BLUE MONDAY: DISHES & BEACH HOUSES

For Blue Monday I am offering more china that I have collected in blue and white. I hope this is not getting monotonous! I do think I am finished with this phase other than adding some missing pieces. All my blue and white dishes were found at antique shops here in Chicago and in Michigan, where we have the lake house. I am going to keep all of them there as soon as I have a "home" for them (I am looking for a pine table and hutch to match our harvest table in the Great Room.)
Above is a partial set I found at an antique store in Chicago just a few weeks ago. It just opened. It is very cool, has a lot of furniture that can be rehabbed, so I will probably visit often. I love to pick up old tables and chairs and play with them. The chair these pieces are sitting on is from this shop and it is already painted but I am going to varnish and distress it and maybe put it somewhere in my English Garden at the cottage. The dishes are Wedgwood. I have service for eight minus the salad plates. If I can't find them at Replacements.com. I might just have to use glass or crystal.

This piece of china is from Johann Haviland, Bavaria, Germany. I found this in Elkhart, Indiana. I bought the whole set for $60.00 minus the bowls. The dealer said they were from the 1950's. Someone later told me that pieces were given away as a promotional deal at gas stations when you filled your tank up! Whoa, that took away a little of my enthusiasm. But when I looked them up on Replacements. com., the bowls were $26.00 per piece, so I think they might have a little value. About 2 years after I bought them my mother in laws daughter saw them and said her mother's wedding china was another pattern from Johann Haviland, so they now have such sentimental value. Papa still keeps them in their china cabinet and I wish had known this before she died, she would have liked that little tie we shared.

I mentioned before that I had ordered some pictures for my newly painted blue master bedroom at the lake. I am trying to give the room an open, airy, beachy feel. When I saw this set in AllPosters.com (where I bought the bird pictures shown on Blue Monday two post ago), I just knew they were perfect. This blue picture is just so sweet. I am sorry about my flash. Promise I will read my camera instruction booklet!! :-)

This is a close up. The beach house makes me think of something in the Bahamas. I just get that feeling. The artist has another series of birds (and everybody should know by now that Blondie is infatuated with all things birdie!), so I may go back to have a look. When I go to AllPosters.com I have learned to narrow down my subject and also narrow it down to framed art as it is so reasonable compared to matting & framing yourself. I had these framed in black because I want to have some black and white photos pictures in the room just to break up all the pastel.

This is the pair. The yellow beach house is just as whimsical, but since it is not Yellow Monday I didn't zoom in close!

I think you all would like the things at Allposters.com. It is really worth a look. I am very fussy with the art work on my walls and would rather have nothing than put up something I didn't love. The Husband is very happy the walls are no longer bare!

Be sure to visit Smiling Sally for all imaginable things blue!!

xoxo

Janie