Do you still have all your cups in the cupboard?

Show me your favorite mugs. These are mine. I always use the set with the apple on it for breakfast. It instantly puts a smile on my face.

I like that

Wow, Andrea, you really have quite a collection.
As soon as I have time, I’ll dig out mine. There are soooo many! Even though I’m not a cup collector, I’ve ended up with quite a few. That’s why we have breakfast with different tableware every day. It definitely never gets boring. 

Andrea, what a lovely idea. You have a beautiful collection there. The Mainzelmännchen — that mug makes my heart jump with excitement. The yellow-orange one would be my favorite in spring. 

Petra and mugs — absolutely terrible — I like soooo many. We are Disney fans, I am a frog fan, a Nici fan, and a fan of beautiful mugs.

So our collection is quite large. Here are pictures I took very quickly. 

I love the movie Mary Poppins



We love cows; I was given this one as a gift recently



If some are standing by the roadside, I can’t walk past them



Our shelf with the everyday mugs (many are in the dishwasher at the moment)



Of course we also love sheep





and another roadside find — espresso cups





Oh, I’m going crazy—you all have such beautiful mugs. The one with Olaf the snowman on it—I want that one, too. I absolutely love it.
Petra, your white mug with the curlicue design looks so elegant.
I like anything that’s colorful. I need some color in my kitchen cabinet.

Thank you so much for sharing—your collection is great!

Petra, your cups look great, and your collection is really impressive. Personally, I think the one with the little bear is especially cute.

I really need to go through my cabinets over the next few days and take some photos. I’ve got quite a few, because for a long time I just couldn’t resist buying cups. There was a time when I collected “Windel Winnie” cups, and I especially like using those for tea.

Oh, this is so much fun! I felt a little like I was at a flea market just now. That’s where I always discover a thousand cups I like. But in our kitchen, we only have a small selection of colorful cups. And each one has its own story. I’ll take pictures of them for you tomorrow.

Andrea and Petra, I find your collections really fascinating. I even picked out a few favorite cups right away: I especially like the light green one with polka dots from Andrea. I love anything with polka dots—I always have. And with Petra’s, I can’t decide between the blue one with the sheep and the one below it with the koalas.

Hopefully lots of people will join in on this thread. Then we could pick the most popular mug at the end. I’ll go ahead and say it: My favorite so far is the light green one with polka dots.

Love, Ina

Gee, Ina, you always have such great ideas. Thanks for liking my polka-dot mug.
That’s right—at the end, we’ll pick the most popular mug.
I also associate some of my mugs with fond memories of vacation spots.
My favorite so far is Olaf the snowman—he’s awesome (and so is the movie).

So, I’ll show you a selection of my cups, too. My husband got the white one with the weekday calendar from our youngest daughter when he retired this past spring. The little blue cup in the front is a gift from my mother—I treasure it dearly, because it’s already been 11 years since she passed away. So each of these cups has its own story.

Thank you, Akela, for letting us take a look inside your kitchen cabinets too. So many beautiful mugs too—and with personal stories. Please feel free to tell us about your favorite mug here too. Which one do you like best—apart from your own, of course?

The most popular ones so far are these two, with 1 vote each:





Now, of course, everyone else still has a larger selection to choose the prettiest one from. I’ll show you my colorful mugs in a moment too. There aren’t that many because we mostly use glass mugs. But here you go, here comes my little collection ...

Best wishes, Ina

It’s really hard to pick just one personal favorite, because there aren’t any cups I’d really want to pass up—okay, maybe mocha cups are the exception; I’m happy to leave those on the shelf. The selection shown here is just as diverse and colorful as life itself. :-)

Akela, your answer is very diplomatic. But just imagine you’re in a store where there are lots of mugs, all lined up next to each other. Which one would you reach for? Surely there’s one you like a little better than all the others, right?  

As I’ve mentioned before, the one with the koalas is my favorite. I’d take that one with me to a flea market, for example.

