Blog Description

A French-Inspired Garden and Home by Judith Stringham
Showing posts with label garden party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label garden party. Show all posts

Afternoon Tea In The Bluebonnets

Monday, May 6, 2019


Afternoon tea may bring visions of an English "high tea" to your mind, but afternoon tea also can be a break from spring gardening to enjoy a glass of iced tea and a blueberry muffin in a bluebonnet patch in your backyard. 

Thanks to Amber of Follow the Yellow Brick Home for hosting It's a Spring Tea Party Blog Hop with 25 bloggers. I am excited to be part of this beauty-filled event. 

See all of the links to the others who are sharing their visions of a Spring Tea Party at the end. You are certain to find some wonderful ideas for celebrating GLORIOUS SPRING at your house. 

Welcome to everyone coming from one of my good blogging friends, Katie at Let's Add Sprinkles. Now, I consider all the bloggers on the Spring Tea Party good blogging friends, but Katie and I have a special blogging friendship. We co-hosted a weekly linky party with another good Texas blogging friend before Katie began hosting Keep in Touch. If you are missing The Scoop and Wow Us Wednesdays for connecting with others at linky parties, head over to Let's Add Sprinkles each Tuesday to join Katie's linky party. 

In fact, several of my blogging friends on this Spring Tea Party Blog Hop co-host weekly linky parties and would love to have you join them each week. See a list of Linky Parties to join each week on my sidebar. 

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Thank you for coming to read about an afternoon tea party here in Texas. 

At my house, we are celebrating a favorite time of the year with iced tea and blueberry muffins in the patch of bluebonnets in our backyard.    


Afternoon tea in the bluebonnets is a way to enjoy joie de vivre (exuberant joy of living) during an exuberant time of the year in Texas ... the time of bluebonnet blooming season. 

Spring Garden Party

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Spring Garden Party 

Ideas for a garden party using what you have... 


Spring came early this year in north Texas. Spring arriving early was a wonderful thing because my sister and brother surprised me with a spring garden party for my birthday. You are invited to join the party and to see how to use what you have to create a beautiful outdoor party. 


Katie at Let's Add Sprinkles is hosting the Hello, Spring Blog Tour, and my surprise birthday party came at a perfect time to share as part of the tour. 

For new readers visiting as part of the Hello, Spring Blog Tour, welcome! 
I hope you will become a regular reader and come back often. 

Regular readers, dear friends, thanks for stopping by to see what's going on this spring at Botanic Bleu. 

I am excited to be joining 14 talented bloggers who are also sharing how spring looks in their homes. The full schedule is listed at the bottom. Be sure to visit them, and tell them the birthday girl said hello. 

I had planned to share my French-inspired garden shed all decked out for spring, but will share it later. 

spring-garden-party-drink-table-with-candelabra

Wish for a White Flower

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Sometimes I think I may have a fairy godmother, 
or perhaps, a tender-hearted angel, who watches over me 
and hears my heart's wishes. 



With all the unusual amounts of rain in May, 
the roadsides are still green into June and, for us in Texas, 
even could be called lush with blooms. 
For the first time, I noticed a large wild shrub 
with graceful fronds loaded with white flowers 
all along the roadsides and near wooded areas. 

Spirea Garden Party ~ French Style

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Spirea 
is an old fashioned plant 
that reminds me of
Victorian houses 
and 
garden parties. 

Welcome to

The Scoop On ... 
Spring Tablescapes 

Enjoy the Spirea Garden Party,
à la French style,
en plein air.

I am excited to be part of

Top This Top That 
Setting for Four 
Botanic Bleu 
Hymns and Verses 
Unexpected Elegance

 for the first day of the 3-day tour.


What better way to spend a warm Spring day 
than having a glass of fresh mint tea 
with a walnut and apple garden salad 
next to the spirea plant in full bloom? 



Folding wooden chairs with worn blue paint 
are perfect for outdoor dining. 
Gracie is hanging out under the table 
hoping for a little treat. 



After the long harsh winter, the spirea bush 
is filled with the most blooms ever on long 
graceful fronds that sway in the wind. 



Pots of ivy and lobelia on the table add 
to the garden party.  



Tall clay pots without the usual wide rim at the top 
are popping up in garden centers and stores.  



Made in Italy in unfired red clay... 
A little Navy #4 Valspar sample paint quickly 
transformed the little pot into a blue one. 



Stainless flatware with a fleur de lis design adds a French touch. 



Standing in a small blue flower pot, the flatware is easy to reach. 



Fresh iced mint tea quickly forms 
condensation on the blue fleur de lis glass. 
A warm 86° tied the high temperature for the date. 



These warm days with fresh green grass, leafy trees, and flowers 
are among the best weather days during the year. 

A strong breeze keeps the weather pleasant, 
but means that some weights are needed 
to keep the linens from blowing away and 
small things from blowing over.  


