Creativi-tea: The Finished Product

Regarding the Baby Angels' Creative Arts Product; the last thing to fill you in on is the display itself.

When the BA first brought her friend's teapots home for perusal, Himself suggested that she needed to name them. The teapots themselves varied greatly in both style and interest; some were wonderfully quirky, others blandly utilitarian. Giving them a name and perhaps a few props, he suggested, would transform them from teapots into works of art. His first suggestion was naming them after cities.

The BA had planned to use flowers with the teapots and so there was the idea that the flowers might reflect the nature or culture of the city. An oriental teapot begged for some bamboo and a more 'Australiana' number called for gumleaves. The BA was interested in the idea but not entirely sure. On the way to school one morning we were talking about options and I had a light bulb moment.
"We could call the whole thing 'Creativi-TEA'!! I suggested.
We then spent the rest of the drive into school brainstorming nouns ending in 'ty'.
Tranquility
Comedy
Unity
Authenticity
We seemed to have a concept.

That night, as the BA finished off an assignment, I sat looking at teapots and coming up with titles. I then created a list of suggested props to supplement our 'names' and the following afternoon we went shopping.

Some of our ideas had to be modified to cater for what we could get in the Reject Shop. For example we had planned to use a dummy (paci) and baby hat for 'Maternity', but on discovering that dummies retail for around $12.00, we decided to look for other options!

On the night before the exhibition I set up mock displays on the dining room table and 'shot' them so I could recreate them the next day in at school. What did people do before digital photography? Oh yes, there was the Polaroid.

Anyway, here is a sample:


Tranquili-tea:


Vani-tea:


Monstrosi-tea:


Festivi-tea:


And the one no-one 'got': Inscrutabili-tea
(cf: The Inscrutable Oriental)

I had a lot of fun doing this, finding props around the house and matching the teapots to the task. Tomorrow I'll show you the finished product.

The Cupcake Episode

Part of the BA's Teapot Exhibition was the idea that the event would be a 'High Tea' with tea, obviously, and cupcakes (on investigation, it would appear that this is actually a low tea whereas high tea refers to a light, early evening meal consisting of meats and pickles). Anyway, while I was up in the freezing cold shed painting louvre doors white, she was back in the house baking 3 dozen cupcakes. I came down at midnight and she had gone to bed leaving behind what can only be described as a cupcake road accident.

She obviously didn't look hard enough for the muffin tin (I found it easily later) because she had laid out the patty pans on cookie trays so that the resulting cupcakes varied in size and shape. Seriously, there was a jellybean shaped one. Then she had iced them with icing which had obviously not been sufficiently pliable because it looked like it had been scraped on with a butter knife.



And then she had failed to put the sprinkles on.

The icing had hardened enough that when I attempted to sprinkle the sprinkles on top, they rolled off like so many plastic balls in a ball pool. I had to resort to upending the cupcakes and smooshing them into a saucer of sprinkles, with the result that the flat icing became flatter and the sprinkles submerged.

But it was way past midnight and I had had enough.

The following morning she thanked me for putting the sprinkles on and went about her business. She didn't seem at all concerned about the look of the cupcakes and seemed blissfully unaware of their dubious status. I turned to my colleagues at work in despair.
"Do I tell her?" I anguished. "She thinks they're ok. Should I just let her put them out on the cupcake stand?"
"Is this a good time to tell you that Woolworths does 24 decorated cupcakes for $10.00?" they offered.
On the way home I picked up a pack. Just in case.

Back at home the preparations went on into the night. We set up teapots, found props to go with them, named the displays, carried the louvre backdrops down from the shed. Everyone was working. Himself devised a way to suspend a teapot in the air. The BA ironed sheets and researched tea 'facts' for a pinboard display. The hours flew by. The cupcakes and boxes of tea were packed and ready to go and the least of my worries.


As time went on we all began to flag. The BA crashed just after midnight. Himself followed at 2am, I was still ripping sheets into the required lengths and cutting up tea facts on the guillotine at 5am. I dropped into bed for a couple of hours and then I was up to take the BA to school at 7.30am. Back to bed for another hour and then Himself and I had to pack everything into his car for the trip down to the school.

There was rushing. There was stress. There was lack of communication.

Then there was a loud crash and swearing.

Himself had fallen down the stairs with the cupcakes.
I had to work really hard to remind myself that his welfare was more important than the resulting appearance of the already marginal cupcakes. In a way, it was almost a blessing. At least we now had a minor excuse for the marginal appearance of the cupcakes.

Inevitably, no-one made the slightest comment and the first round were inhaled by the ravenous boarders (boarders are always hungry)

so that the store bought 'back ups' made it into the photos.

Well, most of the photos.

Love you Baby Angel.

I Crashed Blogger!!!!

Huh. After several heavy nights trying to tell the story of the BA and her teapots, I must have put too many photos in and crashed my site!

I will have to try again and tell it in stages.....bear with me please.

I have been pretty quiet of late here because we have been focusing on the Teapot Exhibition, the BA's exams, report writing at my school and a constant whirl of netball, rehearsals and Church. Add to that mix the arrival of a bloggy friend from the UK and you will have some idea of the busy-ness of life.

We are struggling with many things BA related at the moment, for which she will not thank me if I broadcast them here :-(. A shame really as I feel a need to document them and a need to vent! I am sure she would find my missives educational and poignant in years to come. Wouldn't she?

OK. Perhaps not.

It leaves me tongue tied however, as it fills so much of my consciousness.

Nevertheless, we will have a post for Crafty Tuesday tomorrow as I will try once more to load up the teapot pictures and give you a flavour of the family affair that exhibition turned out to be!