I’m not one of those people who likes to take their holiday decorations right when the holiday ends and set up for the next one. I also celebrate Valentine’s Day until February, but last year I threw a Valentea party in two weeks and wanted to share it with you all. However, I know people need more time than that and wanted to share it with you all.
Christmas 2021 my friend was given a book that had ideas to hold a tea party every month. She held the first party on January 29th and no one wanted to do the next one, the Valentine’s Day party. I agreed and of course had to change the direction to Valentea and Jane Austen.
Invitations:
So the first thing you need for a party is invitations. I like to make my own cards and sent everyone a Valentine. I used romantic and love quotes from my favorite books.
Decorations:
After planning that came decorations. I’m lucky that I still have the ones from my bridal shower. I have reused those so many times! Yep, I used my pink floral table runners, framed Jane Austen quotes (which can be purchased from this shop); along with pink and white flowers.
Menu:
I was able to figure out my menu pretty quickly as I have a Tea Time magazine subscription, a Betty Crocker holiday cookbook, a Nancy Drew Cookbook, etc. I had a lot of recipes to choose from.
Tea Choices:
I wanted everything to be pink and red as it was a Valentea party so I had MadsenCreations make a Red Chai and Pink Moon Tea. I also picked Tiesta Tea Nutty Almond Cream Tea (which turns the water pink).
½ cup plus 1 tablespoon cold heavy whipping cream, divided
2 large eggs, divided
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
Preheat oven to 375°. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and orange zest until combined. Using a pastry blender or 2 forks, cut in cold butter until it resembles coarse crumbs.
In a small bowl, whisk together ½ cup cold cream, 1 egg, and vanilla extract. Add to flour mixture, stirring until a dough begins to form. Working gently, bring mixture together with hands until a dough forms.
Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface, and knead gently 4 to 5 times. Using a rolling pin, roll out dough to a 1-inch thickness. Using a 2-inch fluted round cutter dipped in flour, cut 13 scones from dough, rerolling scraps as needed. Place scones 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheet.
In a small bowl, whisk together remaining 1 tablespoon cold cream and remaining egg until combined. Brush egg mixture over tops of scones.
Bake until edges of scones are golden brown and a wooden pick inserted in centers comes out clean, 18 to 21 minutes. Serve warm.
Optional: Add a glaze.
Tea Time Magazine Lavender White Chocolate & Cranberry-Raspberry Scones
Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
⅓ cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar, divided
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon dried culinary lavender
½ teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons cold salted butter, cut into pieces
1 cup chopped dried Cranberries and Raspberries
1 (4-ounce) bar white baking chocolate, such as Ghirardelli, chopped
1 cup cold heavy whipping cream
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°.
Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, combine flour, ⅓ cup sugar, baking powder, lavender, and salt, whisking well.
Using a pastry blender, cut butter into flour mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs. Add cranberries, strawberries, and chocolate; stirring until combined.
In a liquid-measuring cup, combine cream and vanilla extract, stirring to blend. Add to flour mixture, stirring until mixture is evenly moist. (If dough seems dry, add more cream, 1 tablespoon at a time.) Working gently, bring mixture together with hands until a dough forms.
Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead gently 4 to 5 times. Using a rolling pin, roll dough to a ½-inch thickness. Using a 3-inch heart-shaped cutter, cut 12 scones from dough. Place scones 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheet, and sprinkle tops with remaining 1 tablespoon sugar.
Bake scones until edges are golden brown and a wooden pick inserted in the centers comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes.
Games:
Game 1: Who Said It?
For this game I took all the romance quotes I had used on the Valentines and people had to match up the quote with who said it.
Game 2: Who Can Name the Most Romance Movies?
For this game I had everyone turn their sheet of paper over and write down as many romance films they could think of in a minute. This was a ton of fun as afterwards we all talked about which ones we liked and what films were our favorites to watch.
I had a lot of fun with our tea parties, and I hope this helps if you want to plan a Valentea party.
I have to be honest, when I heard Netflix was making a new Persuasion I immediately had a bad feeling about it. I decided to reserve judgement and hope that it wouldn’t be terrible, but I didn’t really believe we would get a miracle.
Then I saw the trailer and I knew it was going to be bad. I could see in those few clips they has completely misunderstood the character of Anne and that this was going to be another Mansfield Park (1999).