You guys have an amazing collection! Each one is prettier than the last...
Just wait until I get started—I’ll end up with an astonishing number of them. I’m shocked by how many mugs we have. Time to do some sorting. ;-)

Sweetie, I’m a Libra, and we have a really hard time making decisions :-) We’re always wavering back and forth—should I take this, or that, or maybe the other one? :-) So don’t ask me for a straight answer—you won’t get one because I simply have a hard time with it :-)

Ina—I really like the first cup with the roses. I also like the shape. But the poppies are beautiful, too. Or maybe the strawberries?

The last cup with poppies—I’d love to drink a nice herbal tea from that one. 

Akela, I'm a Libra too, that's true about the decisions, but it only applies to me sometimes.
Ina, wow, you have a pretty little collection, and they're all so colorful and floral. My favorite of yours would be the very first mug, with the lovely rose motif, as far as I can tell. That would be the perfect “girly mug” for me. The others are great too, but that one immediately appeals to me.
So this mug would be favorite No. 3

Yes, and here are my cups:

My absolute favorites are these two:

I’m sure you can guess why! My two granddaughters painted them and gave them to me as gifts. The one on the left—my granddaughter was already 5 years old when she painted it—and the other one is from my other granddaughter, who was just 2 years old at the time.
Then there’s the mug by Uli Stein:
(I’m a Sagittarius and a Uli Stein fan.)


Then there are four Christmas mugs that I’m using quite often right now:



I’m having a hard time choosing, too. I think I’d like Ina’s poppy mug best. But who knows what else is coming? Maybe we should postpone the vote until later?

Rudolph with the red nose and St. Nicholas—my mulled wine would taste great in those, too.

And the painted mugs from my grandchildren are a wonderful reminder.

Yes, we associate memories with many of the mugs we have. Many years ago, my godchild gave me a mug with a frog on it. Whenever I pick it up, I think of my godchild and feel happy, remembering all the wonderful times we spent together. 

This might not quite belong here, but this pot holder might have been inspired by your polka-dot mug, Andrea:

These are my favorite mugs... the one on the left is a gift from my son (over 15 years ago) and the knitted sheep is from my friend...

It’s really hard to choose. First of all, thank you so much for this little peek into your mug cupboards.
ruthk, I think the mugs your grandchildren painted themselves are a great idea. I especially like the mug on the right with the wonderful colorful scribbles—it has such an abstract feel to it :-)
And that gorgeous yellowish mulled wine mug—I’d really enjoy drinking mulled wine from that.
That polka-dotted potholder is pretty funny too.
Steffi, your mugs look funny too. Isn’t that Teddy Pimboli—or whatever his name is—on the left in the picture? And he’s even peeking over the rim of the mug—so funny.

I’m just imagining all your mugs together right now—what a colorful variety that must make.
Wonderful

...yes, exactly, a "Pimboli" 
sipping mug, and I always take extra care when washing it so nothing happens to the little guy... 

Oh, these mugs are all absolutely beautiful, without exception. I do have a few favorites, but… with so many to choose from, it’s hard to decide…
Of course, I also have various colorful mugs, but they’re more of a country-style, run-of-the-mill sort of thing, still, I don’t want to keep my absolute favorite mugs from you. You’ll probably think, “Oh no, just white ones?” But they always touch my heart when I read the inscriptions and let them get close to me… they have a little story behind them… our daughter gave them to us last year for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day—check out the prints :)

Oh, how lovely—all these cups are close to our hearts :-) I don’t think you can really pick the “most beautiful” cup, because for each of us, a certain cup holds something very special. It’s precisely because we associate a memory with it. That’s what makes them so precious and unique. We may find all the others beautiful, but those special mugs are the ones that really speak to our hearts.

With that in mind, enjoy your coffee, tea, or hot chocolate today from your favorite mug and take a moment to reminisce. It’ll warm you up twice as much from the inside ;-)

Warm regards—Ina

I have way too many cups that I like.

But my favorite cup is this one...



Please excuse the messy photo. I can’t take a new one right now because Leo is sleeping in my arms.

I like this mug best because it’s so huge and holds a looooot of tea :)

I still had two huge mugs in the cupboard, each with a 1/2-liter capacity; they were a gift from our “sandwich daughter.”

That’s quite a collection of mugs right here. Wow!

Steffi’s Pimboli mug—yeah, that would be my favorite, too. I’d definitely buy that one. I love Pimboli… and little bears in general.

