Faith Family Friends

Celebrating the Joy of Living & Home Making ~

Baking, Cooking, Decorating, Tea Time, and taking Inspiration from those I love and the world around me...

A sharing of my heart and my home from a Christian perspective

...with a wee bit of whimsy added.

Monday 18 June 2018

Lilacs and Rose Chintz

I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June. ~ LM Montgomery - Anne of the Island

Hello everyone! The lilacs are in bloom! Some flowers have the most heavenly scent and lilacs are no exception.

I love using my Johnson Bros. Rose Chintz with these flowers. Lilacs and Rose Chintz together evoke such charm to any tea table. Both are old fashioned and remind me of days gone by. 


Last year my Auntie P passed down all of her Rose Chintz to me. She had been gifted the china when she got married and kept adding pieces to it over the years and I have always loved it. 
She is in a nursing home now so she has no more use for it. How things have changed the past two years! Her beloved hubby, my sweet Uncle Doug, went home to be with the Lord a year ago in May, and Auntie can no longer take care of herself so she is in a nursing home not far from where she and my uncle used to live. 

It still takes me some getting use to it all because up until a couple of years ago she visited my blog and often left a comment. We used to email long letters almost every day to one another which my hubby called "books" because they were so long. But oh my, we had such fun in those days and I miss the day to day communication with her so much!

Anyway, on to my lilacs and Rose Chintz which will always remind me of Auntie P....



What is one to say about June, the time of perfect young summer, the fulfilment of the promise of the earlier months, and with as yet no sign to remind one that its fresh young beauty will ever fade. ~
Gertrude Jekyll - excerpt from Victoria May/June 2011


I have pieces of china that look fabulous with lilacs but none look as pretty or so charming as my Johnson Bros. Rose Chintz. Those little lavender blue flowers in the pattern pick up on the colour of the lilacs so nicely. 

My little lavender turtle hasn't joined us in a while so he has come for tea as well.  


An old-fashioned bouquet of lilacs and old-fashioned china call for old-fashioned tea treats. So join me, won't you, for a nice cup of tea with some cookies and perhaps a tea biscuit with rhubarb sauce. 

Life is like a teacup to be filled to the brim and enjoyed with friends.~ Unknown 


These are my tea biscuits. They are plain and cut into rounds whereas when I make scones, I add fruit or raisins to them, cut them into triangles and sprinkle them with sugar or drizzle a glaze on them. 


I have been busy jarring up rhubarb sauce so we can enjoy a little taste of summer throughout the coming months. I really love it because it is filled with summer goodness and is delicious on so many things. 


Perhaps you would prefer an old-fashioned sugar cookie with your cup of tea. Both the pink and the green plates on which my goodies are served are Old English made by Johnson Bros. 


My children favoured these cookies when they were growing up and my middle son and his family will be coming home next month for a visit, so I decided to make a big batch and freeze them. I always cut the cookies out big and add raisins in the center.



Happiness is sharing tea with a friend or two.  



Savour the scent of lilacs for they won't last long.



It's the month of June,
the month of leaves and roses,
when pleasant sights salute the eyes
and pleasant scents the noses. ~ Nathaniel Parker Willis

Soon my roses will be in bloom too. Or I hope they will be. I don't see any buds yet because it's been so cold. June has not been a very warm month so far.




Sweet blessings to you, my friends! Thank you for your visit and have a lovely day.





I am joining the following parties as well~

 Tuesday Cuppa Tea
 Friends Sharing Tea ~ http://blog.bernideens.com/
 Home Sweet Home~ http://thecharmofhome.blogspot.com/


 Sharing from my heart ~ Sandi

17 comments :

  1. Dear Sandi:
    Your Rhubarb Sauce looks delicious and very special. What a delight to open a jar of that on a snowy winter day and remember the day you canned it! I am amazed that you have lilacs now and that really highlights the difference between where we live. It is very hot now in Missouri and you speak of cold. I imagine flowers lasting a long time like my flowers in Colorado because it was so cool at night there. This was such a lovely post and I do love your Rose Chintz with the lilacs too!

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  2. LOVE lilacs! Ours didn't last long enough neither did our irises here in Kansas this year. I look forward to them each year. Jumped from a chilly Spring into HOT Summer. Need rain now. All the best to you,
    d

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  3. How lovely! I'm too far south for lilacs but they are beautiful. Enjoy them and your pretty china, too.

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  4. Lilacs and rhubarb! Reminds me of my childhood.

