Christmas at The Gossamer Tearoom

Welcome, Dear Friends, to The Gossamer Tearoom!  It is nearly Christmastime!

We hope all of our friends are well.  We are grateful to have nearly finished with such a strange year and we all hope for a better year ahead.  

We are so happy to have lived together, so we can celebrate our Christmas together.  We send hugs to those who will not be with their loved ones, so we hope the pictures from our festivities will bring you some cheer.

Today, we are gathering for our Christmas party here at The Tearoom, but afterwards, won't you please join us at Le Musée Trouvé for a special Christmas visit there?

Our preparations for our tea today are almost finished.

(As always, please click on the images to see them larger.)

Festive decorations are all in place...

And, now it's all is ready for everyone to help themselves!

We have some lovely fresh veggies with some extra-zingy, extra lemon-y hummus I made!

Even though we have snow outside, we are still dreaming of summertime and these veggies just remind us that before we know it, it will be summertime once again!  Today, we are enjoying broccoli, cauliflower, pea pods (we love the French word for them "mange-tout", which means "eat it all"!), orange Zima grape tomatoes and Aloha peppers!

The Doll and Animal Family loved the Parmesan Shortbreads and Cheshire Cat Cheese Whiskers I made so much for their tea on the porch this summer that I have treated them and made them again for Christmas!

For dessert, we have red and green grapes and checkerboard cookies!

Our drinks tonight are something fun, Italian Sodas!  You can make them simply by adding chilled seltzer or club soda to your favorite flavored syrup (even one that you have to make coffee drinks, if you have been making your own since lockdown).  You can even make them a bit more special by adding a splash of cream, which makes them a French Soda!  Tonight, we are using my two favorites, French Vanilla and Hazelnut.  Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle's favorite is French Vanilla, but Mr. Bear's is Hazelnut!  They both taste yummy with the checkerboard cookies!

We are happy to all be together tonight.

Mr. Bear and Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle

Mr. Mookie and Teddy

Thursday and Hyacinthe

Eggsy and The Dog Family

And even some new faces (and they are royalty!)

The Little White Bear Prince

&

Princess Zoe

(our newest family member, all the way from South Africa)

As usual, Brownie McNutt is entertaining everyone

on the toy piano (Plinka-plinka-plink).

Brownie and Friends with Festive Piano!

***

And now, it's time for our visit to 

Le Musée Trouvé for our extra Christmas treat!

We send you our biggest hugs for your holiday

and hope that you stay safe in the coming New Year.

As always, thank you for joining us here!

Drawlloween 2020 - Week Five

How silly of me!  I realize I never posted the fifth and final week of Mab Graves' Drawlloween Club!

Puppet

Batsquatch

Lagoon/Haunted/Hydra

Mask/Reaper

Thank you so much for following along with Drawlloween with me!

Halloween at Le Musée Trouvé

 Greeting to you, All Dear Friends of The Tearoom and Happy Halloween!

For several years, Mr. V and I went on a special Halloween treat in Portland.  One year, we went on a "Haunted" tour of the Henry Wadsworth-Longfellow House (which was very informative, but not too scary!) and a couple of years, we went to Halloween programs at The Victoria Mansion.  One year was a reading of ghost stories in the beautiful main entry way, in front of the grand staircase, followed by a gaslight tour of the house!  Oooh!  So much spooky fun.

Tonight, we are home, in our own little world, but our special Halloween treat to you is a visit to my miniature museum Le Musée Trouvé!  We must assume that this trip there required us to go through a time machine, although I'm not sure if we went forward or backward.  What I do know is that all this happened in a time before the Dreaded Virus, in a time before we needed to be careful about social distancing and wearing masks.  Please enjoy this carefree time, whenever it happens to be.

So, welcome to the museum and I hope you enjoy the spookiness of the season at our opening tonight!

