Antique Flow Blue China and other Blue and White China

"There's  joy without

canker or cork

There's a pleasure

eternally new

Tis to gloat on the glaze

and the mark

Of china that's ancient

and blue"

Andrew Lang, from the

Ballad of Blue China



I have been collecting Antique Flow Blue ( also called Flo Blue) for almost ten years.  I found my first piece at my favourite Antique Mall, "Southworks Antiques Mall", in Cambridge, Ontario.  It was a beautiful,hexigonal shaped plate and I just fell in love with it, and had to have it.

Here's the little beauty.

"Flow Blue" is the term used to describe ceramic items which have been decorated with blue underglaze designs and have a smudged or blurred appearance rather than a sharp, clear pattern. The blue color "flows" or "bleeds"onto the body of the piece at the time the glaze decoration is fired in the kiln. This method of decorating ceramics originated in historic Staffordshire, England sometime in the late 1820's.  China decorated in this manner was inexpensive, mass-produced and and regarded as utilitarian china, with most of the production exported to the United States.  It was not really considered as fine china, rather ,

 everday- use china, so it is quite pleantiful and therefore very collectible. Because the Victorians used this china on a daily basis, most pieces show signs of wear and tear.  I find this appealing though, and it makes it more affordable .  If you do come across a perfect or rare piece, it is usually very expensive.  These are not the pieces that I'm interested in collecting.  I look for pieces that have interesting shapes and borders.  Usually I buy small plates and bowls or pitchers that I can display on my dining room wall and in my beautiful dish cabinet made from vintage refurbished wood and glass ( that will be another post ).

  I recently purchased a book on Ebay called " Gaston's Flow Blue China the Comprehensive Guide

This is the book, and it is a really good guide to making sure you find authentic pieces.  Usually, I can get a better price if I find a piece that is not necessarily authentic, but I still like the shape or color.

Here's how I display my collection on my dining room walls and in my dish cabinet.

This is one of the walls in my Dining Room



This is above the door in the Dining Room- these two  plates were purchased in Old Quebec City on my honeymoon.



Here are some additional pieces that are not authentic "Flow Blue", but I love them anyways. I display these pieces with my French Countryside  dishes from Mikasa ( all wedding gifts ).



This casserole was purchased in an antique store somewhere near Grafton Ontario- I can't remember the name.



The pitcher was part of a washing stand set- but the bowl was broken.  It was purchased at an antique fair at the Convention Centre in Etobicoke, Ontario.



Here's a close-up of the casserole on top of my French Countryside dinner dishes.



Here are some more close-ups of my treasures.



These two plates were bought at an antique shop in Old Quebec City during my honeymoon three years ago.  I think I paid $150 for both.

These three tiny plates were actually antique butter-pats and I had to hot-glue a hook on the back to hang them.  They are not " Flow Blue China", but soooo cute.  And the  vintage frame around them really makes the display, I think.

This plate was purchased at an antique store called "Cabin in the Woods", in Gravenhurst, Ontario.  It has some small chips in it, and a stain on it, but this made the price more reasonable.

 This platter was also purchased at "Southworks Antique Mall" in Cambridge, Ontario.  Again, you can see it is not perfect, and has signs of wear around the edges.

This plate and matching bowl was purchased at an antique mall in Mohawk reservation country between my home and Kingston,Ontario.

I absolutely looooove this plate- it actually has a translucent look to it and you can almost see through the white porcelain in real life.  This was also purchased at " Southworks Antique Mall".  I love the trim around it.

I'm not sure if this is "Flow Blue China", but I love the pattern.  The inscription on the back says "Teutonic", and it has a stamp, but I can't find any reference to it in my book.  If anyone knows anything about this particular pattern, I would love to here from you.

This is another tiny butter-pat, but I'm not sure if it's authentic "Flow Blue".



I love the symmetry of the border pattern on this one.

I saved the best for last- this is my absolute favourite piece and I found it this spring- once again at "Southworks Antiques Mall".  I love all the different textural borders surrounding the pattern.   I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this plate.  And best of all- my mother bought it for me, so it was free.

Here is an example of the stamping on the back that you use to identify what the pattern is.

Here are close-ups of the two pieces in the dish cabinet.

Well, I hope this has been informative and maybe you'll be inspired to start collecting "Flow Blue China". If you have any pieces you'd like to share, I'd love to see them.

Bye til next time. Au Revoir.

DIY- Laundry Room Makeover on a Budget

Well hello again.  I seem to be getting all the technical parts of this blogging business under way, so now I'm ready for another go at a project I did last November in our Laundry Room.We had the world's ugliest laundry room circa 1970 something ( barf !!!!)  It has THEE most hideous vinyl wallpaper and ugliest linoleum flooring that I'd ever seen, and it smelled like mold and mildew all the time, no matter what  I cleaned it with. I have been dying to redo it, but trying to get my husband motivated was useless, so I had to do it all myself ( well almost ).