It was worse.
MadsenCreations and I watched it together, she did Instagram live while I live tweeted. You can read my tweets but more terrible and horrible moments happened that I actually couldn’t tweet as fast as the film went. It was a hot mess.
But before I go into what I didn’t like, let’s start off with what I did like
Set & Costume Design
The set was beautiful and the director knew how to utilize the home, forest, seaside, country and city. Unlike some other Austen novels these characters do spend a fair amount of time indoors and outdoors, the weather and scenery tying into the story and the emotions of the characters. This was probably the best thing about the film was how well the director understood to use the set.
The costumes are also well done, as MadsenCreations pointed out there are no large glaring zippers (Netflix has learned since Bridgerton). Although, I am sad that there weren’t any ones from previous Austen adaptions, or if there were any I didn’t catch it. I really love seeing the same gown pop up in adaption after adaption.
Visually the film was good, it was the other choices that were terrible.
Diversity
As with Bridgerton they chose to do a rainbow cast (for those who have never heard the term before rainbow cast means that you cast people for characters regardless of the color of their skin, hence having a “rainbow” cast). While other productions that have done this have either made the character’s skin tone their only character trait (I hate when they do that), this production didn’t go that route. In fact it reminded me a lot of Cinderella (1997), the one that stars Brandy, where they had a family unit that contains a white father, African-American mother, and Filipino son; but nothing is made to explain it and being those races are not the characters only personality; instead they are just people. I really enjoyed it, and feel that of other films and TV shows want to that they should definitely go this route. Although I have noticed that like in Bridgerton, Persuasion has no one of Latin descent. As someone who is Latina. I do find that offensive that they promote how inclusive they are yet there is no one of Latino descent. And if someone wants to say that perhaps they couldn’t find a British-Latino person, while I find that to false. First of all Dakota Johnson isn’t even British and they gave her the main character, and secondly I googled it and found 24 right away. Netflix I’m expecting the next adaption to have someone!
Dialogue
The dialogue in this was horrendous. I’m not sure who was paid for this because it was beyond terrible. If I was Netflix, I’d demand that money back. First we have all these modern sayings, phrases, and slang that just do not fit right with the atmosphere. I think if that’s the route they wanted to take they should have just made a modern Persuasion. Or if they wanted to make this a cross between modern + Regency they should have done it Romeo + Juliet (1996) style with her in the Regency clothes and all modern language; or modern clothes and regency language. But this mishmash, some Regency and some Modern did not work out well at all.
There is a lot of truly terrible dialogue but the biggest offenders to be was when Henrietta tells Anne that to win a guy she should pretend she didn’t know how to use cutlery. Not only is that the dumbest thing I have ever heard, but now a whole generation are going to think that Jane Austen wrote that.
I asked a friend if that would be attractive to him and this was his response was “no” and that he would wonder about her mental capacities. The reason I find this particular scene so offensive is first of all Jane Austen wrote very strong and intelligent characters, there are silly ones but these women were not. And not only are we perpetuating this idea that women need to be dumb and have a man help them in order to be attractive, they are making it sound as if Jane Austen herself agrees with that and promoted it as well!
But that was just the beginning. So much of it is terrible that even the good dialogue is lost in the cesspool of words. And let’s not even begin on the octopus line.
The other truly terrible parts of this dialogue is that there is no subtlety or secrets. Everything is out in the open. In the book no one besides Lady Russell knew that Anne and Captain Wentworth had been engaged; in this everyone knows. In the book, no one is certain of Mr. Eliot’s intentions-he saying that he just wants to fix the rift; but Anne suspecting more. However, in this Mr. Eliot tells Anne right away he wants to keep her father from having a male heir. It’s like did anyone read this book?!!
Where are the Austen things and characters I love??!!
They completely destroyed my two favorite parts: 1) when they discuss the loyalty of women and Anne points out that all the “proof” of men loving more are written by men; 2) the letter scene. It really felt like someone took the bare, bare, almost nonexistent bones of the story to write this production.
