Tablescapes continue by leap year and bounds!

February tablescape's theme is a romantic tea time with a collection of "united nations" serving ware

For the new year, I declared I would post a new tablescape each month and got off to a roaring start in January, putting to use some lovely family heirlooms that had been packed away for years. I was looking forward to February's dining tableau with a theme of a romantic tea time and, like last month, continuing to bring out the beautiful, but underutilized, serving ware.

Well, like many new year's resolutions, all the enthusiasm of January can get easily derailed by February.   In my case, most of the "derails" were good ones. Wedding-planning events and tea talks kept us very busy. But, throw in a few unexpected events life throws at you  just to remind you that you can't control or plan for everything and February was coming to a quick close without a tablescape in sight.

But, then here comes Leap Year to the rescue. Today, I assembled my romantic tablescape for a tea tete-a-tete. Tea for two - and for 2020 tablescapes, we're two for two!

Aside from the pleasing aesthetic tablescapes bring to a repast, there's just a lot of good memories that come from assembling such an eclectic collection. Antiques next to almost-new-pieces found a common thread in being adorned with tiny pink flowers. The Royal Albert "rose confetti" tea set my husband gave me for Christmas three years ago flanks my grandmother's pink and gold compote dish (Hinode, Japan) which is the perfect place to house colorful macarons.

Eclectic collection of china from around the world sharing a common thread of pink floral decorations

Today's white luncheon plates, framed in small rosebuds, also belonged to my grandmother and she loved these dishes. They belonged to her friend's mother and, after she passed away, the plates were gifted to my grandmother. These sat like trophies on her pantry shelf.  When I was little, I remember going to that pantry to snag a few forbidden sugar cubes and look up at the colorful gallery of cups, saucers, bowls and dishes. These plates were made by C.T. Altwasser, a porcelain company in Silesia (a region that is now part of Germany, Czech Republic and Poland).

To round out my United Nations tablescape there were two floral tea cups from England:  one,  a Rosina pattern cup that my mom bought me while we were "antiquing" locally over twenty years ago and the other, an Ansley bone china cup that I treated myself to at the Antique Depot in Lewiston just a few summers ago.

Thanks to Leap Year, I am not only  on course for my monthly tablescape, but this extra day allowed me to spend a delightful afternoon curating both serving dishes and memories.

Seems the solution to meeting deadlines is to add an extra day. Too bad it only comes once every four years. . .

Happy February 29th!!