Catching up

Ok, so here I am catching up, but guess as I'm the only one who looks at it and comments, what really is the point, except that I enjoy the blogging.

OK. We went off to the Great Ocean Road for 7 days early October, it was so lovely to be at the coast again I so miss the smell of sea air..
We went to Geelong on the Tuesday, saw these bollards at The Pier  Entrance.

Bollards at The Pier

Kennetts River

This one above was at a great place called Kennets River, just past Wye River, we loved this place so much we went back the next day for the day, that is after we (kids) played at skate park etc etc.. And of course you can guess what had happened prior to this photo being taken, yep the wave was huge and knocked kids off their feet LOL, We hope to go to this place again and camp there for a few days.  Toria loved getting the shells and the cuttlefish that were washed up.

Torias shells and cuttlefish

 

Aroha

Aroha loved to bury herself in the sand.. She was not too keen on the rolling waves, but will eventually get used to it we hope. Toria is still much the same as this but loves a swimming pool at home.

Okey dokey, back soon with more of the last month.

Fotochallenge Week 13 Spring Blooms

Week 13 on the Fotochallenge is Spring Blooms.
Mind you I dont know why I bother actually as nobody leaves me any comments to say its good, its bad etc etc, or let me know they've even looked.  Remind me again why we started this challenge!!!!

Anyway...... Here is pic taken in Wangaratta during the week of some lovely Flowering Gums. They were the only ones on the tree.

Flowering Gum

We are off to the beach this week for 7 nights to a time share on the Great Ocean Road. Will be lovely as I love the coast, can't wait to smell the sea air again. When we first moved inland to Australia from NZ, our noses were so dry from dry air instead of lovely coastal air.

Hope there's lots of photo opportunities and that I get the hang of the camera I have upgraded to. Its a Canon 7D. I still have to get a good zoom for it though. One of our next challenges is Beaches so I will go exploring I hope. Also we have never been on the Great Ocean Road so lets hope it lives up to the lovely Ocean Roads in NZ.

Week 12 FotoChallenge TRANSPORT

Week 12 FotoChallenge TRANSPORT.
This is a bit hard for me living in the boonies to get some good transport pics. But as we were in Melbourne this week I tried to capture the busyness of the freeways etc.

So here we go..........

Transport Melbourne Freeway.

The cars in front and to the side of us on our side of the freeway.  A busy day for us is about 10 cars the whole day LOL..............  But thank goodness for Transport, that we can get about this beautiful country we live in and for great roads that can take the amount of transport that Melbourne generates..

Week 11 Portrait in our FotoChallenge

Week 11  in our FotoChallenge Bevlea and Jan  and others on our Face-Book FotoChallenge page is Portrait.

Portrait of Toria and friends at school end of term 3.

 This was taken at Paul & Torias end of term day. They were in favourite sports team colors.
Obviously the teacher had said something, the other kids were looking there, not Toria as usual, looking at everything else.  Sorry about the alien bits on kids, also could'nt figure out how to put a better cover on the faces,  but I have not asked parents if it's ok to post their kids on my blog etc.

You can see the tiredness in all the kids at end of term3.  I would love to have been able to get out and about and take better portraits of people, but time this week as usual has escaped me.  BUT! I do like the composition of 4 looking one way and 1 the opposite.

Nest weeks theme is: Transport. Come join us.................Hoping to find some old transport round this district..............

Week 10 Landscape in our Foto Challenge

Week 10 Landscape in our FotoChallenge Bevlea and Jan  is Landscape.

This photo I took of Geoff cleaning up the landscape when a tree had fallen and hit the bridge railing etc.
I didnt get a chance to get out and about and find some nice landscape round here, we have been so busy the last week or so here at the camp.

Clearing the landscapes...

Will try and get another one done during the week...

Week 9 on our FotoChallenge

This weeks challenge for our FotoChallenge Bevlea and Jan was Juxtsposition, now that I had to look up :-)

It is  Juxtaposition definition, an act or instance of placing close together or side by
side, especially for comparison or contrast.

So this week, a perfect situation (I think) arose, Geoff was burning off rubbish etc around the wood shed, we came home for a cuppa and I notice black smoke rising so we jumped on our push bikes and rushed back over there.
The old fashioned water tank had caught fire, so we pulled it away from the main fire. So then the kids get home from school and Toria rushes off to get a bucket of water, bless her.  So this contrast is the fire on the water tank side by side
 It only burnt the tire so no problem, and the tank was under a heap of junk anyway.

Fire and Water.

So come join us on your blog or the FotoChallenge Facebook page and share your pics too. We would love to see them.

FotoChallenge Week 8 Textures

This weeks FotoChallenge prompt with Bevlea and Jan was Textures.
the photo was taken on AV on my Canon, when I had it on Auto it showed up quite grey, but this is actually the correct color. It is by the camp kitchen where there is a very large tree stump and the  bits at he bottom are a hard growth on  it.

Texture.