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  5. Your love of the Rose Chintz pattern rubbed off on me. A few years ago, I scored 4 settings (teacup, saucer, plate, bowl) at a church sale.

    Thanks for the visit. I was happy to find the Wissotzy tea at my local grocery store in the kosher section. It's funny because I've noticed that some stores carry their organic teas in a different section. At a recent trip to Wal-Mart and Sobey's, I found some interesting looking teas, but I was good and left them behind.

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  6. Oh I enjoyed this visit so much. We do not have lilacs in Florida, and I miss them so much. We were just visiting our grandson in Maine, and I hoped to find some there, but they were already gone past. So today I am enjoying your lovely post and pretending I can smell the lilacs. They were also my mother's favorite flower, and when she passed away we had a huge bouquet shipped in (to Florida) for her memorial service. Since it was the month of May, that helped to find them. I felt bad that Mama wasn't there to smell them and enjoy them, but thought perhaps she knew from heaven and was glad. I know you miss your Auntie P, even though she is still alive, it is hard to have those sweet times of communication as before. Is she very far from you? I was thinking how nice it would be to take her a little tea party with your/her rose chintz china and lilacs (or roses since the lilacs won't last long) and spend that special time with her. But if she is too far away that may not be practical. Praying for her and for you today. Have a blessed and beautiful day. This was so lovely.

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    1. Pamela, bringing Auntie P a little tea party using her Rose Chintz is such a delightful idea and she would love it but she lives in New Brunswick, another province here in Canada, and I'm in PEI so that really isn't possible. I wish I could surprise her like that. I imagine your Mama is enjoying lilacs so much more beautiful and fragrant than ours will ever be here on earth. Thank you for your visit and have a blessed day.

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  7. What a delightful post!Your lilac with th Rose Chintz tea set together are really adorable!Hugs!Cute turtle too!

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  8. I always feel like I'm right there sharing tea with you, sweet friend. Your lilacs with your Rose Chintz is so dreamy and romantic, and I know remind you of your dear Auntie P. I know you miss emailing her the long letters that you wrote daily. Seeing her pretty Rose Chintz is a treasure that she gifted you, and a gentle reminder of her love for you.
    I'd love to have a tea biscuit and a cookie with my tea today. Your family will love having their favorites when they come for a visit. I realize how important it is to keep those family favorites going for special memories.
    Enjoy the lovely scent of lilacs and hopefully your roses will be blooming before long. xxoo

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  9. Hi Sandi. Your lilacs are gorgeous! So sorry the season is so short. Yours are perfect with your Rose Chintz! Our daughter and husband will be here next week for my Honey’s birthday...freezing some is a great thought! I was just trying to decide what to make ahead. Hope you are feeling well..just got a good progress report from my dr, so pretty pleased and relieved. Have a lovely week and thanks for linking to Tuesday Cuppa Tea
    Ruth

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  10. Your lilacs and rose chintz tea set are so beautiful. Lilacs are gone from here, now, so it's lovely to see them blooming for you. Your comments about your Auntie P remind me of my mother-in-law who faithfully visited my blog. Although she didn't leave comments there, she emailed me with her thoughts. Mum passed away a year ago this week, and I miss her. Blogging doesn't have the same appeal now that she's gone. She had macular degeneration and was quite handicapped with her sight, but she could enlarge print on her computer and read my blogs that way.
    Enjoy summer on PEI!

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  11. Oh everything looks so delightful and that darling little turtle! How cute. Love your beautiful tea set dear Sandi. Hope you are doing well. Hugs and blessings, Cindy

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  12. I love your teacups. And you shared such wonderful quotes in this blog post!

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  13. This is such a sweet and uplifting post. Your china is stunning and I can almost smell those lilacs I

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  14. Sandi, how delightful it would be to join you for tea in this charming and naturally fragrant setting! I'd so enjoy your biscuits and rhubarb sauce. I haven't a single aunt or uncle left, but I think of them often and am so pleased to have some lovely dishes from my aunt. How wonderful that you had that correspondence with your Auntie P!

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  15. Hi Sandi-new to your blog! I love the scent of lilacs, but don't know that I've ever smelled them in a garden. I don't know-maybe the weather isn't right for them here in southern California...?

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  16. This is so pretty. It has been very hot here too. Thanks for sharing at Home Sweet Home.

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I am delighted to have you visit me and I read every comment. Please forgive me for not being able to visit you all as there are so many of you lovely bloggy friends now. I will visit as much as possible. I wish you a day filled with JOY!

Also, due to the amount of spam I've been getting, I have had to set Comment Moderation. ~ Sandi

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