Care to Join Me for a Cup of Tea?

Good Afternoon, ladies!  It sure is hard to believe that another week is soon coming to an end! I hope you all have been having a great one!

I wanted to share with you today our tea cup collection. Actually, it belonged to hubby's mother, and when she passed away hubby inherited it.  Sadly, I never got to get to know her, as she passed away long before we met.  Anyway, hubby made her a cabinet to hold her collection many years ago. It was his own design. I am so lucky I married a handy guy!

Here it is, hanging in our dining area.  It's quite large, and holds 36 cups & saucers.  I really like the arch design at the top, and the mirror backing, as that not only reflects lots of light, but the pretty tea cups, too.  What I don't like about it is that it's a real dust magnet!  When I do clean it (which is admittedly not as often as I should!), I have to use the stepstool, and I remove all of the cups & saucers and wash & dry them oh-so-carefully by hand.  Then I have to windex the mirror, and dust all of the wood! So it is quite the project!  Ok, I will let you in on a little secret!  When we have company over and I don't have time to clean the entire collection, I just dust everything on the bottom row!  And if we are having tall company over, I do the bottom two rows!  Shhhhh!  Don't tell!

Here is a closer look at some of my favorites in the collection:

Violets are my very favorite wildflower, so I just love this cute one! And I think the cut out pattern is so pretty!

Here it is again.  Isn't the gold detailing pretty?

By now you probably know how much I love blue and white, so I just adore this forget me knot tea cup!

And who doesn't love roses?!

I think this one is so pretty.  It's the coat of arms of all the Canadian Provinces.

I love birds, so of course I really like this robin cup & saucer from Wisconsin.  Many of the tea cups she was given were picked up by friends & family when they traveled, so there are many that represent various states.  Hubby gave her quite a few of these, so the collection has even more meaning to us!

I really love the unusual stem to this cup. And the colors and design are just so pretty!

This is another one of my very favorites.  Isn't the cutwork around the saucer pretty?

This cutie is from Holland, Michigan.

And I love this one by Nippon.  It appears to be very old.

Here's one last look at the entire collection.  What is that unsightly vent thingy above the cabinet, you ask?  Unfortunately it's an a/c vent, and I can't think of any way to disguise it that wouldn't draw even more attention to it!!  At least it's up high and not at eye level!

Oh a side note:  Have any of you seen "Eat, Pray, Love" yet?  We don't go the the movies very often, but we went & saw it yesterday. I really didn't know anything about the movie, other than it was filmed in Italy, India and Bali.  I like Julia Roberts, but the main reason I wanted to see it was because hubby & I went to Italy 10 years ago & fell in love with it!  We can't wait to return!  So the scenery of Italy and Bali were very pretty in the movie.  But it was very slooooow, and very long! (as in 2 hours and 15 minutes long!!)  If I had known, I would've just waited for the dvd to come out.  Oh well, that's just my opinion!

Have a great night!
I am joining Cindy over at My Romantic Home for Show & Tell Friday.
I am also joining Cindy over at I Owe it all to Him What do you collect party.
Be sure to check it out!