I have long been an admirer of the online retailer Paris Hotel Boutique. When Cote de Texas offered a giveaway of two of their items I jumped at the chance to register!

A friend was recently in Copenhagen and snapped this photo of the Royal Copenhagen's flagship shop window display. What great marketing! China companies probably do 75% of their business anymore from wedding registries: why not market that fact? The pretty wedding dress, cake and display of china really play into that; apparently the store was full of dresses too. I also love the reflection of the typical traditional Copenhagen streetscape in the window too!

You may remember a few years ago I purchased an antique set of caned chairs and table made by Baker -see the post HERE. While the caning looked great, it wasn't very comfortable or practical and I had decided to have cushions made.

This past Saturday I hosted local design bloggers for a meet'n greet High Tea at my apartment. A few of us had met before, but it was so great to be in one room all together. We are trying to keep up our blogging social meeting once a month - power to the DC bloggers!Here you see Beth of Style Redux and Chinoiserie Chic serving champagne to the guests.
Only a blogger can know how fun these online friendships can be. We get to share our design passions and interests online daily with one another and it's fun to bring these into real life conversations!Michele from My Notting Hill poses by the drinks station. Champagne, lemonade, sparkling water, tea and coffee were the drinks of the day.
Allie from Summer is a verb took some artistic shots of the tea table, which she thinks are blurry but I think are more impressionist! Strawberry shortcake, croissants, tea sandwiches and some other snacks all proved popular!

Do you hold any superstitions? I don't mean picking up pennies and avoiding black cats, this is a design blog after all! While going through some photos I took in the Metropolitan Museum of Art earlier this year, I noticed that these wall lights had the candle wicks left unburnt. I've always been taught that tapers should be charred before being left in a candlestick; not sure why, but I've always followed this rule. I know it comes from some unknown superstition but I can't seem to find what would happen if I didn't burn them! Do you follow this practice?
These rococo wall lights are manufactored by the Royal Porcelain Factory in Berlin in the 1760s.

This past Thursday I had some friends over for a little supper. Nothing fancy, just a little pasta and salad after work. I set the table the night before.I know you're not supposed to put flowers with a lot of fragrance on the dinner table, but I couldn't resist these pretty peonies!Easy as 1, 2,3 -I think it turned out ok. Beats pizza at the coffee table!

This past weekend, I hosted Easter dinner for six and thought I would share it with all of you via the weekly Tablescape Thursdays at Between Naps on the Porch.

Why don't you refashion your chipped or broken china as beautiful desktop accessories? Here I'm using a chipped Wedgwood jasperware creamer to hold paperclips on my desk at work.

The most interesting parts of any house museum, in my opinion, are the service spaces.Vizcaya was planned primarily around the public and entertaining rooms, which leaves only awkward leftover spaces for the numerous servants which were required in this time period. Oddly enough, the kitchen is on the 2nd floor, not in the basement (but we'll get to that later!). The first of these service spaces is a cupboard off the dining room (marked passage on the plan above in blue). Functioning as a small butler's pantry, the space also worked as a hall between the dining room and tea room so had to be attractive.The ceiling has a gorgeous painted wood ceiling with painted wood gates hiding the service cupboard which houses china storage and wash-up sink. The gilded English china seen here has an interesting story which I'll talk about at the end of this post. PS: don't you just love these painted wood cabinets?Located on the opposite side of the Tea Room (seen on the plan above in green), the main butler's pantry is larger than most modern household kitchens. The room boasted the most modern of conveniences for the time period, including the electric annunciator panel above which showed where a servant was required when rung for.Another modern contraption was the master clock, seen behind the cabinets above, which controlled the time on 10 clocks throughout the house (much like many schools have today).Above you can see the painted door into the tea room. The open countertops have been converted into glassed-in display cases for the many sets of china Vizcaya posesses.