Hello Everyone..... I know it's been 12 months. But I am alive. But what a year 2013 was for us. Talk about sickness. I spent the last three months of the year in a lot of pain. I had two trips by ambulance to hospital.  Was admitted on one trip and spent three days in hospital. Was let go home and had four pain killing injections in my back the first week in December. Was bed ridden for a month.

By Christmas Eve I was able to get out of bed and sit for a little while. By early January I could sit without too much pain and hand sew, so I started on some projects for the magazines. Then by February I could finally sit and sew on the machine. So I have finished eight projects for the magazines and have written the instructions and posted the items off. Hopefully they will like them and put them in one of the mags.

For obvious reasons I cannot show you the completed items, but I can give you a sneak peek at some parts of a few.

I cut some pieces for a scrappy border on one of the projects. It is amazing at how far they go. I didn't even cut that much fabric. But I did the first project, made a smaller project and have made more similar and sold them. Plus I have more left over to use still......

I was in a lets get rid of scraps mood by the time I did this project. I have made about 10 of them and sold nearly every one .

While looking for fabric for my wall hangings I found some finished stitcheries, so into a wall hanging they went. And when hubby handed me the box I said just toss it. I don't even want to look inside. But he made me and lucky I did. It was full of good things that I wanted. These stitcheries were one of the things.

I love this one.... There are nine Raggedies in all on this wall hanging. It is straight, but it was so windy the day I took the photos that I had to do it inside and trust me I couldn't find a spot to take them. So it had to be on the back of my lounge chair and it makes the wall hanging look crooked and wonky.  But it is one of the straightest wall hangings I have made. Some have been shockers, but I am improving. Albeit like my photography...slowly, very slowly... LOL

Early last year hubby and I joined The Laidley Camera Club. The aim was to have fun and improve our photography. We are having fun... but I am afraid some of my photography seems to have gone backwards...LOL But in my defense I am now using a DSLR camera where as before I only had a point and shoot. Hey but I must be doing something right as last year I came equal third in the club for the photo contests each month and hubby came fourth. So I am aiming to improve that this year.

Our first shoot for the year was a night one. We were to get pics of the moon. Yeah Saturday night was the full moon and you couldn't see it because of the darn clouds. Hubby and I were just about to leave for the shoot, when I discovered our bore wasn't working. So he had to fix it as we do not have town water and rely on the bore for everything other then drinking and cooking. By the time it was going, well sort of, we had missed the shoot. Poor hubby was sitting out in the dark at the bore, while I showered. He was there to keep it running. I had to get buckets of water for poor hubby to wash in. He was out there first thing on Sunday morning and got it fixed proper.

I kept looking at the sky all night to see if the moon was out from behind the clouds. Then at 11pm there was a break so hubby and I were out trying to get a shot. I did manage to get this one.

Trust me it is hard to get a lovely clear photo of the moon, especially when you are novice photographers like we are. But we keep trying. Now this will show you how keen I am. I was outside at 3.30 this morning and I got this shot. Look at the difference four days makes in the shape of the moon.

We have been out trying to get some good bird photos as well.... Managed a couple.

Baby Ibis feeding from it's parent.

Hey I knew they slept... but how come they don't fall off the perch..??????

Not sure if they are about to snuggle or fight... LOL

Gosh these were hard to get a photo of. You would be amazed at how fast the little blighters swim. There were more ducklings then these, they were everywhere.......

Well it looks like I am trying to make up for lost time so I will end this post. I will be back in a day or so with some lovely Christmas gifts I received from crafty friends.