Our mug collection is truly impressive—I realized that today while taking photos. My husband has a bit of a mug obsession, too, and there are a few we just had to take home. That was especially true for the Christmas mugs.

Today I finally got around to it, and all the mugs had their photo session. Almost all of them have a story behind them for me, too.

My absolute favorite mug for tea is this one. My husband gave it to me many years ago at the Christmas market, and it was hand-painted and inscribed just the way I wanted. I also have a plate to go with it. The “P + M” stands for Peter and Monika.



These ones (left picture) are also hand-painted—both from a special shop. I used to collect turtles—as you can see—and these two turtle mugs are from that time. In the picture on the right, only one of them is hand-painted. The other is my “Good Mood” mug from Diddl.


The golden mug is ancient—inherited from my mother.



The next ones are also from my mother. I’m on the hunt for matching plates to go with them. Unfortunately, some of them have broken.



And on we go with our Christmas collection—all found here and there 



I’m not done yet—I’ll continue in a moment. To keep this post from getting too long, there will be a second one.

So, here comes the second part. Since some of the mugs are here more than once, you can imagine how full the cupboards are. 

I have a whole 12-piece set of dishes with the geese, large and small mugs



And here are a few more, some duplicates, some one-of-a-kind. The green one at the bottom right is a lucky mug. And I'm still looking for more of the angel mugs. We have more plates than mugs in that set. They are also among my favorite dishes.



And now come the Windel Winnie mugs. I collected them all and got them as gifts from my husband. You can imagine that the one with the little bear is my favorite mug.

Dear Monika, how big is your kitchen cabinet? All those beautiful mugs have to fit somewhere. I couldn’t possibly decide which one to choose each day. I think the golden one from your mother is the most special. I find it the most extraordinary. But I wouldn’t drink from it—it would just be for keepsakes and display.

Thank you so much for showing us your cups. We’re all impressed by the abundance and variety.

Warm regards, Ina

Yes, dear Ina, I’m also surprised that I’ve managed to find a place for everything. We have a cabinet in the living room where the old cups are kept. And in the kitchen, there are two cabinets and a shelf where the cups are all gathered. So far, we haven’t managed to sort any of them out. 

Coffee tastes especially good from the golden cups.  But they’re only washed by hand so the gold stays on. So all the cups are actually being used. That’s what they’re there for, after all. :)

I wish you and everyone here a wonderful rest of this Advent Sunday.





We bought the ones with the blue flowers as a breakfast set almost 50 years ago; the Miró is a souvenir from Barcelona; and the Rosina Wachtmeister cat was a gift from my godmother, who has since passed away—and was “adopted” by my husband!

I found the two espresso cups in the back at a flea market; the other two have siblings—a giraffe, an elephant, a bear, and a zebra—and I bring them out when we have guests. 

Good morning, everyone—or rather, good afternoon,

Oh my goodness, Monika, you have so many cups—and such pretty, colorful ones! I thought I had a lot, but you?
Yes, I always liked those collectible cups at my grandma’s, too—they’re so delicate and thin, but beautifully ornate.
I really like those rose cups from your mom, too. I love roses.
The four-leaf clover lucky cup would be right up my alley, too.

Wollbaerli, you have such beautiful espresso cups. I especially like the red-and-white polka-dot one and that rose cup. I think the red-and-black cat cup with the little paws on the front is cute. It’s really funny.

There really is such a variety of cups, but it’s nice to see that I’m not the only one with this cup obsession. Thanks for sharing.

There was a store in Munich where you could paint your own porcelain... I picked out a mug there... it holds 500 ml...

I’ve actually been holding back a few cups from you after seeing yours here.
These are my mini cups, my Baltic Sea cup (tide) with my name on it, and the other blue-and-white one was a find at a hotel. The guests didn’t pick it up, so now it’s mine. It came from a manufacturer—it cost the equivalent of 50.00 euros. My husband jokes that it’s a “beak cup” because of the handle. There used to be those little medicine cups with that kind of handle at the hospital (I remember them from when I was a kid).
Among the mini cups, the blue one in the front is very special. It’s an heirloom from my great-grandmother, and it’s genuine cobalt blue (Henneberg Porcelain, Ilmenau)—I used to live in Ilmenau and worked at the THI (I think it’s called the TU now).