Mary Musgrove (Mia McKenna-Bruce), Sir Walter Elliot (Richard E. Grant), Charles Musgrove (Ben Bailey Smith), Elizabeth Elliot (Yolanda Kettle), & the Musgrove Children (Jake Siame and Hardy Yusuf)
So some of the characters and the decisions made about the characters were not good, but I’ll save my complaints for a little later. The ones I did enjoy were the above few. Sir Walter and Elizabeth were so horrible and rude, just as they should be, although I think it would have been better to include a bit more of them as they are hardly in there, but they did good.
Charles Musgrove although he too wasn’t in the film that much. The little Musgrove boys were adorable and they stole the scene every time they were on screen.
The one they blew me away though was Mia McKenna-Bruce as Mary Musgrove. You liked her and hated her, she was extremely awful but at the same time she also said a lot of things I agreed with when it came to Anne. Anne was such a mess that Mary (yes Mary), seemed to be the only adjusted character. She was a narcissist, that didn’t change, but she was more together than Anne (which is not how it should be). Out of everyone, I think she did the best.
Henry Golding as Mr. Elliot
Henry Golding was charming but too charming. He’s supposed to be somewhat suspect from Anne’s pov as he hasn’t done anything outwardly wrong, but she is questioning his interest and sudden appearance with her family. When Anne’s friend warns her against him and tells her she spotted Mrs. Clay and Mr. Elliot together, Anne immediately believes her and thinks something is up (which of course we later discover later that he ran off with Mrs. Clay to keep Sir Walter from siring a male heir [although he should be more afraid that Sir Walter will lose all his inheritance]).
However, someone in their great wisdom (read that sarcastically please) decides to reveal Mr. Elliot’s intentions in the first meeting. That’s supposed to be a big plot point! That’d be like if in Great Expectations when Pip goes to school if Magwitch sent him a letter saying that hey I’m your benefactor! By the way I also have a little girl that was adopted named Estella, do you know anyone by that name?
In this adaption Mr. Elliot also asks Anne to marry him (something not in the book), is messing around with Mrs Clay (which Anne catches instead of everyone finding out later), and they also change his character when he marries Mrs. Clay instead of just putting her up as his mistress. They completely changed the character and while it fit for Henry Golding; I this role was not the right one for him. He would have been better as a Frank Churchill, Mr. Tilney, or as Captain Wentworth as as Golding and a lot more chemistry with Dakota Johnson/Anne than Cosmo Jarvis.
Captain Harville (Edward Bluemel) and Captain Benwick (Afolabi Alli)
These actors did well in their parts but the problem was that there wasn’t a lot of them in the film. Benwick and Anne are supposed to spend quite a bit of time together, that’s why when he is engaged to Louisa all are surprised. In this he and Anne have one conversation and didn’t even use the amazing dialogue that Jane Austen wrote. Harville was also just used as a piece of the scenery.
Louisa (Nia Towle) and Henrietta Musgrove (Izuka Hoyle)
Most adaptions hardly use Henrietta but this one does it the least, blink, and you’ll miss her.
Louisa was not very well done in this either. She is made to be so silly, such as that line about how to get a guy. She also doesn’t make sense as a character. In the original book, she and Anne are close but she doesn’t know about their previous engagement, so when she meets Captain Wentworth it makes sense that she goes after this nice, rich, single man. However, in this production they show Louisa and Anne as best friends; Louisa knowing about the engagement and encouraging Anne to go after him. However, after dinner she then reverses that and tells Anne she is making a play for him. Seriously, what a jerk move to do.
The other thing that didn’t make any sense was that there was hardly any flirting and time spent between her and Captain Wentworth for us to even believe they were interested in each othe. In the book the two flirt a lot as Louisa is interested and Captain Wentworth appreciates having her attention in front of the woman who rejected him. The two do several jump and catch me little scenes, that later caused the accident as Louisa does it in an unsafe area. In this they cut out the previous scenes so when she does the jump it doesn’t make any sense and looks like she just decided to yeet herself.
Cosmo Jarvis as Captain Wentworth
I really didn’t care for Cosmo Jarvis as Captain Wentworth. I felt this version of the character was pretty boring and seemed to have no substance or relation to what was going on in the scenes. He never seemed upset or at all like the book character. And of course a big chunk is off because there are no secrets in this adaption like in the book.
I also didn’t feel as if Jarvis really fit in the regnecy times. He seemed out of place to me, as if he was not really apart of his surroundings.
