These plates fit that description for me.

Shaped as Christmas ornaments, they have a beautiful silver finish at the top and a hole which I’ve used to hang some of them on my tree in the past, or on a garland above my entry.

It’s the pattern on them that I love so much.

You guessed it.  Birds.

Red birds.  In four different patterns.  On an aqua plate with touches of white, brown and green.

Listening to the voice in my mind as I type makes me think I must be awfully predictable.  Aqua, red, birds, dishes.

Oh well.  You love what you love.

The pattern above might be my favorite.

Or it could be this one.

I haven’t unpacked these in two years.  Last year I had a 4 month old baby and I did the  bare minimum.  The year before that morning sickness hit hard during the holidays and I didn’t get them out.  As I carried the box upstairs this year I wondered if they were as pretty as I remembered.  I was not disappointed.  Nor was I sorry that I bought more than twenty of them when I first saw them.  They make me happy.

They’re spending the month stacked neatly on my kitchen counter because I can’t bear to put them behind doors.

What is your favorite thing to unpack each year?

Hopeful Homemaker

It was the pattern that made me stop.  A picture of golden wheat on each plate:

My mind’s eye automatically pictured a few treasured pieces of vintage Madeira linen I had at home.
This wheat pattern I have in a set of four placemats.  The detail on them is intricate and lovely.  I marvel that someone spent countless hours placing each stitch by hand.

But this is the piece the china reminded me of most.  A Marghab piece in the New Wheat pattern.  Breathtaking.

In my ultimate Thanksgiving dreams I would have 30 of these placemats to serve Thanksgiving dinner on.  The pattern is so simple and sophisticated.  I love it.

And so I stood there, pondering the china, reflecting on the timeless symbol of golden wheat and how aptly it communicates appreciation for simple things:  for sustenance, for harvests, for the beauty of the earth.  I turned one over.

22 karat gold!  Usually I’m not interested in gold, but my heart quickly made an exception.  I counted the pieces.  Twenty-eight in all.  Twenty-eight pieces of china for $18.  They came home with me.

Later that night I stood at my kitchen sink and carefully washed each piece.  I noticed how the gold has largely washed off many of the dinner plates, leaving only a hint of the shine that once graced each rim.  I noticed stains on a few, and scratches on the wheat image in some places.  I couldn’t help but wonder about whose Thanksgiving table was graced, obviously many times, with these beautiful pieces.  I wondered at the memories the plates held, the family recipes they’ve seen, the conversations held around that table.

Part of me felt sad for whatever twist of fate sent this lovely stack of dishes to the thrift store.  Did someone pass away?  Did enough of them finally break that they no longer were used?   Why did no one want them?

My sister-in-law serves Thanksgiving dinner on her grandmother’s china.  Each year they are carefully washed by hand and stored lovingly.  I watch this ritual take place in honor of a wonderful woman, and feel a twinge of envy that no such heirloom will ever be mine.  I envy the act of remembrance it represents, not the dishes.  I look at my newly acquired china and wonder why no one wished to do the same with it.

I wish to.

My heart whispers a silent “thank-you” for the twist of fate that brought this treasure to my home, for the chance to use them tomorrow.  There aren’t enough for the large group we’re expecting, but we will use them for dessert.  The thought makes me smile.  It means that tomorrow night I get to stand again at my kitchen sink to carefully wash them as I reflect on the memories of the day.  Tomorrow these plates begin a new journey, gathering memories at my kitchen table to be carefully stored away until next year.

The thought makes me smile.  And would you believe there’s even sunshine outside?
Life is good.

Jennifer

I found a gravy boat to match my very small set of vintage restaurant china.  It’s small in scale, only an inch wide.

Perfect for an individual serving of syrup, sauce or gravy.  It is stamped 1943 on the bottom.

I love this pattern.  I love the deep green against the creamy white.  I love the way the garland wraps so beautifully around the curve of the dish.  Decoration also follows the graceful line of the handle.

This little beauty is just begging me to make breakfast in bed for someone.  Unfortunately I don’t see a “sleep in” kind of morning on our calendar for the next two months at least.

And so it waits patiently in my kitchen, making me smile each time I look at it.

