Getting Ready for Etsy to Arrive + School's Back In Session ~

Since school is back in session so is transferware edification but because I am one of the cool teachers that allows you to eat and drink in my class, go grab yourself a cup of coffee, tea, soda or alcohol (not too much now)...whatever it is that pleases your palate before we begin. 

As I've been readying myself by crying, saying prayers of thanks, pulling plates, stressing, saying prayers of thanks, smiling without realizing it, hanging plates, losing sleep, cleaning, acting giddy, saying more prayers of thanks, trying real hard not to clean and organize my packing area as instructed, brushing up on transferware facts and repeating the aforementioned for Etsy to be here filming next week I had to put my coffee table back together as I'd been in the process of rearranging it when all of this came about.  Everything that had been on the table has been on my living room floor for days. 

Tara Young told me in a message yesterday that Etsy will be pitching my story to some other big publications and blogs hoping they might pick it up as well and I kinda freaked...more than I am already.  I'm scared.  I had a mini breakdown, which I could feel coming on, and called my sister-n-law, Monica, in tears and I am NOT a phone person.  She is the writer, aka scapegoat,  I mentioned before who suggested that I blog in the first place.    If you know me, then you know how seldom it is that I pick up the phone...for anyone or anything.  Call it a character flaw, of which I have so many, but I am just not into phones.  Wouldn't you know my luck, she didn't answer hers this time!     I proceeded then to call my sister, Lauri, who, baby step by baby step, walked this here preK student through her camera settings in order to take some high resolution photos that Monica requested for a local press release.  I have never claimed to be a photographer and I know very little of camera terms and language...and yet...I blog?
 Note to self:  take a photography class or better yet, call someone like Brenda from Cozy Little House and beg her to teach you how to use your camera. 

  So I had a bit of a meltdown with everything happening so fast and trying to figure out how to get high res photos.   Turns out I just had to change a little camera setting, but like I said I don't know the lingo so it seemed like a monumental task.  I hate taking pictures of myself (hence the reason you never see them of me on here), but when I do I want it to be decent at least...especially if someone is going to see it.  

 Trevor and Ashton took some pics of me yesterday after school and here's the one I went with.  I like the transferware in the background. =)

As I mentioned, I was in the process of rearranging my coffee table.  Honestly, I usually get something the way I like it to begin with and then leave it alone.   Blogging, however,  has made me rethink some of that because of needing to stage so many things so  often.   I tend now to shuffle things around a bit more than I would ever have done before.   I have had a few dishes, transferware of course, that make great bases for some cloche's, such as this one.  So, today, my fine students, as I was topping this piece with a cloche I thought that a lot of you may not or do not know what this is.  Class, am I correct?  Has anyone ever seen such a dish?

Any guesses as to what this might be?

I have a couple of them, one is for sale in my English Transferware shop.  Both are antique and both are by Spode.  The one I am showing today is in the pattern Rural Scenes.  The artwork is by Edward Duncan and was commissioned by the Copeland family (partners and then owners of Spode) who retained a set of this dinner service in their private collection.  
Read that post HERE 
 This one has a hops border and one of the pastoral scenes with cattle, for which I have such an affinity.

It matches my meat drainer that some of my doggies trample over on a regular basis.

See?

Well, if you don't know already, this piece is called a food warmer or plate warmer.  Each of these came with a stopper, some of which are cork, some metal and this one; a ceramic stopper which I think makes it a little more unusual and quite pretty if you ask me.   The point is to remove the stopper and fill the dish with very warm water.  These clever dishes were first invented by Wedgwood around 1770 and were used to keep food warm at the table, or to deliver food a good distance from the kitchen, usually to someone ill. 

  
So that's the lesson for today...but you're not dismissed just yet.  Now that we got the boring learning out of the way lets get on to exciting decorating.

What to put under the cloche?

This book?  The only reason I bought this was for a display...I used to tell the kids when they were little that it contained all of our family rules in it.  

Should I pair it with my Poetry game cards you all saw HERE and a single rose?

Maybe only the game of Poems with a small vase?

Or...how about some pinecones to celebrate the season?

Which is your favorite?

Seems like a long post for such a short lesson but I wanted to get this in because the next few days I don't know how much I'll be around to blog though I am going to try to as I feel that need to get things out of me and I've got lots to share and tell you...like where I was and how I took the call from Beth Levison.  It was not a place one ordinarily takes one of the most important phone calls of ones career life!  And, NO, I was not in the bathroom.

Now, off to do more preparing and get some orders out to you all.  This is how my entryway looks a lot. These are the shipments going out today.  Think of all that yummy transferware in these boxes! 

And lastly, a verse sent to me from a client / reader, Linda.  I hope she will let me share her story sometime.  
We all have a story, don't we?

Philippians 4:8

Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable — if there is any moral excellence and if there is any praise — dwell on these things.

Joining:
Cozy Little House 
Between Naps on the Porch
Savvy Southern Style
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
A Stroll Thru Life