Dakota Johnson as Anne Elliot
I haven’t really seen Dakota Johnson in that many things so I can’t really attest to her acting but in this it was deplorable. A major portion of it has to do with her being the main character and pushing the film forward, but the script was terrible. Like Jarvis, I feel the bigger problem was that she never seemed to really inhabit the scenery as well.
Also her character is terrible. She’s trying so hard to be the “quirky” girl but it feels so out of place. They also made a majority of her character like little wine memes; basically this was her in a nutshell “It’s always wine o’clock”, “don’t give a carafe”, “wine not”, etc. She drank way too much, that is basically all she does-drink and fall down. She looks and acts like she needs to get help as she can barely function and cannot without alcohol.
In conclusion, I don’t care how much Netflix is trying to convince me this movie was “good”, I feel this is one of the worst Austen adaptations I have ever seen.
So I don’t know about those of you in colder parts of the world, but here in CA the weather has turned slightly warmer making many think about Spring and Summer plans.
MadsenCreations is no different as she has started rolling out new Jane Austen items in her “Spring Collection”.
Hmm…?
First we have a Pemberley Est. T-Shirt:
I assisted a bit (gave a suggestion of what should go under Pemberley). This shirt is cute and perfect for any Jane Austen fan. Order by clicking here
And then for the Northanger Abbey fans, a Northanger Abbey Crop Top:
Not to mention you can still order the items from the Get Spooky! Collection that I helped design. Such as the Northanger Abbey sweatshirt, Northanger Abbey shirt
We also designed a Jane Austen crop top and full tee based off the one Selena wore in Selena: The TV Series.
Is there a Jane Austen item you want and have been unable to find? Reach out to MadsenCreations and she can help make it a reality. AustenTherapy wanted a Jane Austen Henry Tilney Fanny Pack and MadsenCreations made it!
And don’t forget to use the code Janeaustenrunsmylife for 10% off your total order (Jane Austen and non-Jane Austen items).
Do you love Jane Austen things? But also love Halloween? Is this you?
Are you a Catherine Morland who wishes there were Jane Austen/Northanger Abbey/Halloween products? Well don’t worry, I’ve got you! Jane Austen Runs My Life and Madsen Creations have collaborated together on five more designs that are sure to make your little Catherine Morland heart melt!
Madsen Creations makes custom clothes and other custom items. I have mentioned her in the past as I have won a tunic and capelet from her, was given some reusable tea bags to review (and bought some) and she made my Regency gown. We also collaborated on three Jane Austen shirts, one of which is below.
I told her how I had searched for some cute, spooky, Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen items and could never find any. After I lamented for a while, she told me-let’s make some. So we did!
The first item is a Jane Austen Sugar Skull Mug. I had made this image a few years ago as part of my dress Jane up for Halloween posts. Here is the original image:
And here is the product! Isn’t it just spooktacular?
Do you love Jane Austen things? Then I’ll think you’ll love what I have to share! Jane Austen Runs My Life and Madsen Creations have collaborated together on two t-shirts designs!
Madsen Creations makes custom clothes and other custom items. I have mentioned her in the past as I won a tunic and capelet from her; along with getting a free reusable tea bag. (I also have a few other things I’ve had made by her that I still need to share a post on.)
Last year, the two of us started Period Drama Saturdays, and one of the period dramas we watched was the Selena TV show on Netflix, I had mixed feelings about the show, (I shared more about it on Instagram, but if interested on more of my thoughts comment below); and in Season One we both noticed right away that in one episode Selena wears a Jane Austen crop top.
I thought it was so cute and tried searching for one to buy, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. Neither of us could.
We both waited a while but after still not finding it available we decided to make our own. It’s not an exact replica, but as close as we could get it. It’s perfect for a seasoned Austenite, a new fan, or for your teens you are introducing to Jane Austen. Click here to purchase.
But we didn’t stop there. I had been playing with the idea of having my own mercy as people always comment how they love the blog name. So we also designed a second shirt:
This one comes in a variety of colors!
And that’s not all. I have a few more ideas of things I want to do, keep an eye out as if I do make anything, I’ll post on it soon!
Both shirts are available on @madsencreations website, click on this link to shop this product.
janeaustenrunsmylife 