I’m pretty sure I would have loved the forties.

Hopeful Homemaker

Other ideas for titles of this post:

1.  My obsession with salad/bread/dessert plates continues

2.  Why I stay out of stores

If you don’t go to the store, you never see what’s there.  If you never see what’s there, you don’t know what you’re missing.  If you don’t know what you’re missing, you’ll never know you wanted it.  Generally I do a pretty good job of this.

If you go to the store, you might see it, and really really like it.  And buy it.

The only thing that could make these plates better would be to have the numbers go higher than four.  I’d like them to ten.

It was that hunt for one last back to school item that sent me into Target.  Now that it’s taken care of, I’m done shopping for a long, long time.  This time of year always makes me sick of spending money.

Does it help that I had a gift card in my wallet?

Hopeful Homemaker

P.S.  In my local store they were sold individually, but they also sell them online in a set.

I found these plates at a yard sale in Colorado.  Something about the pattern really appealed to me, so I picked them up to get a closer look.  I turned one of the plates over and saw this:

1945!  My heart started beating a little bit faster.   I should have known.  I seem to have an innate ability to pick out and love things dating to the 40′s.  The other plates read 1945, 1947, and this one had a different stamp on the back, dating to 1940.  Seventy years old.  So cool.

I approached the woman selling them and when she saw what I held she said, “Oh, I love those.”  I asked where she got them, and she said that her friend’s mother had given them to her.  I purchased four dinner plates and a butter pat dish from her for $3.00 and walked away giddy.

I’ve since done some research on this china.  It was restaurant china, and the Adam pattern was produced in green, blue and black.  Warwick China went out of business in 1951.

Typically I’m not drawn to dark greens, but I think these plates are fabulous.  I love the simple elegance of the pattern. I think they would be beautiful to use for Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas.   In my online research, I found only three pieces of this china for sale, and a plate is selling for around $10.   It appears that I just fell in love with dishes that are hard to find!

Can I ask a favor?  If you ever see some of these plates at thrift stores, yard sales, etc. will you snatch them up for me?  I’ll pay you for them.  I would love to collect enough of them to serve dinner on, which at my house means 10 plates.

Warwick China, Adam pattern.  My new favorite dishes.  Do you have a vintage china pattern that you love?

Hopeful Homemaker

I did, however, stop at a yard sale with my daughter for about 3 minutes the other day, and these little beauties were too sweet to leave behind.

It’s a set of four little bread plates, 6 inches in diameter, and I scored them for 25 cents each.

They all have the same markings on the bottom, but I like the variation in the patterns from plate to plate, like the different widths of the brown stripe around the edges (seen above).  Two of them have strawberries and leaves that are deeper in color, and two are lighter in hue, as if they’ve faded with time.  I like them both.

The marking on the bottom indicates they were made in Japan but there is no manufacturer listed.  Research shows an almost identical looking pattern made by Sheffied, also in Japan, but the marking on them is printed inside a strawberry shape.  It appears that they’re probably from the 80′s.

This is the kind of thrifting I can still feel good about.  I spent only $1.00 and with so many young children in our home, small plates are constantly in use.  I like having mis-matched salad and bread plates to use with my all-white dinner plates.  It’s a pretty way to mix things up.

Now all we need is strawberries and cream!

Hopeful Homemaker

Well, about an hour later, Kate left a comment on the post, which was so kind of her, and although I have absolutely no idea how she found her way to my post, I do know that her comment led me directly to her website.

And I think I can say that I now have a new favorite designer to watch.

Let me back up.  A few weeks ago a new Crate & Barrel catalog came in the mail, and I devoured all the pictures, as usual.  One in particular was torn out of the catalog and kept for 2 reasons:  1.  I want these!  2.  Inspiration.

Did you see these too?  And do you like them like I do?

I mean, I’d like several in each color, but if I had to choose, I’d take the aqua ones.  They’re beautiful and affordable.  You can buy them individually or in sets of four.   Hello!  Can they get any cuter?

Back to Kate Spain.  You see, not only is she responsible for the gorgeous quilting fabric that I’m currently in love with, but imagine my delight when I read a few posts on her blog and discovered that SHE is the designer of those lovely Loire plates, the very plates I tore out of the catalog,  from Crate & Barrel!  She also designed these awesome melamine plates.

