HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

October has been an awful month around here with my dear Mom having had 4 more strokes, and each one leaves her more debilitated, she is stable for the moment so I thought I would quickly put up a Halloween post. Between crisis's I managed to attend a lovely Chatty Tea at my friend Loretta's (AKA Martha Stewart of the North). We had a lovely afternoon and once again she outdid herself with lovely decor, goodies and friendship.

 The table was so beautifully set!

 Loretta's Bleuettes, Zoe, Yvette Marie and Robinette were on hand and all dressed up for the occasion!

 My Chatty's joined Loretta's Chatty and her darling American Girl on the side table.

 Every picture has a story and this one is good, this is Leona, she has a darling hat on her head, blow up the picture big and you will see it better, attached to the hat is a cute tiny little doll, Leona thought Loretta had picked it up at the local dollar store...little did she know it is a hand made doll for Loretta's doll house that is very valuable....Leona was glad she hadn't sewn or stapled her onto the hat!

 This is us at the table but alas, I don't have a picture of the hostess as she took this one...she later managed to program her camera to take a photo of all of us but I don't know how to do that on my camera so no picture of the one who did all the work...sigh

 This is Loretta's Mom Susie, she is holding her very own childhood doll that now lives at Loretta's house...how neat is this? The doll looks brand new...

 The Chatty on the left is Loretta's childhood doll Catherine that she received for Christmas when she was just 4 years old! The other two girls are my girls and one was from Ebay and the other I found on Craig's list recently. I bought both from their original owners, so the pigtail is Chatty Barb and the blonde on the right is Chatty Heather in honor of their original little mama's

And here is Robert, once again he arrived home to no dinner as we got carried away and time marched on much too quickly! He is relaxing with our tea party "Queen"  Kelsie...Kelsie has her Halloween collar decoration on and is not terribly impressed by it...lol

Bella's New Apron:

This is my little Ruby Red Galleria resin Bleuette that I have named Bella. Today I made her a little apron for Halloween from an LSDS pattern at the Bleu Door pattern portal. This pattern is 1912, #33 and was quite simple to make. My concentration levels are not so good these days so simple and easy is about all I can handle. I was happy to finally be able to take a little time and sew something, I find I have missed it.

Getting Ready for Halloween!

I see I have been very bad about blogging recently, that darned life keeps getting in the way, it is not that I have nothing to say but I just don't seem to get it said lately. Today I met Loretta at the mall and we browsed the stores and had fun looking at all kinds of neat Halloween stuff, from chocolate to aprons! We hope to get together more often in the future at the mall, we always seem to have a lot to talk about and the time goes by so quickly!

 This display reminds me of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, I wish I had a big enough house to do displays like this...or maybe on second thought I don't, I don't need anything else to dust! I will just trek to the stores to look!

 Darling aprons with cute sayings on them, I don't wear aprons but might just make an exception for one of these cute ones!

 Very whimsical, not sure if they are witches or pumpkins or a combination of both but they sure are cute!

 I am quite sure the picture below is of me....or not, she is smiling and that isn't me of late!

However...chocolate tends to make one smile...especially chocolate that looks like eyeballs, feeling quite ghoulish tonight I think:) The brown chocolate things are like peanut butter cups....Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory style...decadent.....don't ask how I know this....

 Rocky Mountain makes the cutest candy apples and their front window is always a joy to browse to see what new concoctions they have come up with, and today was no exception! Click on the pictures and I think they will supersize and you can see them better!

 Gobble, Gobble, it is getting close to turkey time in Canada as our Thanksgiving is October 8th this year....Rocky Mountain has designed some perfect chocolate treats to celebrate the occasion!

Ahhh....the last picture is the scariest of all....3 witches...boo!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CANADA - 145 YEARS!

Happy Birthday to Canada! I went to Burnaby Village Museum to celebrate Canada Day and had a lovely time! The museum has free admission all summer!

This is one of the several cakes that was served at 2:30 to the first 1500 people in the VERY long line that snaked everywhere!

One of the groups entertaining, this was a singing group and they were very nice to listen to!

Lunch time, num, bbq'd hotdogs and hamburgers were available to purchase and our hot dog was delicious!

Look very carefully...someone is standing on the fence!

 Oh my, standing on a roof, what a view!

 There was a parade and after all the people who participated gathered and there was a speech

 Out front of the museum

 The wind was blowing so hard the flag became her dress!

 A very neat looking car in the parking lot

We started with the fabulous cake and we will end with another shot! Happy Canada Day Everyone!

A ROYAL TEA IN HONOR OF QUEEN ELIZABETH'S DIAMOND JUBILEE

Our friend Isabelle invited Loretta and I to a Royal tea today in honor of Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee. As we live in Canada, we are a commonwealth country so we like to celebrate occasions that are celebrated in Britain! Isabelle really knows how to throw a British style tea, she and her hubby phoned to order and then drove to the British tea shop in Chilliwack, BC and bought real, authentic British tea things including Devon-shire creme for the scones, and cheese tarts and sausage rolls. Loretta made a sponge cake from scratch and put it together once we got there layering fruit and whipped creme and sprinkling on icing sugar on the top then added a darling stand up cake decorating set she had ordered from the UK. It turned out wonderful! I took Scottish shortbread and Isabelle had made a delicious square and she had cookies as well...there was sooo much food!!

Isabelle has enough memorabilia to open a British museum, everywhere we looked she had more treasures out on display! She has books and magazines and spoon collections and plate collections and wonderful china, we ate on and had tea in 1939 Royal Albert china called “Loyalty” by Royal Albert, and which was made to commemorate the visit of their Majesties, King George VI and his wife, Elizabeth in 1939.

Thanks Isabelle for being such a fabulous hostess! I had a wonderful time! I took my little Bleuette named Madeline along in her new "Royal" dress with sparkly pink crowns scattered over it, Loretta took her little resin Bleuette Robinette along with her new "Royal" dress on and they were happy to meet Isabelle's little Ada Matilda who was wearing a dress straight from England that Isabelle had a member of our Bleuette group make for her!

 Some of Isabelle's collection of magazines and books on Royalty

 Baby Diana, William and Kate and Baby William, a Royal spoon collection on the wall behind!

 Isabelle's china she has collected through the years commemorating various Royal milestones. 

 Princess Diana plate collection (if you look really carefully or bring the picture up large, you will see Isabelle's Dionne Quintuplets on the first shelf behind the glass)

 Whoops, Ada Matilda borrowed Princess Diana's crown for the occasion! But here is Princess Diana and her famous ring!

 The train on this dress goes on for several feet! It is huge!

 Baby Diana

 Baby William

 Assembling the sponge cake!

 punching out the pieces for the cake decorating set!

 TaaDaa! Loretta's Masterpiece!

 The tea table, num

 Isabelle, our gracious hostess!

The 1939 Royal Albert china!

 Loretta, Isabelle and I

 The Bleuettes clambering for a piece of cake! Loretta made the darling little British shopping bags so the girls can go shopping for treasures together!

 Isabelle's Antiques, aren't they gorgeous? The one below is stunning, I loved her gorgeous face! Look at her fox stole around her neck! I remember my Gramma having a coat with something similar on it!

 The doll room!

Isabelle's sweet little Bambino in her darling bed!

Isabelle gave us each this lovely paper doll set and the Bleuette's received a silver tea pot that was used to place seating cards!

 The Royal commemorative tea tin I took to Isabelle for hosting and hoping she didn't already own it!

Isabelle has this darling bear on her door step to welcome you to her home, we later found out her hubby Walt is the craftsman who is making these darling greeters and he has quite a little home business going as people love the Bears!