I was flicking through November’s edition of ‘House Beautiful’ magazine when I came across this article.
It immediately grabbed my attention being so pink and pretty, so I read on. The article is about a lady, Lesley, who gave up her life’s career as a bookkeeper to pursue her passions in vintage china, baking and flower arranging. She started a company called Poppy Greens which hires out beautiful floral china for weddings, christenings or special family occasions, sells beautiful cupcakes and flower arrangements. I have borrwed this image from the Poppy Greens website to illustrate.
Lesley was inspired by her great aunt who owned a stunning pink china tea service. As a child she took a fancy to it and was luckily enough to have been given it later in life when her Great Aunt moved into a home. Since giving up the bookkeeping, Lesley built up her collection of mismatched china from antique fairs, auctions and village shops. She learnt to make cupcakes and now teaches workshops on how to make cupcakes and sugarcraft flowers.
Lesley operates from Somerset but I’ve found another lovely company who operate in Warwickshire called myvintageparty.co.uk if anyone is interested in hiring vintage china for a tea party or special occasion.
This article was a bit of a revelation to me. As well as being a great inspiration to all of us who want to follow our passions and start up our own businesses doing something we love, it also sparked off a great idea for me. For a long time now, I have been wanting to start a collection but couldn’t think of anything nice enough to collect. Well this article has given me the answer. I absolutely love the pretty vintage china tea cups and plates so I’ve decided to start collecting just this. I’ve even made my first purchase towards my new collection – a pair of pretty dessert plates from Ebay – see image below of my new plates. Over time I hope I will build a lovely set of mismatched vintage china for serving up tea and cake. 
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Thank you for featuring me on your blog !
P