10th Tea Cup Exchange

Hi Dear Friends,

Recently I joined in on the 10th Tea Cup Exchange with Stephanie @ The Enchanting Rose, this is my 4th exchange.  The person I received my package from was Wendy @  September Violets.  She has a wonderful blog, stop in and say hello when you have a chance, you can also see what she received.   I was definitely spoiled by Wendy, she sent so many wonderful things and you could see how much thought she put in to each and every gift.  Thank you Wendy.

Wendy sent two beautiful spring tea towels, lots of tea in sweet little gift bags and those cookies...well, they were gone within a couple of days.  I had to tape the box shut for the photo lol.  Wendy made the very pretty dish cloth nestled in the Ironstone pitcher, it goes perfectly with the tea towels.  And chocolate, who can resist that?  She also sent some cute little cookie cutters that you can see on top of the cookie box - a watering can, tea cup and tea pot.  Everything she sent was beautifully wrapped with so much detail.  Below is an absolutely beautiful wall hanging that Wendy made.  An embroidery ring with my blog name and beautiful flowers attached.  She made this for my craft room and that's exactly where I will be placing it.  It is such a personal gift and means the world to me.  She did a beautiful job.

Aren't the flowers pretty?

 Wendy knows that I love yellow, isn't it a beautiful tea cup?  It's perfect!  It's so fresh and bright.

This little creamer is adorable and it goes quite well with the tea cup.  When the two are together the yellow just pops.  I have already used it and enjoyed doing so - it's just so sweet.

As Wendy follows my blog, she knows how much I love Ironstone.  She said she came across this piece when searching for my tea cup.  I was thrilled.

Wendy made this tea/coffee cozy and it's yellow - she couldn't go wrong.  I absolutely love it.  I also love the display that was inserted into the cozy.  How cute is that?

The following gifts are the ones that I sent to my other tea cup buddy, Marina.  Marina loves nature, birds, gardening, embroidery, etc.

If you want to see all the wonderful gifts that people received, stop in at Stephanie's blog.

Thank you Stephanie for holding another wonderful tea cup (and mug) exchange, it has been a lot of fun as always and it's a great way to meet new friends.  I highly recommend it to everyone.

~ Kelly ~

Happy Easter

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to wish everyone a wonderful Easter.

This was my attempt at an Easter display.  I don't usually create these but seeing so many displays on blogs got me excited.  So here it is...lol.  I had fun anyway.

See the robin's egg in the nest?  It's a candy Easter egg that I stole from my granddaughter's stash, my hubby was hiding eggs for her before she came over for Easter dinner lol.  It was the best I could get on such short notice (short notice being putting the display together for Easter dinner as we were hosting it) lol.  I know...how pathetic is that?  Most of you have had yours together for weeks. 

I had been wanting to get more decor for my display but didn't really want to spend the money.  My hubby and I went to the barn yesterday to look for something when we saw a box on a shelf and we couldn't remember what was in it.  The box was one of the many items left behind by the previous owners.  As we looked in the box, THERE IT WAS...A GIANT EGG and it was free.  Well, actually it was the price of the mortgage but that's besides the point.

I found this cake mould at the thrift store for $3.00. I was thrilled.  It's perfect for this time of year.

I hope all of you were able to enjoy Easter dinner with your family and friends.  Remember, Jesus is the reason that we celebrate Easter.  Best wishes!

~ Kelly ~

Randomness - Is That A Word?

Hi Friends, 

Just over a week ago, I looked outside and saw another amazing sunrise.  The original color I saw was of a deep red similar to this one.  Last year I used my camera to take the photo but this year I had my cell phone.  I wasn't able to capture the deep red that I saw so I gave up and went back into the house to continue getting ready for work.  A short time later I looked out the window and saw this.  I grabbed my cell phone and raced out a different door hoping I could actually capture the color this time.  It was now orange instead of red.  I partially zoomed in on the sunrise, this time the color was much closer to what I was actually seeing.  It was even brighter in person.  Isn't it beautiful?

You can see the reflection of the sunrise in the windows of the barn.  If you look closely you can also see the silhouette of the trees which aren't even close to the barn.

You can see the gradual change of colors in this photo.

This was my attempt to capture the red sky.  This was a faded out version of it, I wish you could have seen what it actually looked like.  If you look closely though, you can see the multiple shades of red/pink in the sky.

Another faded out version but I thought it was still pretty with the sun glowing through the trees.

We have had a few different ducks in the pond in the last couple of weeks.  This is a Common Merganser.  We have also had Hooded Mergansers,  Red-Breasted Mergansers, Mallards and Canadian Geese.  They have all come in pairs.  When I was looking through the binoculars the other day, I only saw the male Merganser which was unusual.  While I was looking, I suddenly saw a ton of goldfish suddenly go flying up out of the water.  I'm assuming the female was under the water at this point as they are diving ducks.  The poor fish though...I wish I could protect everyone, including the fish lol.  I guess that one is out of my hands.

I did my best to crop the photo, unfortunately I wasn't able to zoom in any more without the photo becoming too blurry.  This duck has flown right over us a couple of times so we were able to get a much closer look.

While looking through the binoculars at this duck, a large red fox came trotting down beside the pond.  It was beautiful.  Although we can see the ducks, fox, etc. with the naked eye, we always use the binoculars for a nice, close look.

Recently I looked out and saw that my birdhouse had been chewed.  I wasn't very happy about that as I love this house.  Obviously a rodent of some type was trying to get through the holes.  There are a total of 5 holes for the birds and every single one has been chewed.  I lean towards it being the red squirrel we've seen hanging around.

   When we were sitting out on the deck one day I noticed something strange in the wooden box that holds the clothes pegs, I thought it may have been an old wasp nest.  Nope.  On a closer look, I realized it was a nest.  I have a feeling it's the same culprit that chewed up my birdhouse lol.    Maybe it has become a permanent home - I hope not.  I guess I won't be using my clothes pegs for a little while.  I had to laugh though, what a great place to build a nest.  I keep meaning to aim the game camera at the hole so I can see exactly what is coming and going.

What a great little entrance.

It looks so warm and cozy.

I'm hoping these two Canadian Geese aren't looking for a nesting place.  They were by the pond for a long time this weekend.  I don't want to get chased if I have to do some outdoor work in that area.  They're messy but they're beautiful!  I'm thrilled to have them come for a visit.

Friday morning we woke up to 10 cm/4 inches of snow.  It's gone now but it was still there around yesterday.  We actually reached 21.8°C/71.24 °F today.  NICE.

Since this is a random post, I thought I would show my granddaughter, Lily, looking at some books in the thrift store as I haven't really done a post about her in a while.  My how she loves books, I think she glanced at nearly every one on this rack.  Gammy ended up buying her some things from the thrift store...how can you not?

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed this post.  I always love to read your comments.

~ Kelly ~