bought when our daughter was a baby and I will now use it as a changing station. On the shelving unit sit a very special toy. My very special Cotton Rabbit all dressed out in pink with white kitty's on her skirt!

I love her!! Next to the dresser this beautiful hook with a glass flower. I found these last year in a German Ebay store. The thing still missing in this room are my two oilpaintings of my fifties girls. I especially wanted to be in this room but they are nowhere to be found. The lays for years at the same place in my closet and when I wanted to put them up I could not find them anymore.

This is my last birdcage. I think I will move it to the baby's room too. I now resides in the bathroom. This is a very special birdcage for me. My husband and I got it for our silver wedding anniversary. Whe where surprised by this gift until we remover the paper inside the cage. Out came a beautiful bronze statue of two birds on a branch by the famous French animalier sculpter André Vincent Becquerel. I will show it to you next week.

Hope you enjoyed my birdcage and babyroom story's. Until next week and thanks for visiting.

Anne-Fleur's room take 2

As you can see our granddaughters room is still not decorated. I have been busy in the week that my husband was out of the country but it all took much more time then I thought.
Clearing up 4 bookcases full of books, putting them in another place, sorting out the books and putting them back was a big, big job.
The week after my husband came back it was very hot here in Belgium and when it is hot, I can do nothing! I can't stand the heat. Never could, not even when I was young. When everyone was at the beach I was reading a book in our holiday apartment.
So the work stopped for a whole week.
Now the books all have their place and I just need to put one spare bookcase in the cellar.
Today I stripped the brown wallpaper and tomorrow I hope to get the new wallpaper on the wall. I must pull myself together to start because it all makes such a mess.
By the end of next week I want the room to be finished. I just have to keep going on and just do it!
As you can see the bookcase is filled with all childrens books. I have been collecting Pop-up books for years and have over 100. There are also some books from when I was young and some from my children.
I also collected some picturebooks about ....cats.
All those books are in the bookcase so Anne-Fleur can start whenever she 's ready for it!

Why I want to get rid of my husband...for a week!

It is hard to keep up with blogs and blogging. I sometimes wonder how people keep it up. Last week was again a foody week. I will write about that on "Foody Friday". For the moment the special event foodmaking has stopped for a while. Now I am trying to start again with my sewing and decorating.
But first I want to get rid of my husband! He is going to Italy for his job next week. He always complains that I complain a lot about him going away for the job, if only he knew.
I want him out of the way to start om my granddaughter's room. I have it all in my head how I want it. The problem is that just two years agoo we renovated this room,my sons old room, in a library/ tv room (DH) an ironing room for me.
But now it all has to go again and I don't know where to put all the furniture and washing and formost all the books.

We put 4 bookcases in that room, we have 11 in total in the house and now I need to get writ of 3 of them.

And what about DH chair and his tv??? Oh dear, I wished I had another room availible to make Anne-Fleur's room.

I have seen the room in my dreams. I will be all in white and pink and pale blue.I am going a bit fifties vintage to match the old bed I have.
Thirty five years I kept my brothers baby bed in my cellar to have it for my grandchildren if there ever came one. The bed needed some paint and I just managed to paint it when the baby was born but I still have no room ready to put it in. This house needs a laundry room thats for sure!

This is the bed my parents bougth for my brother Jan, who is my junior by one year. So I never slept in this bed. It is now 58 years old.

So what are my plans for next week.
Point 1: Tree bookcases need to go.
Two will go in the upstairs hall but I actually need to paint them so they would fit the decor. But I won't manage that when DH is in Italy since they have to come downstairs for that and that I can't do alone.The fourth will disappair in my cellar unless my daughter changes her mind about having it.
Point 2: The dresser of the upstairs hall needs to go in the baby room to make place for the bookcases and I can use it as a diaper changing station.

Point 3: The 2 ugly pine chest of drawers that are in the baby's room have to move again to the cats room where they first where taken from so I can put the bed on that place.

Point 4: I need to iron a lot of stuff from the baptism , tablecloths mainely and put all the other clean washing in my newly arranged cellar. I hope I can bear it to do my ironing there.
Point 5: Once all the moving is done I can strip the wallpaper (only two years old) to put a pretty PIP wallpaper up. Luckely it is only two small wall and I like wallpapering.

Point 6: I need to repaint one bookcase, a mirror,a small table and a shelving unit.

Point 7:Then the fun bit kicks in. I can dress the room.The room was freshly painted two years agoo so I don't need to redo the painting. All the stuff I want to put in the baby's room are old thing I have for years.There will be nothing new in it exept the changing pad.

This shell I also want to put in Anne-Fleur's baby room.I belonged to my paternal grandmother and I had it in my little girl's room and now I want to put in in my granddaughters room too.

You see why I want to get rid of my husband?? He can't stand manual labour and he can't stand me messing with paint and things.
And I need him to be away so I don't have to cook his dinner or iron his shirts for a whole week and can get on with work exept the time I need to spend on the cats.

Happy Easter tulips

A bit late but still I want you all to have a very nice Easter time.
Easter and tulips for me they go together like peanut butter and jelly.
For these special days I use my Emma Bridgewater , Summer Tulips dinner set. I love the orange and almost black tulips of this design.

This is my Jazzy Tulips quilt.I made it some years agoo but I still love it. It was summer when I made it and I had to buy many yards of fabric before I found the perfect match. One color was always stronger then another one and pushed the other colors out and then I had to buy new fabric but since I bought it online and had to see it in combination with the other colors it took a while before I was pleased with the combinations.

