My Tiny Teapots

I hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend.

Here at the Treehouse, we had our first barbecue.

My husband grilled some delicious steaks and it sure was a nice treat!

I spent a few years in England, back in the 90's. I lived in Windsor, England. 

Windsor is one of England's premier tourist and weekend break destinations. 

It has many attractions, shops, pubs, restaurants, nightclubs and historic buildings.

Windsor has a population of over 31,000 people and is situated beside the river Thames in Berkshire and is arguably one of Berkshire's prettiest towns. 

Home to the Queen of England, Windsor has the largest permanently lived in castle in the world. 

With Eton and the famous Eton college (both Prince William and Prince Harry attended Eton), which is just a short walk over the river Thames, it has more than enough to justify a few days sightseeing, especially if you want to use Windsor as a base for visiting London.

I absolutely love Windsor and that is when I lived there, that I started my collection of tiny teapots. 

I remember browsing through the little shops by the castle and a particular one had the Paul Cardew teapots. 

They were so precious, I was hooked. 

So I started collecting them. 

Today, I would like to show them to you. 

They were wrapped and boxed for the longest time. Moving to a new home made me rediscover them and fall in love with them again. 

The Paul Cardew "tiny teapots" collection is a retired collection that was manufactured in the 90's. 

Each one of those teapots are about 2" high.

The Vintage Refrigerator

Paul Cardew is a world renowned ceramic designer/potter and he is famous for his amazing collection of limited edition teapots sold all over the world.

The Vintage Stove

The Safe

The Bedside Table

The Christmas Tree

The Victorian Tea Table

The Teddy Bear's Picnic

The Washstand

The Washing Machine

The Washing Mangle

The Christmas Presents

The Kitchen Table

The Toy Box

Santa Claus

The Welsh Dresser

 This one is unfortunately missing a little piece. I remember putting it away somewhere, not having any super glue at the time. Hopefully, I will find it again.

The Kitchen Sink

And here they are, all together. 

16 of them! 

I love my tiny teapots.

It is not the complete collection and I would love to find other ones that I am missing. 

I will let you know if I do.

I decided to put them in our kitchen hutch.

For those of you who are interested, here is some information about Paul Cardew.

From an early age, it was obvious that Paul Cardew founder of the company Cardew Design, would have artistic tendencies.

Whether as an eight year old when he first picked up crayons, paints and brushes, and was encouraged to explore his talents by Michael Cardew, his great uncle and renowned ceramic designer, or when he later attended the art school at the prestigious Loughborough University in the heart of England, majoring in photography.

Paul first began teaching art part-time at Exeter University where he had time to develop his skills.

Paul Cardew's first two commercial breakthroughs came when he was asked to design ceramic brooches for Harrods Department store in London and then children’s piggy banks for The National Westminster Bank. Both proved highly successful commissions.

In 1975 Paul launched a range of unusual teapot designs at the Birmingham Spring Fair, then the largest gift show in Europe.

Building on many years of growth, in 1991 the company, Cardew Design, was formed in the United Kingdom.

His work was first shown in the USA in 1992 at the New York Gift Show and his designs had an instant appeal to the North American marketplace.

During the 90’s Paul Cardew designed for a number of famous brands under license- Portmeirion, Royal Doulton, Lilliput Lane, Harmony Kingdom- to name but a few. But his greatest claim was an association with The Walt Disney Company, with over one hundred designs perfected during a six year period…launching Paul on to the world’s stage.

Roy Disney selected Paul Cardew as one of only a few artists worldwide to design special products for Disney’s Millennium reproduction of the Fantasia Cartoon. Paul was invited to attend the movies premier at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

In 1999 Cardew Design North America Inc. was formed to expand and increase business primarily in the US and Canada. Since then, Paul’s designs have now sold in over 50 countries, delighting people all over the world. Many of his old designs are now antiques and are featured in auctions wherever ceramic art and teapots turn up.

In February 2008 Cardew Design North America acquired the international rights to the Cardew name and trade marks.

Today Paul Cardew continues to create even more interesting designs appealing to the ever changing tastes of the discerning consumer.

