American Heritage Millenium Collection by Churchill Used to Dine

We had a small dinner party for 7 tonight and since I am still on a patriotic mode, I decided to use our American Heritage Millenium Collection by Churchill.

 The plates are mostly blue and yellow. I used a table runner that I bought from William Sonoma during one of our past Pensacola trips. It is reversible and the other side is all blue and white, same material as the piping.

 These plates are very historical as you can see from the pictures.

 This is a plate charger. I only have 1 which I found on Ebay. I should look for more. I wonder if this was the signing of the Independence Day docs.

 On the dinner plates, I think I see the St. Louis Arch, San Francisco's Golden Gate and not sure which tower is that, in Chicago maybe?

 The salad bowls has the Statue of Liberty and I think one of them is the Capitol. I can't make out the rest. I should look at the plates instead of the pictures but I am so tired. I have been cooking, baking and cleaning all day.

 For the serving pieces, I used Italian dishes from my Deruta collection.

 Napkin rings says "Bon" on one side and "Apetit" on the other. They are also from WS. That does not sound very American, does it? But they match the dishes. LOL!

 Yellow birds S&P shakers.

 I also mixed in some Polish pottery S & P shakers.

 We served grilled salmon, sinigang (a Filipino food), both of which my friend Brenda brought. I made crab omelet and Caesar salad and made brownies and a coconut dessert, the recipe I picked up from Facebook. It was so good!

I served the dessert in the kitchen dining table.

 I made tea and coffee and served them in Polish pottery pots.

 The salad plates are my favorites because they feature the Natchez steam boat and I live in Natchez. We used bowls for the salad so I used the salad plates for dessert.

 We did not serve any sauce so I used the sauce server to hold the teaspoons instead. Is that Martin Luther King?

I hope you enjoyed this post. I am posting a little late cause everybody just left and there was no time to post before the party. Thank you so much for coming over and I would like to thank all the hostesses too.

Kathy's A Return To Loveliness

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Sandi's Teatime Tues

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Friends Sharing Tea

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Martha and Terri's Teacup Tues

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Centerpiece Wednesday

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Kathleen's Let's Dish

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Tablescape Thursday

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Share Your Cup Thursday
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Katherine's Favorite Things Thursday

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Kathy's Home and Garden Thursday

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Sarah's Homemaking Weekend Link Up party

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Festive Friday Fiesta

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Kathryn's Anything Blue Friday

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Fort Myers Beach

I just spent more than a month in Florida and just got this past Monday. Most of that was spent with my daughter who had a baby but the last week was spent in the Fort Myers area where our second home is.

 

I know I am in Fort Myers when I see streets lined with palm trees.

 

We went to the beach one day and the weather was so perfect, warm water, nice breeze and not too hot nor humid.

 We like to park at Lani Kai Restaurant parking lot. We pay a fee of $7 but it is subtracted from our bill if we eat in the restaurant. It is convenient to park there because the walk to the beach is not too far, convenient especially when we are carrying lots of kids and things. Besides, big beach umbrellas are available for rent and someone goes around taking orders for drinks.

 My companions: my daughter, Tina, my granddaughters AJ and baby Reese and grandsons, Brendan and Nathan.

 Aaaah! Time to relax while the kids get ready to go to the water.

 But the little ones have to eat their snacks first.

 Brendan was so proud of his sand dollars.

 I did soak my feet on the water too. I did not swim because I just shampooed my hair and did not want to wet it, lol.

 I really like this beach, it's very clean.

 The kids had so much fun too!

 We ate lunch at Lani Kai Restaurant, on the roof top. Such a pretty view of the beach.

 Their seats were gliders.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by. Now,, I am back to reality and more, a messy house and an overgrown garden, lol. But there is still no place like home.

 

Linking with

Alma of Oh the Places I've Been

and Seasonal Sunday
Seasonal Sundayhttp://thetablescaper.blogspot.com/
Kathryn's Anything Blue Fridayhttp://thededicatedhouse.blogspot.com
Gemma's Scenic Weekendhttp://scenicweekends.blogspot.com.au/
Shadow Shot Sunday 2http://shadowshotsunday2.blogspot.com/
Sarah's Hope in every Season
http://www.hopeineveryseason.com/

Thanks for hosting, ladies!

Featuring Liberty Blue and Flower Blossoms

I was not sure I could participate with the tablescape memes this week because I am overwhelmed with things to do at home. I was away for over a month and just got back the other night. You can imagine how the house looks after leaving the hubby all that time. Yep! The house looked like Ground Zero, well not exactly but pretty close, lol.

 

But a package greeted me at home, the flower Blossoms kit I won from Sarah of http://hyacinthforthesoul.blogspot.com/ and I was so excited to use the flower blossoms for my centerpiece so I just had a create a table.

 

 

Thank you so much, Sarah. I love everything that came in the package, so unique! I will have so much fun using these.

 I opened the book and was so surprised to see all these beauties. Please visit Sarah's blog and see how she used hers, which was the first time I have seen these paper blossoms. Aren't they pretty cool?

The paper blossom set of cards also came with the package. I might not be able to give these away though, lol. They are just too pretty.

Sarah also posted about Staffordshire's Liberty Blue dishes, which reminded me of mine so I dug them out from storage and used  them with the paper blossom centerpiece. As you can see, this post was all inspired by Sarah! It is also timely since the dishes would be appropriate to use for Independence Day, which is approaching soon. If you want more info about these dishes, visit Sarah's post.

See my paper flower blossom centerpiece? I had to pick one with blue in it. Doesn't it perk up the table?

I also pulled out my vintage blue glass salt and pepper shakers.

The blue wine glasses are from Mikasa and the bubble glass with blue and white stems are part of my Polish pottery collection.

I like to use my pewter flatware when creating an Americana table. It makes me go back to the federal period.

 I complemented the paper blossoms with 2 terracotta colored tin pots with silk flowers. The place mats are Spode's Blue Italian.

You can see the small bowl on top with Betsy Ross and the American flag. The dinner plate features the Independence Hall and the dessert plate shows the Old North Church. I thought I had salad plates and cups too but they could be in another box, because the box where I took these from was already full.

The ceramic blue rose napkin rings are by Royal Albert.

I leaned a flag by the window and added a red, white and blue candle on the table to be more patriotic.

Isn't the paper dragon fly so cute?

Thank you so much for everything, Sarah, and thank you all for stopping by. A special thanks to the hostesses.

Centerpiece Wed

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Kathleen's Let's Dish

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Paula's What's It Wed

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Katherine's Favorite Things Thursday

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Susan's Tablescape Thursday

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Ready to Waltz, It's Party Time

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