These are my "Ice Tulips". I made them in the same summer as the " Jazzy Tulips" but while the others are all color these are very icey and cool. The tulips look as if they where frozen in time. It would fit my present home decor very well but it resides at my mothers guestroom.

I don't know witch quilt I like best.

Third time lucky Derde keer, goede keer

After painting the kitchen I wanted to tackle the antique pine cabinet in the kitchen. I wanted it to be a pale blue since that was in my eyes the best match with my Emma Bridgewater, "Summer Tulips" dinnerware.

Toen ik eindelijk gedaan had met het verven van de keuken moest ook de antieke dennenhouten keukenkast er aan geloven.
Ik wilde een lichte blauwe kleur voor de kast maar kon helaas niet de juiste tint vinden die ik voor ogen had. De kleur moest niet alleen passen bij de keuken en de open woonkamer maar ook bij het Emma Bridgewater servies "Summer Tulips".

But I could not find the right blue and the very pale blue I did found was to pale once I saw it on the cabinet. You could not see enough differance with the grey and white walls. The inside I had painted in a zinc colour and that looked all right until I put the dinnerware back. OOH what a horror ...it was all wrong.
So I painted the cabinet again with a blue-er paint but even that was not strong enough so I dry painted a bit of grey on it. It looked lovely and a bit shabby chic but... I did not go with the dinnerware...

Maar ik vond maar niet het juiste blauw. Koos uiteindelijk voor een heel stil blauw maar ik zag het meteen als het op de kast zat dat de kleur te licht was en te weinig blauw. Het interieur van de kast had ik zinkkleurig geverft en dat paste prachtig bij de buitenkant tot dat ik het servies erin zette..
Met een restje grijze verf verfde ik met een bijna droge borstel de kast weer over. Het zag er prachtig uit tot het servies weer in de kast kwam te staan. Deze kleur bleek ook niet goed te zijn.






I so love this tulip pattern but at that moment I hated it. It seemed that nothing would go with it . I wished that I never bought it and hesitated a while if I would put it for sale.

But then I decided to give it one more try and I choose a very vibrant pale blue (Blue ground) from Farrow & Ball paints.
I waited a month before it arrived in the store and when I opened the tin I saw that this would be the wrong color too... I was too "Miami" like...But the paint costed almost 50 dollars for the one tin and I bought it especially so on it went...
It became even more vibrant when it was finally dry and it looked allllllllllllllllllll wrong. I could not stand the color. I was in tears by this time... Finally I picked up the tin with the grey color again and dry brushed it with this grey paint and YES...This was it! This was the right color. Once the inside was painted in a warm cream the dinnerware looked amasing in the cabinet.

I hou zo van dit servies en deed er twee jaar over om het bij elkaar gespaard te krijgen maar op dat moment haatte ik het. Heb zelfs een tijd getwijfeld om het te verkopen op Ebay of Marktplaats.

Uiteindelijk richtte ik mij tot de bekende Farrow & Ball verven om de juiste kleur blauw te vinden. Na lang twijfelen koos ik voor de kleur "Blue Ground" en na een maand wachten was de verf eindelijk in de winkel. Maar zo gauw als ik de pot opendeed wist ik dat dit ook verkeerd zat. Ik waande me nl. in Miami, zo sterk was deze zeeblauwe kleur. Maar de pot verf had 36 euro gekost dus ik zette de verf toch maar op de kast. De kleur werd alleen maar intenser na het drogen. NU was ik echt in tranen en zag het echt niet meer zitten. Ten einde raad ben ik weer over de kleur gegaan met een bijna droge borstel en de grijze kleur van de tweede poging en ja, hoor dat was het!! Hoera!!!
Nog even de binnenkant in een warme roomkleur en nu ben ik weer helemaal happy met mijn tulpenservies!!
Het frisse blauw doet het uitstekend in de anders volledige grijs/witte woonkamer en keuken en geeft het een vrolijke toets.

Hallo allemaal... Hello everyone

Ondanks het feit dat ik elders een blogje heb, heb ik besloten hier bij Blogger een nieuwe blog aan te maken en hoop dat er hier meer mensen de weg naar toe vinden.

De thema's die hier aan bod zullen komen zijn oa de katten, waarvan ik er 10 heb, het huis en het inrichten ervan, knutselen allerlei maar quilts in het bijzonder en dan ook koken want dat doe ik erg graag.
Ben van huis uit een creatief mens en dat komt als je en een creatieve moeder hebt en een vader die schilderde en fotografeerde. Sinds mijn trouwen, bijna 35 jaar geleden hebben een enorme hoeveelheid stoffen en andere knutselspullen ons huis overspoelt. Als je dan weet dat ik ook graag met huisinrichting en brocante bezig ben dan kan je begrijpen dat onze kelder van 100 vierkante meter sjokvol staat.
Daar is in de laatste jaren nog de Maine Coon cattery bijgekomen met alle mogelijke benodigdheden daarvoor. Ik kan je vertellen dat tien katten hebben bijna zoveel spullen nodig

als een hele klas met kinderen.

I had a blog somewhere else but decided to create a new blog with Blogger and hope that more people will find there way to this blog.
A lot of the entry's will feature cats, I have ten, quilts, my house and cooking.

Since I got married almost 35 years agoo, our house has been steadely filled with a lot of fabrics and a lot of antiques and since I love decorating the house the 100 quare meter cellar is full to the brim with lots of things. I think I got that creative spirit from my parents since my mother was a seamstress and my father was painting and making pictures.

In the last 3 years I added a Maine Coon cattery to our

house and I can tell you that 10 cats need as much then a whole class of kids.