2014, the Company continues to produce over 150 items in 25 unique designs.

Thanks for stopping by!

Alexandra

New Things, New Places

I hope you all had a good week and a wonderful Mother's Day.

I sure did and I am so thankful to have such an amazing little boy! 

I took our son to Color me Mine, last week. 

Color me Mine is a fun place to visit. You can find their studios all over the country and even abroad.  

You pick a pottery and paint it. They will then fire it, varnish it and you pick it up a few days later. 

I just love this place! Children and adults alike can be really creative and have a good time, there. 

Babies are welcome and the staff is always super friendly and helpful. They will help you get that perfect baby handprint, that you will cherish for ever. 

James "made" me this beautiful vase, this year.

I love my little artist!

Last year, we also went there for my first Mother's Day. 

Here is a photo of my first piece, a heart-shaped jewelry box.

Last time, I told you we were going couch hunting that afternoon. My sister-in-law and mum-in-law came along and we sure had a good time. 

We found a couch that we really liked. Our old one was kind of too big and we wanted one that would work better, in our mid-century home.

Here it is! What do you think?

We also traded our black baby grand piano with a brown wooden upright piano. It also fits better in our new house. 

We were a little sad to see it go, but we soon fell in love with this upright. 

We were pleased to find one of the same year and make. This particular Yamaha piano was made in America, which they do not do anymore.

We even got some cash back!

Our baby grand in our old home.

One of my sisters visited from Paris last week, so we decided to go and check out the Americana at Brand in Glendale. 

The Americana is a large outdoor shopping center, which is owned and operated by Rick J. Caruso and his company Caruso Affiliated.

The Grove (also owned and operated by Caruso Affiliated), has been our favorite shopping mall for many years, but since we now live on the Eastside, we were quite curious about The Americana.

We liked it and Glendale is definitely a great town for shopping. It also has the Glendale Galleria right across from it.

I will still go and shop at The Grove, but The Americana is nice and really close to Silver Lake. Super convenient!

While window shopping, I fell in love with this gorgeous little vase and thought it would look fabulous on our mantel.

I just had to get it!

Since we moved to Silver Lake, we also discovered a few cool places in Pasadena. 

It is only a 10 minute drive from here. 

Pasadena is lovely and it seems to have so much to offer.

First, it has a Color me Mine. I only new the Beverly Hills location till now.

It has Kidspace Children's Museum! 

Kidspace is a fantastic place for kids. 

Last weekend was our first time there and we had a blast. Particularly James who loves playing with water and there sure is a lot of water to play with.

There is a little river, called The Arroyo, which is a mini model of Pasadena's own Arroyo Seco (A canyon area that is sometimes dry and sometimes wet, depending on the seasons).

Source

There is also a kid's basin and different water features.

Children can definitely splish-splash to their heart's content.

James had a lot of fun at the Splash Dance Fountain.

Baby loved the Water Symphony, where you play the drums with water guns and hear what sounds it makes.

There was a special event there, last weekend: 

The Grand Butterfly release

Over a thousand butterflies were released into the Kidspace Gardens. 

It was beautiful!

Next time we will get an annual family membership, which includes unlimited free admission into Kidspace for up to four designated family members. Perfect when you have a visitor. 

Monday, I shopped at one of the biggest Whole Foods Markets in the country. It happened to be in Pasadena, as well.

We also went hiking for the first time, in the canyon below our house. 

The Corralitas Rail trail. 

It was really cool and I will tell you more about that, some other time.

We have been really busy. 

Remember, we hired a moving company a couple of weeks ago. 

Well, last Thursday we hired another moving company. I guess we had not prepared well enough the first time and we still had tons of belonging left in there. 

I thought I could deal with it myself, but my car is not that spacious (a Chevy Volt).

We wanted the condo completely emptied out, repainted and cleaned by the weekend.

We have decided to sell it, after all.

For now, we are still living amongst boxes... and I cannot wait to have everything put away, so that I can finally decorate and share with you pictures of our new little nest.

Thanks  for dropping in,

Alexandra