The T-Cozy

What's Brewing at T-Party

Scooby-Doo came to tea this past week along with a devil and several witches.

Even Cynthia and I got in on the witchy fun. We wish you all a very happy Halloween!

Susan

The Lower East Side

Yesterday was a fun filled day in Manhattan. The four of us, my niece and nephew began the day with brunch at Katz's Delicatessen on New York City's lower east side. This classic deli has been around since 1888 and is said to be the city's oldest and best. We had knishes, blintzes, hot dogs and more. Everything was delish!

Katz's walls are covered with pictures of the many movie stars, politicians and athletes that have eaten here. There is even a sign which points to the table where Meg Ryan and Billie Crystal sat during the famous deli scene filmed here in the movie When Harry Met Sally.

Next we went to the Tenement Museum. Visitors tour carefully restored apartments in a landmark tenement building at 97 Orchard Street and learn about the immigrant experience of actual past residents. This structure dates back to 1863 and was home to an estimated 7,000 people from more than 20 nations between 1863 and 1935. Fascinating and informative, we definitely plan to visit this museum again.

The lower east side is chock full of interesting sights. Our next stop was a place called Economy Candy. Since 1937, Economy Candy is an old-fashioned, family-owned candy store that sells hundreds of kinds of chocolates, candies, nuts, dried fruits and all the old-time candy you had when you were a kid. I was surprised to find my favorite 1960's gum called Teaberry. Do you remember the TV commercials of the Teaberry Shuffle song performed by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass?

Other places of interest we came across were a cool guitar shop called Rivington Guitars, a store called Las Venus filled with 20th century mod furniture and accessories, the Blue Moon Hotel and the landmark1887 Eldridge Street Synagogue, all shown above.

Our last stop was mainly for my daughter who adores dill pickles. A shop called The Pickle Guys sells pickled everything, from pickled cucumbers to tomatoes, olives, peppers, carrots, garlic, okra, string beans, mushrooms, celery and kraut. The pickles are barrel cured in salt brine with garlic, spices and no preservatives using an old Eastern European recipe. Hannah was in pickle heaven!

We had a great day exploring the lower east side and it was the perfect place to celebrate both my husband and niece's birthdays. What a fun, vibrant neighborhood brimming with retail shops, restaurants and culture.

Susan

John and Dino, Together Again

Yesterday was my husband John's birthday. He started off his special day opening his gifts before I had to leave for work at T-Party.

I wanted to give John something really special, so I decided to reunite him with an old friend.

This photo was taken on a Martha's Vineyard beach when John was five years old. He's holding a favorite toy; his inflatable Dino the dinosaur. But moments after this picture was taken, a strong gust of wind blew Dino out to sea!

I was determined to find another Dino for John. I searched eBay and sure enough, I found a vintage one in perfect condition!

John and Dino are together once again!

After the gifts, John enjoyed breakfast and paddle tennis with the kids while I was at work. Later on, we had a nice dinner out together. We'll continue the celebration today with a drive into New York City. It's our niece's birthday tomorrow so we'll have brunch together and then head over to a museum.

Gotta go!

Susan

Witches Just Want to Have Fun

Bernadette, one of our loyal tea patrons, hosts an annual Halloween gathering at T-Party every year. She has a lively group of friends who really get into the spirit of the holiday. Below, Bernadette, in the orange jacket, meets and greets her crowd as they are arrive for tea. I love how she used that cute little fabric pumpkin as her purse!

Cynthia created very special trays replete with candy corn for this group. Everyone had a wonderful time and was so appreciative. What a nice bunch.

Toward the end of their tea, I heard many say "same time, next year." Then they remembered that our building is slated for demolition and we'll be moving out by June. Where we are moving to is still a mystery as we have yet to find a suitable and affordable location.

We do hope to see Bernadette and all of her fun friends next Halloween.

Susan

No Tricks, All Treats

Today is the first day of our Halloween theme teas at T-Party. With treats like devil's food cupcakes and pumpkin cheesecakes, it's sure to be a spook-tacular week.

The ever talented Joan Barere, of our Knit Nook, made a wonderful crocheted spider web to decorate the corner of the tea room.

