Tea Time with New Friends

Hello!  I have something special to share with you today.  I have been apart of a wonderful tea exchange held by Stephanie over at The Enchanting Rose.  

It is a wonderful exchange of tea sets/ mug sets with little gifts to another lady.  So I made two new friends...one that I sent a gift to, and one that sent a gift to me.  

So I have lots of pictures to share with you today so I hope that you can take the time to scroll down.  

To start with I'd like to share with you a few pictures of things that I included in the package I sent to Wendy Fletcher.  She has a charming blog called September Violets.  

I found this lovely tea set that is quite out of the ordinary for tea cups.  I loved the shape of it and that it was so simple yet elegant. 

You can better see the shape of the tea cup and saucer this way.

 I heard she liked blue so I made a couple doilies to brighten up the set. 

I figured she could use them with the tea set or on their own somewhere. 

Then I found this wonderful tin and knew she loved nature.  I included some nice Earl Grey tea inside.  

I also added some little chocolate dipped cookies just because they are nice with tea. :)  Then I added a handmade card and a little note. 

Now I'd love to share with you the delightful package that I received from Judith Rogers from Lavender Cottage.  It was a wonderful thing to open.  She had so carefully wrapped everything up in blue tissue paper. :)   There was firstly a lovely hand towel that quickly made it to the handle on my kitchen fridge . Some spring napkins, some little card making floral strips, a cute bookmark, a beautiful journal, a package of wonderful tea, and a beautiful handmade card.  I must admit that I'm not a journal person, but the pages do come out very easily and so I have started using them to help me plan out my home making needs.  Brings a smile to my face to see the pretty paper! 

All of the items were packaged inside this beautiful butterfly box!  

I just adore the beautiful tea cup she sent me.  I love all the flowers on it, and the shape of the cup and saucer is just splendid!  

Here is a look at the other side. 

How fun that there are flowers on the inside of the cup to.  Then the saucer also has lovely pleats around the centre as well. 

There was also this delightful container with an elegant song bird on top. 

It was filled with yummy chocolates...and I can say yummy because I've eaten them. ~smiles~ 

Now I have a special box to store some precious things away.  Thank you so much Judith! 

Oh, and I thought you might like to see all the kinds of tea that were included.  

My children were just as excited about the tea cup exchange as I was, and we all picked out a tea cup (I got my new one.) and had a tea party!  We also each took sips of each others tea so we could try all the used flavours.  

I want to also thank Stephanie for organizing this wonderful exchange that has included so many people from so many countries.  It's been wonderful to be apart of it.

Sharing this at the Enchanted Rose Reveal Linkup.  I encourage you to go there and see all the wonderful exchanges that have happened!

I am also linking to The Art of Homemaking Mondays.

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Tweet Birdie Card

Hello!  I have a card to share with you all today.  It's a birthday card I made for a dear friend of mine. I was given this sweet paper so I'm not sure where it's from, but it has a ton of different components that are all equally charming.  I love the bird, and I layered the paper on some neutral patterned paper then on the card base.  A little touch of distressing I thought looked just right.  I added a simple multicoloured ribbon and twine.  Then for a final touch a burlap flower and little love charm.

Do you love the birds?  I do, and with the kids building birdhouses, and the bird feeders coming down for the season I have birds on my mind.  We take the bird feeders down for the summer so as not to attract the bears.  We just saw a couple more birds in the yard today..junkos, and an eagle soaring high above us.

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Sharing with Word Art Wednesday. 

Sunny Sourdough English Muffins

Hello!  Today I'd love to share with you some lovely sourdough english muffins.  A friend of mine made some for her family and they liked them so much she shared the recipe with me. :)  I love this kind of sharing!

So since I have lots of sourdough starter, I thought I'd give it a try.  We mixed up the starter and let it sit overnight, then mixed up the muffin dough and put it back in the fridge for three days.  Seems like a long time, but the flavour is totally worth the wait.  We took the dough out, rolled them into kinda balls. lol and put on a cornmeal dusted cookie sheet and then sprinkled more over top. We put them next into a warm oven to rise.

Once they had gotten big enough like above we put them into a hot buttered cast iron frying pan....my favourite.  It took a bit to get the temp right, but they cooked nicely. and then the ones that were still a bit undone inside got to sit a hot oven for a bit to get toasted.

