Giveaway Winner & Other bits . . .

Good Tuesday Afternoon dear friends & readers,

Last night I put all the names of the entries in the Spring Angel Giveaway into my old enamel teapot & the Mr drew out a name

The Spring Angel Giveaway Winner is . . .
Jenny of Elephantz

Congratulations Jenny -  The Spring Angel will be winging her way to you at the end of this week.

Thank You to all who took the time to enter this Giveaway

I was delighted with the response & the number of entries - Thank You all for taking part.
And a special thanks to dear Shane for putting it on her sidebar for me. 

Some nicer weather has arrived at long last & there have been many outdoor activities to catch up on

I waterblasted & have been re-staining all my wooden outdoor furniture ... I have had some unwanted "help" along the way & Miss pain in the Pippi is currently sporting the lovely spring shade of "Redwood" on all 4 feet !!!!

I was slightly speechless last weekend when some customers arrived while I was mid-stain & commented "oh those look nice, how much are you going to be selling those for ??!!"

With some birthday money last winter I ordered myself the book below written by Amy Sinibaldi from the lovely & inspiring blog nanacompany

Photo borrowed from Amy's blog

Though there has been minimal sewing recently, I managed to complete my first projects from the book last week.
  The Baby Bear Rattles .  .  .  One for Alec to test run & one for the Cottage

These were able to be made entirely from my scrap stash.  The rattle is encased in the head part & has a nice loud sound to it.
I am looking forward to trying some more projects from Amy's Book

The garden is finally bursting into life & there is much to be done as I tend to hibernate from it all over winter & then am often overwhelmed by how much I have to do come spring.
I took my camera for a wander this morning . . .

Fat Blackie photo bombing my picture.

I only planted this clematis last spring just before the Garden Ramble.

This Rhodo was gifted to me by my Aunt who is sadly no longer with us, so I call it Margs Rhodo.

I am so pleased this little succulent is finally growing down by the pond area.  I acquired this urn when I helped a friend shift house. It had a large chip on its rim but I liked the shape of it & visualised it lying down with something growing/spilling out of it.  Before it became established, 9 out of 10 times ... the Garden Circle ladies would stand it up & then tell me "oh I stood your pot up over there, it had fallen over" !!!  Umm Thanks .... I think !!!???

The bluebells & the mauve blue-bells (??) are flowering away happily by the Cottage Garden.

The cherry blossom trees (prunus awanui) that have not been bashed by the wind are in full bloom & providing a wonderful home for the Tuis & other birdlife that live here.

On a sad note, we lost a beautiful girl last week .... my eldest son & his wife had to make the difficult decision to have their beautiful girl Mina put to sleep

Mina was my first ever fur-granchild & she was adorable - she lived a wonderful life with Aaron & Sarah & 3 other female dogs of different breeds ... plus 1 cat & numerous hens.

She would have turned 9 this month, which is a great age for dogs of this breed

Rest in Peace beautiful girl
You melted the hearts of everyone who ever met you.

Thanks so much for your visit today dear friends,
While the sun is still shining I am off to weed some more round the pond area.
I hope the rest of the week is kind to you all,
with much love & friendship,
Julie x0x0x