A New Year and a New Cup! Tea Cup Tuesday!

Hello All and welcome to the first Tea Cup Tuesday of 2011....YEA!!!

First of all I want to thank each and everyone of you who stop by and visit me.
I love (I really mean LOVE) hearing from you and visiting you as well.

As you can see I have just gone over 700 followers and I am speechless....
I never could have imagined that when I began blogging about my crafts.

I have so enjoyed meeting you and seeing all your beautiful creations, art, home life, and reading your thoughts about life and love.
Blogging has enriched my life, meeting you all is the best part of it all!
Thank you so much.

Now for Tea Cup Tuesday.
Today I wanted to start the new year off in a positive way, so I thought to show a cup that brings me joy.
How can a cup bring anyone joy you ask?
I don't know....but just looking at it makes me smile!
This is a new cup for me from Ebay (what a fab places!).

This is truly a joyful cup! I am not usually a "green" person, at least not this shade of green.

But there is something just right about the colors of this cup. It has a lovely vintage look and feel.

I love all the gold filigree, a common theme with many of my cups. The vibrant display of color in the flowers really brings this cup to life. I find that I use this cup the most lately of all my cups.

This is my only Royal Imperial cup. It is also a cup made in England. In doing research on this cup I found that this company name is a bit of a mystery. None of the often used books have even mentioned it. I have also read the the word "Royal" was not used unless the manufacturer actually had a "license" to use the term, and since there is no historical record of this company, it is highly unlikely. One idea is that another company for some strange reason used this name as temporarily, but not a large company. It also has many little spots on it that tell me the maker was not that concerned about quality. I did also read that the stamp looks like a stamp used by Ridgeway, which was a very large company at one time. I am sure Ridgeway would have done a better job on this cup. So, my cup is unidentifiable. Do any of you have knowledge of the Royal Imperial China Company from England? I would love to hear!

One of my favorite things that brings me pleasure....mmmmm....tea with jam and bread! Toasted of course!

I also love using my favorite sugar spoon....

To dip into my favorite raw sugar (not too much though, just a little....)

Pretty cups are just sooooo delightful!

Thank you so much for stopping by today for Tea Cup Tuesday.
Martha and I host this party because we are over the moon about collecting them.
We love to see what your favorite cups are.
If you would like to play along, just enter your information in the two blanks below in Mr. Linky.
Make sure you put up a post with a featured tea cup please!
Tell us about your cup, do you know the history, the maker, what do you like about it?
We would love to come visit you!
Hugs,
Terri

Laura at Laura's Rose Garden is having a giveaway! I thought I would post it here since it is a beautiful tea cup and other amazing goodies.