Happy Holidays From Under The Plum Blossom Tree & Vintage Tea Treasures

Dear Family and Friends,

It is so wonderful that this year, tonight is both Christmas Eve and also the beginning of Hanukkah. No matter what holiday you observe, we here at Under The Plum Blossom Tree and Vintage Tea Treasures wish you a peaceful, joy-filled celebration.

I would also like to extend my deep gratitude to those of you that have taken the time to read this blog and/or visit the Etsy shop, Vintage Tea Treasures.

Here's to a fabulous 2017!

Vintage Tea Treasures: An Etsy Shop Update

Hello Friends! Tea and cake is a timeless tradition. Equally timeless are the one of a kind vintage and antique tea treasures you can find in my Etsy shop, Vintage Tea Treasures. Here's a quick update on a few of the holiday themes and colors currently for sale over there:

Collecting vintage can be especially fun when you not only mix and match your pieces, but repurpose as well. The antique Spode transferware 10 3/4" plate, pictured above center, was originally a dinner plate, but it also makes an attractive serving plate for a 6" holiday chocolate cake.

Tea and cake, or maybe tea and cookies - either way, the whimsical pair of Viktor Schreckengost Christmas Eve snack plate and tea cup sets, to the left and right of the Spode plate, are sure to please children of all ages!

Lastly, a unique cube-shaped 'M8 26' teapot, made in USA, featuring a lovely poinsettia-spray decal and an Asian inspired natural woven rattan handle. A lovely addition to a holiday vintage tea party. With a capacity of 40 ounces, you'll be able to make about six 6 oz. cups of tea. Just $15.00 plus shipping. [Update 12/17/16 - SOLD]

For all the descriptive details, prices and shipping information on these and other distinctive items for sale, visit Vintage Tea Treasures on Etsy!

Thank you for stopping by!

Vintage Finds: Christmas Bits and Bobs

Hi Friends! Where has the time gone? I intended to share a few of my latest Vintage Finds last month, but November slipped by and I never got the chance.

Now that it's December, I'm excited because it's that time of year when the volunteers at my favorite local charity shop, Assistance League of Eugene, have stocked their shelves with loads of holiday decor, including some fun vintage Christmas bits and bobs. Also, every December the Assistance League sells tickets to their exclusive holiday event, giving its patrons a chance to shop the newly stocked holiday merchandise before the general public. And the best part, of course, is that the Assistance League serves children in need through several philanthropic programs, such as Operation School Bell, Children's Dental Center, and Operation Heritage.

So here's a quick post with the items I've found so far:

The star of the show in this vignette is the stylized holly teacup and saucer. What a wild thing, right? I love the unusual texture and the dark green color - a quintessentially 1950s shade. Unfortunately there is not much information about who made it. The saucer has a 'U.S.A.' incised stamp and the bottom of the teacup is stamped '1363' in ink. This set will definitely be showing up in my Instagram feed soon! Laying on the saucer is a '50s Lauffer teaspoon made in Norway. It features a classic midcentury modern design coupled with a primitive style wood handle. This spoon is part of a cutlery set which has not only the usual knife, fork and teaspoon, but also salad forks and soup spoons.   

The pair of colorful birds and the 'snowgirl' in the yellow dress are tree ornaments made in Japan. Each of the three ornaments shown has a hard plastic body covered with a stiff colored fabric. The feathers and eyes of the birds are made of felt that has been pieced together and glued on, and their beaks are a hard plastic, also glued into place. The dress and orange hat of the snowgirl are also made of felt, plus she has a cute pink pearl nose and painted-on eyelashes. I love how little ornaments such as these have a very homemade look and no doubt, a lot of handwork was involved in their making.

The glass ball ornaments were all made in USA except for the little pink one on the bottom left, which was made in Japan. Here's a cleaning tip about these old relics: to remove dust, dirt and other debris, very gently wipe them with a soft dry cotton cloth only! I learned the hard way that if you try to clean these with a wet sponge, you may actually remove the painted finish!

And lastly, two decorative dishes: The jolly Santa with the friendly eyes is a Josephs Originals, made in Korea. The leaf shaped dish on the right, featuring a child dressed in a festive red outfit carrying sprigs of holly, is a hand painted soap dish, made by Lefton China, in Japan.

Oh, and if you are wondering about the three paper fans, I got them at Target last week. Definitely not vintage! I enjoy mixing vintage and modern. 

As always, thanks for stopping by, and I'll see you next time, for more Vintage Finds!

#collectandstyle - November Monthly Favorite

Hello everyone, and thank you for visiting Under The Plum Blossom Tree blog! I'm so excited that you're here, and thrilled to introduce you to this month's #collectandstyle Monthly Favorite: Andy of oandystudio!

