I love anything to do with tea, I am an avid ice tea drinker but I love to use my tea cups for flavored teas or even cocoa. I think I posted before that I have collected tea cups and saucers for a long time. I even made the Teacup Bird Feeder about 5 years ago. At one time my hubby cut the tea cups in half, I glued them to a piece of framed board and decorated with dried flowers. A young man I use to work with told me about his mom's idea about teacups. She is an inspirational speaker and writes beautiful short stories. She attaches them to the tea cup and saucer - www.teacuptraditions.com. If I ever decide to open a shop I would certainly keep it simple and concentrate more on the different teas. I love decorating cakes, cookies, etc., but I don't like the actual baking. I have lots of ideas on the decorating and reading all the posts on this site sure makes it tempting - but I took an early retirement last June and it is scarey thinking about getting up every morning and going off to work again. The only thing that would make it right is if you really love what you are doing. I love the name, Kathleen. I once thought about "The Copper Kettle" (my mom had a copper tea kettle once). It sure is nice to day dream about all the good times you would have with your friends. At my gift shop years ago, we loved sitting on the front porch swinging - lots of times the hubby's would sit there while the wives shopped. BEBE

Jane, The question about the elements is a good one. I'm not sure how long they'll last. They do sit under our patio overhang. (You can see just a bit of it in the fourth picture.) They aren't close to sprinklers, so that shouldn't be a problem, although the smaller beverage center could get splashed on by ricocheting raindrops, so it would need to be pulled deeper into the covered area when the rains start up again. We have a pretty long dry season here in Southern California. We'll just have to see how long they last. I'm thinking they'll have to last about four seasons to justify the money! Although I'm not so sure about that. I may have already gotten my money's worth. The real fun is in the making - perhaps even more than in the using! I wish I could take credit for the original idea, but as I mentioned in the beginning, someone named Becky at Organization Made Fun posted the idea on her blog. She made a buffet from her son's old dresser and painted a very nice looking monogram on the top.

Hi there, I finally got back!!! Thank you sooooooo much Sandi for posting the younglets picture!! You are GREAT!! Thanks all for the compliments...she is for sure a sweetie!! LOL and thank you for the dishes Jim, I know she will love them! ;^) Baby's name is Ella, she was named after my Grandmother!! I know that Gram Ella is smiling from ear to ear....she and my Mom will be baby Ella's guardian angels!

Many manufacturers of dinnerware with non-English sounding names - like Pfaltzgraff, Mikasa, Dansk, etc., misleadingly put on a facade of being elegant foreign brands but in fact are US companies and always have been. For many years, companies like these and other well known names as Lenox manufactured their products in the US and in higher-quality foreign locations. Today, I believe all the US factories for these up-market lines have long since closed. Most production is sourced from lower cost and lower quality locations like China. China has had a few too many incidents of contaminated or adulterated products to suit my taste. It's a funny irony because of the name, I prefer not to buy china from China. For those of you getting replacement pieces for old sets, what you buy today may be from a different factory even if the same pattern. Friends have told me of having some success in finding "old" stuff at replacements.com.