I stacked some on a pretty dish and put them on the table...where they were gobbled up with jam and scrambled eggs.  They were so delicious and totally worth the extra time involved!

So would you like the recipe?  You can click the link HERE to pick it up. :)

Now for the sunny part of the post. This lovely sunflower that was gifted to us as a starter plant has erupted into bloom and is so amazing!  It's in my office window enjoying the sun and you can see it happily looking out from the yard.

Thanks for dropping by!  I hope you have a wonderful sunny spring day!

Sharing with The Art of Homemaking Monday.

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Birdhouse Plans

Hi Everyone!  I would like to share some birdhouse plans with you for the birdhouses that my boys built at the Swan Haven workshop.  They spent some time today measuring it all out and putting it into a plan so that Grandpa could build one just like theirs.  I thought I'd share it here.

First is the bottom: 4"x 5 1/2" * four drainage holes drilled in 3/8"

The front: 8" x 5 1/2" * One hole 1" round for the bird to get in. :) 

Left side: 8" x 5 1/2" * Two air holes near top drilled 

Right side: 8" x 5 1/2" * also two air holes drilled near top. 

* this panel is an opening panel and the top is cut at a slant so that it will open. 

Back panel: 11" x 5 1/2"

Then at last the roof: 8" x 5 1/2".  

* Used a total of 14 screws (one being the one that comes out to open the one panel so that the bird house can be cleaned out if necessary.  

So here you have it.  Basic design of a cool birdhouse and it's fun for you get to use power tools. 

Hope you have a great day and perhaps some fun making something for your feathered friends. 

Sharing with The Art of Homemaking Mondays.

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Birdhouses and Swans

Hello!  I'd love to share with you some about a trip that I took with my kids to Swan Haven Interpretive Centre.  We drove out to Marsh Lake and joined in a project supplied by a local organization to build birdhouses.  The kids got to learn a bit about the houses, the kinds of birds that use them and where to place them.  At the interpretive centre they document many of the migratory birds as they come through the area, and also have more information on the birds that we can see locally.

When we arrived it was beautiful.  The kids went to the viewing deck and looked out the scopes that were there.  In the below picture they were at the top of the stairs heading to the beach.

Inside the Interpretive Centre there were some great magnetic boards with activities for the kids.  The first one is a board where they need to match the bird with the description of it.

Then there is this board that has the migratory pattern for the swans.  They spin the wheel and then move one of the swan pieces (the circles in the lower left of the map) up the rest stops (the orange dots) to Swan Haven.

There were little minnows in a tank.

Some stuffed birds with a backdrop of the area where they congregate.

After building our birdhouses and having lunch at one of the outdoor picnic tables, we trudged alone the shoreline trail.

I love the clouds that we saw.

At the end of the trail there were two red chairs that we took turns resting in. :)  The snow is starting to get really soft with the warmer temperatures and it made for a tough walk.  But well worth it.

On the way back we took pictures of a couple older buildings along the shore.

I love old buildings and wonder at the stories that could be told about what went on in and around them.   I love the old green boat in front of the above building.  Below is another building next to a huge gnarled tree.

Now for more clouds.  The clouds are just fascinating to watch, and as spring is now upon us, the clouds are also changing.

Thank you for dropping by!  It was a wonderful day full of enjoyment and learning.

Sharing with The Art of Homemaking Mondays.

Cozy Sheet Quilt

Hello!  Today I have a new cozy quilt to share with you.  I found a couple nice soft sheets at the freestone and thought they'd look nice together.  So I trimmed them down, but some polyfill batting in-between them and pinned them up.  I would love to use cotton batting, but it's just a bit too pricy for me at this time.

I decided to try sewing it differently than I would usually do, and went corner to corner instead.  This wasn't as hard as I thought it might be at first.  Some of my seams bunched some but for the most part they were nice and even.

I cut up another old white sheet and made custom seam binding with it.  I use these tutorial to help me make nice seams in my binding.  Making the Binding/ Sewing the Binding and Finishing up the Binding.  I used a zig zag stitch and I find it holds very nicely.

So a very simple quilt to add some comfort for my family.  As you can see in the first picture, it fits over my bed, but it stops at the pillows and just barely goes over the sides.  That was as big as I could get it but it makes a nice cuddle quilt, and it's already been broken in. :)

Thanks for dropping by!  I hope you have a wonderful day!

Sharing with The Art of Homemaking Mondays.