Tea and Button Heaven

We ventured to Millville yesterday. Basically, we were going for tea. Yes, HWNSNBP accompanies me to tea once a year. It's not as frou-frou as you think. Most places serve a regular lunch menu in addition to serving Afternoon Tea. Millville is in south Jersey about an hour from where we are staying in Barnegat. It would be a much longer drive from home were we to begin there which is why I chose to take advantage of my once-a-year endeavor this week.
The name of the tea room in Millville is The Vintage Rose. I did have the Afternoon Tea which was very delightfully served on a four-tier server in beautiful pink plates. The scones were delicious - nutmeg currant and blueberry, and served with fresh lemon curd and clotted cream. The next tier had 5 "finger" sandwiches - a mini-croissant with chicken salad, a cucumber and mint on white bread, a pastry cup of crab salad, egg salad on marble rye in the shape of a flower, and a toasted cheese on crostini with tomato and basil. The sweets were excellent - a small fruit cheesecake tart, a walnut bar, assorted fresh fruits (some cut out in heart shapes) and a rose shaped mini chocolate cake and teapot sugar cookie. HWNSNBP had an egg salad on marble rye sandwich and a slice of their fresh zucchini quiche. He had raspberry ice tea and I had a pot of Peach Ginger tea. It was a great meal and I know that I am so lucky that he treats me to this.

When we were done with tea there was a group of little shops down the road and I found this little shop called Earth Gatherings - Findings for the Embellisher. Do I need to tell you that I was in Button Heaven. You must enlarge the photos above to see all the wonderful buttons and findings that I took pictures of - and remember that this was only a fraction of what was there. I picked and collected in a little wooden drawer a bunch of buttons and charms.

I shared a memory with the woman who owned the store, telling her about the tins of buttons that belonged to my grandmother who lived downstairs from us, and how my sisters and I would play with the buttons in those tins, sorting and stacking them for what seemed like hours at a time especially on rainy days in the summer. My grandmother worked at a sewing factory and she had quite a stash of buttons. I've always been attracted to bottles and tins of buttons at flea markets and garage sales, but to actually find a store that had all these wonderful embellishments, well, like I said, it was like heaven for me.

From there we went over to WheatonArts and visited some of the shops there. We did not get to see any of the glass making demonstrations - maybe another time.

I have to say that we both needed to use the rest room by the time we got there (remember he had a carafe of iced tea and I had a 4-cup pot of tea). Why am I telling you this - just a little rant. I want to know who the genius is that invented the TP dispenser that only lets you roll out 3 sheets at a time. Am I missing something? Who only needs to use 3 sheets? I like to make my visits to public restrooms as quick as possible. This is hardly possible when you're only allowed to roll off 3 sheets of TP at a time!

BTW, the lady in the button shop has an Etsy store. In addition to embellishments, she also sells beautiful handmade handbags and hats, and other vintage things. Check it out!