It started back in Sept. of 2009, when the city water deptartment came a-knocking on our door.  They were trying to trace some illicit toilet paper and stuff that was getting into the local creeks.  They narrowed it down to our street, and after some testing, discovered that our water hook-up was done incorrectly.  Apparently, at some point, the person who renovated our soooo ugly laundry room and basement apartment kitchen, had hooked up the water to the wrong pipes.  Yikes!!!!!  We were on the hook for $8000.00 + to get the situation remedied.  We had to have the floor of the kitchen and laundry room dug up and the water hooked up to the sewage pipes, and not the pipes that lead out to the lakes and streams, and we only had 1 month to do it or we would be fined $10,000. We were fit to be tied, but that's the life of a homeowner. We got it done, and retiled the kitchen right away, but the laundry room stayed as is with a nice concreted- over trench right through the middle of the laundry room. I did however buy enough tile to do said laundry room, but as we were both working full-time it never got done- until November 2010.

I was recently unemployed, so it was one of my first projects to tackle.  I really didn't feel like tackling the tiling myself, so we hired our friend, who's a self-employed, do anything that needs doing kind of guy. He only charged us $250.00 to tile the floor, which was right in our budget.  I had purchased a really nice peel and stick vinyl tile that looks just like marble stone tile from Home Depot, but it still needed to be glued down for the sake of being sturdy and permanent.

 Here's what the tile looks like:
















Now that I had this lovely new floor, I just couldn't live with the ugly wallpaper any more, so I decided to make-over the entire laundry room. But, I had to do it on a tight budget, so I used as many things as I could that I already own. 

                                                            So....................    Here's what I did.



Before

First, I peeled off the ugly vinyl wallpaper with my bare hands.  It was so old that it just came off, but there was still an underlayer of paper and glue.  This had to be removed with wallpaper remover.  I bought a spray-on gel from Lowes and tried that first.  It was okay, but not as good as the old fashioned Sure-off that you mix with water and then spray on.  Luckily I still had some of that left from an old project, so I just used that.  You totslly saturate the paper and then using a putty knife, remove it.  If you're lucky, the whole piece will just come off, but usually it ripped and you have to scrape.  All-in-all, it's not too difficult.

I wish I had taken a picture before I peeled off
the old wallpaper, but you can still see a small
piece behind the washing machine.

 Lovely water-stained under paper.

 

Ugly laundry basin.
















 Spraying the under-layer of paper and glue. Don't
forget good gloves (very stylish)!!!!!

 Scraping the old paper and glue off with a putty knife.

 Then wash the walls well with TSP (Trisodium Phosphate).  This is a very strong cleaner, so you need gloves, but not very fumey. This gets gets rid of any residual glue and dirt, in preparation for painting.

 All ready to paint now.  Just had to fill in a few nail holes and give a light sand.  Since it's a laundry room, I didn't do too much else, except tape around the cupboards and windows.

 Now for the fun.  I decided to use the new paint and primer from Behr. It was highly recommended to me by the man in the paint department at Home Depot, and I choose a color called Soft Wheat.  It's a nice warm tan, with a yellow under-tone.  It 's very pretty and matched the tile beautifully.  I really liked the paint, and ended up needing two coats, since my walls were white, but one gallon was all I needed, and there's still some paint left over for touch-ups .

                                         Here are the end result.  I really like the way it turned out:




Door to Laundry Room- no wreaths were harmed in the making of this blog

                                                             Here's the end result.

                         Here are some of the decorative item I used in the laundry room.




                                                                                                                                                                                          The Roman shade was made from Waverley Fabric I had at

 home, and the dried hydrangeas are from my garden.

 Luckily we had these these great built in cupboards   for lots of storeage.

Antique washing board purchased at my favourite Southworks Antique Mall in Cambridge ,Ontario.
This is my favourite Antique mall, and has 100's of dealors under one roof- great prices and lots of variety.

 Close-up of back-splash which I made from left-over peel and stick floor tiles.  I cut them into 4 inch square and stuck them right on the wall.  Then I used decorative furniture tacks in the corner for extra detail, and to keep them from coming off.















These vintage prints of an iron and washing producrs were
printed off the internet and framed in inexpensive frames

already had.




















Dried hydrangeas from my garden.

 More vintage prints from the internet.

I love these clothespins from Walmart.  They don't
leave any marks on your clothes.

 These jars are also from Walmart, and I use them to
store lots of small items.

 These dividers hide the water heater, furnace and my husbands
 tools- they were also already in the laundry room.

 Over the door hooks keep my drying rack, etc. handy
 behind the sceen.

This wire modular shelf keeps tools organized
behind the dividers.

 Another close-up of the vintage iron print.

 Close-up of the vintage washing
 products print.

Well- I hope you've enjoyed this.  Please let me know what you think.  Here's a last before and after shot:



Before



After

      Bye til next time.  Au Revoir!!!!!