As you can tell from the image above, Andrea Brinkley is both a collector of vintage blue and white china ware, and also a master fiber artist. Andrea creates one-of-a-kind hand embroidered wool art, or 'stitch painting' as she likes to call it, featuring botanicals and flowers.

She had posted an image at #collectandstyle a few months ago of a very unique blue and white teacup and saucer set that she had given to her mom when Andy was fourteen. I immediately was taken by how she had connected a lovely story from her past, to her current love of collecting blue and white china:

Since that time, I've enjoyed seeing more of Andy's images of her beautifully styled blue and white china ware, along with her delicious looking French tarts, flowers, and the landscape and scenery surrounding her adopted town in North Carolina (Andy is from South Africa). Then, I noticed a shift in focus, and with this image, Andy began talking about how she is intentionally working at fulfilling a creative dream:

When Andy posted the above image, she wrote:

"For several years I've been writing down ideas and aspirations in my Big Ideas notebook. I have let many interruptions (big ones like illness and a wedding and small ones too mundane to mention) delay my goals. With much prodding, love and encouragement, I am happy to say I've been making a good start lately. I'll be sure to keep you posted."

And in just the past couple of months, BOOM! - Andy opened her Etsy shop, oandystudio, and has been hard at work, stocking it full of her gorgeous original hoop embroidery designs such as the first image you saw at the top of this post.

Do you find this story inspiring? Do you have a creative dream? My feeling is that for all of us women in the creative community, there is a lot of value in watching another's dream come true. It can inspire us to take up challenges we have set for ourselves, to inspire others, and to work to lift one another up.

I plan on continuing to follow Andy on her creative adventures, both on Instagram and on Etsy and I hope you will too! You can also find Andy on her website oandystudio.com, and on Facebook.

And don't forget, if you are looking for a unique gift for someone special (or for yourself!), I'm sure Andy would be happy to help you choose just the right hoop embroidered floral or botanical wool art piece, lovingly handmade in North Carolina!

Thank you for joining me for the #collectandstyle November Monthly Favorite! And if you would like to know more, and how to join in on all of the fun, please visit my blog post, Collect And Style, A New Instagram Hashtag, right here at Under The Plum Blossom Tree.

Portland Japanese Garden

As the days here in the Willamette Valley of Oregon passed from late summer into early autumn, the leaves on the trees in our yard and in our town began to turn from bright green to tinges of yellow. Then, mid autumn came, with its brightly colored orange, gold and red tones, and the change in season brought with it an enthusiastic desire for adventure.

The Portland Japanese Garden, with its spectacular display of autumnal colors, quiet inviting mood and powerful meditative symbolism, was the destination of choice for James and I on a recent Saturday. The Flat Garden, or hira niwa, shown above, is one of five garden areas in the 5.5 acre park, located within Washington Park.

The Flat Garden is a dry landscape style garden, where the design is a purposeful balance between the ground plane and the volume of stones and clipped shrubbery, creating a sense of depth of space. This living sculpture features a sea of raked sand which suggests water, while mountains and hills are depicted in the shapes of azalea shrubs.

Through a series of extended pathways, one can meander throughout the entire park, viewing the various stone, water and plant elements in all their glorious landscape-style interpretations.

So join us for a moment and catch a glimpse into this magnificent garden, proclaimed by His Excellency Nobuo Matsunaga, former Ambassador of Japan to the United States, "the most beautiful and authentic Japanese garden in the world outside of Japan."

One of the first sights to behold when entering the park is an antique 5-tiered stone pagoda lantern that was given to the city of Portland by its sister city Sapporo, Japan.

And in the Lower Pond area of the Strolling Pond Garden, or chisen kaiya shiki niwa, are a pair of stone cranes, symbols of longevity.

  
A ceremonial Tea House, called Kashin-Tei, or Flower Heart House, is located in the Tea Garden and was created in Japan by master craftsmen using wooden pegs in the traditional Japanese style, and reassembled at the Portland Japanese Garden.

There are at least two machiai style meditation shelters - this one was near Kashin-Tei.

And of course a blazing Japanese Maple tree just beginning to lose its autumnal leaves.

Another stone lantern. This one was next to another machiai shelter.

It was a surprise to see this beautiful 'living topography' sculpture by Anne Crumpacker.

Ponds, streams, and waterfalls all play a significant role in the Japanese garden. Another type of water feature is the water filled basin. The first one shown below is mechanical in that when a section of the lower bamboo piece on the right gets filled with water from the higher bamboo stalk on the left, the weight of the water pulls it down and it then releases the collected water, after which it quickly springs back up into its original position.