Looks great, Petra😉

Oh, Christina, I really love your cups. Could I walk past them? I don’t know… I actually like them all.

Wowww, Andrea, you’ve been keeping the most beautiful cups from us all this time! I especially love the blue-and-gold one. And your blue-and-white ones remind me of a set my parents had when I was little.

We also love our rose-patterned cups very much, as well as the gold ones. They’re often on the table, precisely because coffee tastes especially good in such thin cups.

Petra, your cup is beautiful, too. I love hand-painted porcelain like that. One of my favorite cups also holds 500 ml.

Since you’ve all shown off such beautiful old cups, I dug out a really old one of my own—it’s surely at least 80 years old.

It’s part of a Hutschenreuther set that belonged to my mother, and I think it was quite expensive back then. I don’t actually find the shape of the cup particularly beautiful, but I have nothing but fond childhood memories of this set. My mother cherished it very much and always took special care of it. So it was only used on major holidays (Christmas, milestone birthdays, weddings, First Communion, etc.). But since my mother was always afraid that we kids might break something, we were never allowed to help set the table or, later on, wash the dishes. She always preferred to do those things herself, which meant we had “the day off” on those special occasions!
A few pieces did end up breaking over the years, but I still have some, and “out of tradition,” I only use them at Christmas.

What wonderful stories these mugs tell! I can’t get enough of all these treasures—thank you so much to everyone who opened up their cupboards!

Ruth, your mug is especially beautiful, too. Back in the day, my mom would only take mugs like that out of the cupboard for special occasions. Today, every day is special to me, and I don’t put anything off until later anymore. Every day, I do something that makes me feel good. And that includes enjoying my coffee from a beautiful mug. 

That’s right, Monika. You should enjoy the here and now—who knows what the future holds? None of us will live forever, so we might as well make things a little nice and cozy for ourselves while we’re still here.

A selection of my mugs













Flea markets are just always dangerous for me...
I can't wait for them to start up again in May...

Oh yeah, I really love flea markets, too. I’ve really missed them this year. Petra, your cups look amazing. I’ve never seen anything like them before. They remind me a little of those Turkish tea glasses.

Marlene, I’m absolutely blown away by your hand-painted tableware with the grasses and butterflies. I definitely couldn’t resist it if it were for sale somewhere. So far, that’s my number one favorite here.

Let me introduce you to my favorite mugs.
I bought the darker one at the Christmas market in Chemnitz in 1998, before we moved.



The light-colored mug is from Ludwigsburg, since that’s the area we moved to. (The mugs look different now.)

Gabi, I especially like your yellow Christmas mug. It’s really something special. They don’t make things this beautiful for the Christmas market anymore. It’s a shame it’s not happening this year.

I have a few collector’s cups here to show.
In order from left to right, they are February, December, May, and November.
There are also a few cake plates and small plates.
On the bottom it says Elisabethan from England.
Would anyone perhaps enjoy having them?
I would give them away.

@johansi

Oh, they look absolutely beautiful. That would be an absolute highlight for me.
If no one else is interested, I’d be very happy to have them. They go perfectly with my rose-patterned tableware. If no one else wants them, please send me a quick message via the contact form.

Warm regards
Monika

Wow, those little cups are so cute. The handles are so unique. 

Petra-Perle’s cups are a hit, too. I wouldn’t have been able to pass them by at the flea market either. 

Dear friends, johansi gave me a wonderful gift today, and I’m so thrilled about our new addition to the cup collection. Take a look—I’m absolutely delighted, and starting tomorrow we’ll “break them in” and enjoy our coffee from them.

Thank you, dear Hansi! :) You’ve made me so happy!

I’ve been following along with this mug gift thing. They even have the names of the months on them. I’m so happy for you, Monika. It really is a lovely gift. Enjoy your coffee in them.

Warm regards

Congratulations on these beautiful cups!

Thanks, everyone, for sharing in my joy! :)
The mugs even fit in our cupboard and look absolutely great. I just love stuff like this... and so does my husband.