Wow!  I was so excited to discover that two different products which I’m so drawn to are designed by the same person.  Cute stuff!

Well, it gets even better than that.  She’s currently giving away one layer cake from the Verna collection, and some totally cute gift bags and takeout boxes for a second winner.  So hurry on over here and get in on the fun.  You have until March 20th to enter.

And thank you, thank you Kate for sharing your awesome designs!  I love them.

Hopeful Homemaker

They’re just begging to be filled with lemonade.

I love the aqua pattern on this set of glasses.  So cheery!

I could plan an entire party around these 5 glasses.  Doesn’t that sound like fun?
I can picture a lovely outdoor luncheon, or a cozy breakfast.  Wouldn’t they be pretty filled with orange juice?

How would you use them?

I’m linking this post to Melissa’s at The Inspired Room.  Hop over to see what’s inspiring others today, and join the fun!

Happy Friday!
Hopeful Homemaker

A few days ago she posted this post about things that are her current favorites.  Inspired by what she had there, I went to this site and decided I wanted some bowls, too.  And I will freely admit that it’s purely a COLOR thing.  I’m not the biggest fan of melamine dishes but I’d be happy to make an exception for these colors.

The next morning I called Macy’s and discovered that the one closest to me had some in stock.  Yippee!  I put a set on hold and planned to just zip down while the older kids were in school.

Then my better judgment took hold of me.  Did I really want to take 4 little children to the mall?  Nope.  The longer I postponed, the wiser I was.  Soon I’d come to grips with the fact that I didn’t NEED the bowls, no matter what color they were, and so I never went to buy them.  (Victory for me, I thought.  I can write this down in my One Step journal under discipline!)

I mentioned to my husband that it felt good to make that choice, that I was proud of myself for saying no.

Later that night when I came home from our last carpool of the night, he hugged me and told me there was something in my office….

Inside was this….

which held these….

Wow!  What a sweet thing to do.  I ran back to the kitchen to give Mr. Wonderful a big kiss and hug before opening the box to drink in the colors.

Need another look?

As Camille said, “YUM.”  Right now they’re sitting on my kitchen counter because I like looking at them too much to put them away.  There’s nothing like color to brighten up a winter day.  Thanks, Mr. Wonderful!

Today was no different.  Not only are they the perfect size, I’m loving how food looks in them.
It’s a color thing.

Do you want to hear something funny about me and hard boiled eggs?
Earlier this year I set out to come up with a Potato Salad that I love.  Well, we all know that potato salads need hard boiled eggs.  For years I’ve tried to get my hard boiled eggs to be perfect, without the ugly greenish-gray color in the yolk, without any cracks, and so forth, but perfection always eluded me.

Until this summer.  One day I put a bunch of eggs on the stove to cook, and then promptly forgot about setting my timer and went to do other things until suddenly I remembered the eggs.  I figured they must be done so I removed them from the heat and placed them in ice water.

They were the most perfect hard boiled eggs ever!  The funny thing is that this has happened to me every time I’ve cooked eggs since.  Now I’m at the point that I don’t know if I dare to actually pay attention to how long they’re cooking for because I’m just sure I’ll ruin them.  Today was no different.   And the eggs were perfect.

But I digress.  We were talking about my blue bowls.

Let me just say here that I bought these bowls over a month ago, and have stored them stacked like this in my pantry since then.  Every time I look at them I have to smile because they’re so pretty!  And every time I’ve looked at them I want to take a picture.

So today I gave in and did it.  Some a pale blue and some are a deeper aqua color.  I like them together.
Here’s the best part of all:  I got them at the dollar store!  That’s right, Dollar Tree.
Like I said, I found them about a month ago and bought a nice, tall stack of them (remember dishes need to come in sets of at least ten at my house).  This morning I was there looking for something else and they had a few more.

I bought them all.  Okay, it was only five of them.  I couldn’t help it!  They were so cute!
And, I must say they’re a pretty amazing find for $1.

Did I mention that I love the colors?  Wow, I’m such a sucker for blue.