The first two rooms show works by pop surrealist artists Camille Rose Garcia and Kathie Olivas.  Also, in attendance are quite a few lovely bats, from the artist Mizna Wada.  There is more information about these great artists at the end of this post.  

Sometimes, there seems to be a very fine line between cute and creepy and my favorite pop surrealist artists demonstrate this very well.  

(As always, please click images to see them larger.)

The first piece we see tonight is by Kathie Olivas and it is a backdrop for the arriving guests.  See notes below for more information.

Our guests tonight include families with little children, some of them in Halloween costume, witches, bats, our own family member Eadwig and a little family of black cats!

Join me, won't you, as we go to the next room...

In the second room, we have The Archway of The Cricket Nurses by Camille Rose Garcia (hand-colored by me, see notes below).  It is so handy that their abdomens glow like that, as it makes it easier to        tend  to patients in the middle of the night, don't you know?

This couple of creatures, out for a day at the beach, 

are Los Creatura!  

Señor Creatura has treats for he and his wife:  Haunted Lagoon Honey and Bruised Plum ice cream cones and Churros, enough for the both of them!  You may not be able to see it from here, but I even decorated the churros with Cinnamon Stickles for extra glittery yum!!

Señora Creatura has a large Swamp Berry Margarita with paper umbrella!  She's so glamorous, in a slimy, straight-from-the-lagoon sort of way!

In our next two rooms, 

you get to walk through our Cabinet of Curiosities...

Please feel free to walk through before the other guests arrive.

This room shows the strange but beautiful photographs of Karl Blossfeldt of buds, pods and seeds of various plants,  the haunting catwoman photograph by Wanda Wulz, various vintage daguerreotypes, and spirit photography.

In the next room, are stills from "La Belle et La Bête", the famous Countess Castiglione , more spirit photography, daguerreotypes, more odd botanical photos by Karl Blossfeldt...

And, suddenly, the room is filled with the rest of the guests again...!

Will you dare to take a step outside with me,

into the dark night?

The museum looks so beautiful by night, doesn't it?

Stepping back inside, we find the giant cat Alabaster, telling ghost stories to a roomful of little children (...and bats...and cats...and Eadwig!)

"There once was a ghostie

Who didn't have a home.

So decided to go traveling,

Upon the ocean-y foam..."

Alabaster only looks slightly spooky.  He is really very, very nice!

Now, please join me in the final room of the museum...

Here, seating and a small stage has been added...

Please take a seat.

The Bat Ballet is about to begin!

Everyone is now seated comfortably.

This is the view of the audience from the stage.

The music begins,

The lights dim and the performance begins...

And, we end our evening at the museum with a curtain call by the dancers!

Thank you so much for your visit to the museum, Dear Friends

and

Happy Halloween!!!

Notes on today's post

First Room

The backdrop is actually a glow-in-the-dark tea towel with a design by Cathy Olivas, available from Circus Posterus.  You can see more of her work on Instagram here.

The bats I've used throughout my post today were printed from a free sheet from the artist Mizna Wada's DIY page, which you can see here.  Also, her work is available on Instagram and you can buy many items with her work in these places.

Second Room

The Archway of the Cricket Nurses and Los Creatura couple were coloring pages sent very generously by Camille Rose Garcia to those who were signed up for her e-mail newsletter.  I hand-colored and decorated them with Stickles glitter glue to use in the museum today.  You can see lots of Camille's work on Instagram and her Big Cartel shop.

Fifth Room

The plush Alabaster, created by Camille Rose Garcia was a gift for me from my Dear Mr. V for Christmas last year, along with a copy of her great book "The Cabinet of Dr. Deekay".  You can still get the book from her Big Cartel shop (see the info the the Second Room above).

The photo on the wall in this room is a postcard from the shop of my lovely friend Vanessa.  Her Etsy shop called A Fanciful Twist, can be found here.

Sixth Room

The great creepy cat woman picture on the wall is a vintage postcard from my friend Annelies' Etsy shop Post From the Past.