A vintage brass watering ring anchors the silverware-laden blue pot. 
 A brass sprinkler head in the shape of a watering can  
is hefty enough to hold linens in place. 



Blue and white garden dishes with a new toile design are 
extra special with their contrasting borders 
and extra design details. 
Each piece has fluted edges.



Square (really eight-sided) dinner plates, 
salad plates, and bread plates 
with a floral pattern accented by 
a bird with outstretched wings 
are reminiscent of antique French designs. 
Only we know that these did not come from a 
French flea market. 
HomeGoods is our little secret. 

Round soup/cereal bowls have a surprise in the bottom... 
the little bird ready for flight! 

Dishes... 
Bleu et blanc vaisselle... 
A passion all my life... 
To find unusual shapes, 
with so many details, 
and in so many pieces, 
is a thrill!
The  small square condiment bowls 
  are one of those unusual pieces 
that make a pattern extra special. 



Walnut and apple garden salad is my favorite salad 
anytime of the year and especially for a garden party.  



Feta cheese and raspberry walnut vinaigrette 
add just the right zing! 

Walnut and Apple Garden Salad Recipe
Spring Mix packaged greens 
Apple slices
English walnuts
Feta cheese
Raspberry walnut vinaigrette
(Paul Newman's is my favorite.) 



Iced mint tea pairs perfectly with the garden salad. 
An overturned flower pot keeps the tea in easy reach. 



French linen kitchen towels serve as table runners 
for the final touch of France in the 
Spirea Garden Party. 

Come back anytime to sit for awhile 
in a blue wooden chair 
and to drink a glass of iced mint tea. 
 
 ~~~~~~~~~~
Porcelain ~ Adelaide Blue & White @ HomeGoods

All information is supplied as a courtesy for my readers 
with no compensation from any source. 
~~~~~~~~~~
If you can spend hours reading 
magazines, catalogs, and design books,  
then you are in for a treat.


Ten bloggers are joining the five hostess bloggers 
for a tour of Spring Tablescapes. 
15 blogs over 3 days

Look at the hostesses! 
Everyone of them has 
style with pizzazz! 

I am so excited that 
Botanic Bleu 
is included.
After partying with me, 
hop, hop, hop on over 
to the other four Spring Tablescapes today. 

Come back on April 23-24 for 
TEN more inspiring Spring tables 
in The Scoop On...Spring Tablescapes.

Tuesday, April 22 Wednesday, April 23 Thursday, April 24

~~~~~~~~~~
Please join me at these inspiring sites...
SUNDAY

MONDAY

TUESDAY

A Shade-Speckled Afternoon

Thursday, April 4, 2013

The Monday Book Club read
The Immortal Life of
Henrietta Lacks
for the month of April.

Ten of the twelve members met
under a pear tree for lunch and a lively discussion
of Henrietta's contributions to modern gene research.


We discussed Henrietta's immortal cancer cells
the day after Easter when the immortal life of Christ
is celebrated with various symbols, images, and traditions.







The book club garden party tables beckoned us outside
with glimpses through the breakfast room's windows.




April 1st had a cloudless sky of vibrant blue.
The grass and newly leaf-clothed trees sparkled in the sunlight
with leaves exuberant with new life.


Inspired by Cedar Hill Ranch's post last year about
Pasture Party in a field of bluebonnets, I gathered
old tables, various chairs, dishes, and tablecloths
to create a setting for moments of pure, perfect joy.



...a shade-speckled afternoon
of garden friends,
sweet breezes, and practically 
nothing to do...
(Marjolein Bastin)


To create a day we will remember repeatedly
as we reminisce in the days to come...


Bright green, verdant green,
pale green, medium green, celery green,... so many shades of green
will be a distant memory in the dead heat of summer
when all the leaves will be a dull green from lack of rain.





But today, with tables set in the dappled sunlight, we laughed, talked, ate, drank,
discussed, pondered, and enjoyed the new green life
under the pear tree.










We marveled at how Henrietta's cancerous cervical cells
have been used in research to create advances in medicine...
how zero gravity affects human cells in space,
the polio vaccine, chemotherapy,
cloning, gene mapping,
in vitro fertilization, herpes, leukemia,
influenza, hemophilia, Parkinson's disease... ... ...

Scientists continue to use Henrietta's cells
sixty-two years after first collecting them
in the weeks and days before her death.
Her cells were the first ones researchers found to continue
to replicate endlessly in cultures outside the body
as long as the cells have nutrients.

All without Henrietta's consent or
knowledge that her cells were being harvested!

This is what we pondered most of all
in the shade of the pear tree.
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I'm joining these inspiring linking parties...
the Scoop
Savvy Southern Style
Jennifer Rizzo
French Country Cottage
The Charm of Home