Zoki no niwa, or the Natural Garden, is an informal garden with streams that meander under small bridges. James is standing on one of them while he concentrates on his photography, in this case taking a picture as I walked over a stone path bridge.

A leaf composition taken in the Natural Garden.

And one more stone lantern.

Karesansui, or Sand and Stone Garden is another example of the dry landscape garden style, expressing the beauty of blank space, or yohaku no bi. Weathered stones rise up from a bed of sand raked to suggest the sea.

Also featured along one wall of the Sand and Stone garden is a lovely stand of bamboo.

From this vantage point, as James and I stood under a Japanese Maple at the Pavilion Gallery, we could see Mt Hood, which in this setting is very reminiscent of Mt Fuji, in the distance.

As we walked back to see the antique 5-tiered pagoda one more time before leaving, this striking scene caught my eye.

Our last stop was the gift shop, where I was taken with how the colors of this koi banner hanging just outside of the shop were delightfully similar to the colors in the leaves of the trees behind it.

  
Thank you for strolling along these beautiful and intriguing garden paths in the Portland Japanese Garden with me. To see even more beautiful images of our day in this wonderful setting, you may like to go to James' blog, Origami Night Lamp.

Oh, and one last thing! One of the highlights of the Lower Pond is to stand on the Zig Zag Bridge and watch as graceful koi swim to and fro - a beautiful and mesmerizing sight to behold!

Vintage Tea Treasures: An Etsy Shop Update

Hello everyone! Just a quick post to bring you up to date on the latest vintage and antique items listed in my Etsy shop Vintage Tea Treasures.

• Four antique W.T. Copeland & Sons 'Abbey Ruins' transferware teacup and saucer sets.

• A vintage Price Bros octagon-shaped teapot with a painted gold lustre grapevine leaf pattern and gold gilded trim.

• Antique Tressemann & Vogt (T & V) France Limoges white teacups with gold trim and gold painted handles and feet. Shown are two of four available. I also have six of the exact same teacup marked CFH GDM (Haviland), for a total of ten gorgeous Victorian era teacups!

If you have a desire to own some pretty vintage or antique tableware for the upcoming holidays or are looking for a gift for someone special, perhaps you'd enjoy visiting Vintage Tea Treasures at Etsy, where you can find all the details about the above items, and see even more 'Classic Teatime China Ware' listed for sale.

Thank you, and have a wonderful week!

  

Urban Foraged Autumn Apple Pie

There was a time in America when small towns were just that - small. These were rural places surrounded by farms which fed their communities, and where those that lived in town would have gardens on their properties and in their backyards. If someone wanted to make an apple pie, all you would have to do is walk outside to your field or garden, pick some apples, and make a pie.

Of course we all know how that all changed with industrialization, and how those small towns turned into small cities and then into even larger cities that become unrecognizable to anyone born and raised in the earlier, semi-rural environments. The farms became housing developments and shopping centers, and the backyard gardens went by the wayside.

I live in such a city.

But there are places around our city where remnants of that old way of life are still visible. We may be driving somewhere and pass an open field, and just by the placement of a group of trees, it's obvious that there used to be a farmhouse tucked amongst those trees. Sometimes we'll see traces of an old house foundation surrounded by a large field, or even houses completely caved in and nearly swallowed up by blackberry vines!

A few weeks ago James and I were driving in a part of town we hardly ever go to, and as we passed by a shopping center, my eyes lit up! There it was - an old green apple tree, long forgotten, growing right on the fence line between a parking lot and an old farmhouse.

I convinced James that we had to turn around and go check out that apple tree. And sure enough there were ripe apples just falling off the tree. James found a grocery bag in the car and there I was in high heels and a skirt, shuffling through layers of ivy growing all around the base of the tree, picking apples. James held the bag for me and also helped me pick the apples. 

I don't know why, but sour green apples from old trees make the best pies.

And the best pie crust is made with butter. My favorite pie crust recipe is this Pate Brisee from Martha Stewart.

For the filling, peel, then cut tart green apples into bite sized pieces and add a small amount of sugar - about 1/4 cup, and a lot of cinnamon! A sure fire way to know the right quantity of apples to use is to put the cut apple pieces into an empty pie pan until you've filled it a bit over the brim. Remove them from the pie pan and place in a bowl. Add the sugar and cinnamon and toss to combine. Roll out your chilled pie dough and place in the pie pan. Add the apples. Fancy up your top crust and bake for 40 minutes to an hour at 350 degrees.

Let cool and then, dig in and enjoy!