As I've mentioned before, we have the nicest customers. The photo above shows the cute pins that Birdie, a tea patron, made for Cynthia and I to wear this week. So sweet!

This hall tree at T-Party has witches hats at the ready as Cynthia and I will be good sports and dress up for our Halloween teas. As far as the broom goes . . . that's how I got to work this morning!

Susan

Making a Button Bouquet

It's my day off from T-Party today, and in between the errands and laundry I felt like getting a little crafty. Since I am a bit of a vintage button freak, I'm always looking for reasons to dig through my vast button collection. After rooting around for a while, I decided to make an all white button bouquet. It's really easy and if you'd like to give one a try, here's how . . .

What you'll need: an array of buttons, 22 gauge green florist stem wire (cut to 18 inches long), green floral tape, needle-nose pliers, wire cutters and green polysilk leaves.

How to make the bouquet: sort through your buttons and decide on a color scheme. You'll need both interesting small buttons that you can feature on the top of each blossom and more plain large ones to be used under those. Begin to stack multiple buttons on top of each other to create dimensional flowers. Fold the florist wire in half and thread both wire ends through the button holes, staring with the smallest to the largest button in the stack. Using the pliers, twist the wires tightly together under the last button. Add florist leaves and wrap the wire stems in floral tape, starting at the top and working your way down to the base.

Arrange your flowers in a vase and you're done! Isn't it pretty?

Susan

The Royal Tea Club

On Thursday, T-Party was thrilled to welcome The Royal Tea Club. Thirty members, who arrived from Pennsylvania by bus, were heading to Newport, Rhode Island for a weekend trip. We were honored they chose to stop at T-Party along their way.

Because of the enormous construction project in front of our building, it was a real challenge for their large coach bus to maneuver around. But the bus driver was skilled and in they came.

This club began in February 2005 by a group of women who love to go to tea. They schedule one or two tea events per month and enjoy traveling, incorporating visits to tea rooms in their excursions.

They have around 265 members from nine states: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, Georgia, Maine and Massachusetts.

As stated on their web site, The Royal Tea Club's purpose is to have fun and fellowship (similar to The Red Hat Society, without the hats). They were a wonderfully spirited group and it was our pleasure to serve them.

Susan

Art Show

I miss the days when my kids would come home from school with their backpacks filled with art projects. But I still have several of their artistic creations displayed around our home. The rest of their prolific work is stored away for them to peruse through someday.

Here's the bulletin board in our mud room, chock full of creativity from many years past.

These two pieces, above, pay homage to Pablo Picasso. Hannah's painting on the left is reminiscent of his "Blue Period" and Jacob's self portrait is based on Picasso's Cubist portraits. Note how the left half of him is rendered as a pepperoni pizza, one of his favorite foods!

Hannah's 9-square picture of pretty flowers, above left, reminds me of a quilt. Jacob's painting on the right was inspired by Vincent Van Gogh's Sunflowers.

Hannah painted this sweet rendition of a polka-dotted caterpillar back when she was in nursery school over a dozen years ago. It graces a windowsill in my home studio.

This crayon drawing was a gift from Hannah for our ninth anniversary nearly 11 years ago. I love how she didn't make John quite tall enough so she placed him standing on a rock!

Now our children are both in high school and their backpacks are filled with heavy textbooks instead of art work. But I still enjoy these wonderful pieces hanging in our house.

I hope you enjoyed this little art show.

Susan

A Kitschy Fall Sale

If you're in the mood for a little bargain shopping, take a peek at the T-Cozy's sister blog, Kitsch Encounter. All of those vintage goodies have been marked down to make way for more items coming in November.

Have fun browsing!

Susan

Adventures in Collecting

This is my eighth month of blogging, and one of the things I've enjoyed chatting on about are my collections of all things vintage. As we all know, a collection is a group of at least three similar things, so acquiring a collection isn't all that difficult. The challenge is finding fun new ways to display and use these vintage items.

Here's a medley of some of my vintage treasures that I've blogged about . . .

The pieces I collect fill our home with beauty and whimsy. They are pure pleasure and I hope you've enjoyed seeing them.

And there is more! Stay tuned as I plan to share additional collections with you over the coming months.

Susan