I love it and will probably use it as a piece in some of my artwork at some stage. Hope you like it and please do leave me a comment. I love seeing what you have to say. Inspires me to keep going. See you next week with Juxtaposition ( now that I will need to look up LOL)

FotoChallenge Week 7 and 8 to follow

This weeks FotoChallenge prompt with Bevlea and Jan was Still Life, well actually it was meant to be posted by last Sunday night. But I have had internet issues for many days. Like none available, then when I got it back, couldn't load anything. Grrrr  It was caused by the provider of the Satelite upgrading the Satelite and they lost all the clients settings, so only told us if you rang them to say hey I have no internet It got sorted, but then crashed out again about 2 hrs later   Come along and join us. you don't need a blog as Bevlea has started a face book page "Fotochallenge" that we can share our artistic photos on, and if you have a blog then they can be put there as well. Let me know if you want an invite.
So here is last weeks post.

Still Life.
I looked round and didn't find anything really exciting to post, so took a pic of this old bike that Geoff painted for me to put in the garden, the grass has since been mowed :-)

Still Life (left in the old girl)

I would have been as adventurous as the links Bevlea put up as examples, there were some great ones.
Anyway, back in a few minutes with this weeks post "Textures".............cheers Gxxx

FOTOCHALLENGE week 6 ANIMALS

This weeks FotoChallenge prompt with Bevlea and Jan was Animals.   Come along and join us. you dont need a blog as Bevlea will start a facebook page that we can share our artistic photos on, and if you have a blog then they can be put there as well.

I missed last weeks which was Shallow DOF (Depth of Focus) I had great difficulty getting the background of my pictures to be blurry with my camera, despite heaps of advice from Bevlea. loads of try out photos  and several tutorials online, I think it may be my camera as I have done it before. So I missed that one, but will persevere with it over the next week or so.

Anyway......... for those who haven't met Georgie, he is our 8 month old beautiful Ragdoll Cat. I have always loved the ragdolls as my wonderful Sister in law Maureen had a couple over a number of years, so my decison many years ago now, just before we left NZ was that if we ever got another cat it was going to be a ragdoll.

So meet Georgie. (Named for Georgie Porgie Puddnin Pie, kissed the girls and made them cry :-) )

He loves to roam the camp, he thinks he owns it,  and follows us down to the river, may be a problem come wriggly season. So last week after a big walk we took, with Aroha as well, he had climbed or raced up a tree  and I managed to capture his front as he turned around. He is a delight and loves being out and about with us. He stalks the ducks, stalks the kids, and loves to play and jump on Zaccy..............  Ok, cute story over.

I have been keeping busy at night with some knitting needles :-) A long time since I played with them for no real reason. But  below is what it looked like first off.

 Next with some stuffing etc, this is what Henny looks like now. LOL.. Still got to find the eyes in my stash somewhere to finish it off.
Well , it is an animal LOL....

Week 4 FotoChallenge FOOD

Yummy yummy, This weeks FotoChallenge prompt with Bevlea and Jan was Food.
I, unlike my townie friends couldn't go to a shopping centre and get anything nice from a bakery LOL, so had to make my own.
I made for desert, Little Lemon puddings, so yummy. Made with Lemon Honey (homemade) or Lemon Butter (curd) as its called over here, with a sponge topping in ramekins, then tipped upside down when cooked. They are meant to be served with custard, but I prefer cream.  And to top the pic off, a Jonquil picked from my garden today.

Please join with us and take a photo of the week, post it to your blog and leave a link here in my comments so we can go and leave you a comment too.

I did have another photo of food, we had some guests in camp who got a deer the other night while out hunting and they left us some of it. Geoff was cutting it up for the freezer when Aroha decided to help him, when I rescued the Stanley knife from her and gave her an ice-cream stick to work with. It was so cute, but I am mindful of sqeamish tummies and some people don't like to see animals killed, but we have to eat :-)  so for now I won't post that pic. :-)  But she's learning early where food comes from, not the supermarket butchers etc

FotoChallenge Week 3

FotoChallenge is a weekly prompt started between myself and the wonderful photographer/artist Bevlea  to inspire and challenge ourselves to shoot regularly, and extend our skills.
Our FotoChallenge is to take an image, based on the weekly theme and upload it to our blogs by midnight Sunday of each week. We invite you to play along, take a pic using our weekly theme, add it to your blog and leave a link to your image in the comments section.

Week 3 is Leading Lines.
For me, the leading line is :The Way To Town"  The road going the other way leads off to town from the camp.We are 50 minutes from a local town centre. This way leads up to the lake.  This week has been wet and miserable so not good photography weather.

So come along and join us. I would love to see your challenge.

Week 2 of our FotoChallenge Black and White

Well here it is nearly Sunday night over and I am just starting to do something about my FotoChallenge for the Week.
This weeks is BLACK AND WHITE  I have been having a bit of trouble with my Photoshop so for now am going to just post the pic as it is.

Easy enough. Black and white, Yep, it snowed here during the week, so took some photos of the fun round here.

Across to camp from house

I am going to get to the lesson regarding last weeks pic of the lemons and yummy lemon butter during the week. I am going to remove the handles off the cupboard to make it a better looking picture.  Also Bevlea has given me some other tips as well to take some good photos.

So til during the week, have a good one.. Please join us in this challenge and link your efforts in our comments.

FotoChallenge Thirds

Well, here I am again, and Bevlea and I have decided to do a weekly FotoChallenge. We have a list of different challenges that will also help, particularly me, with taking good photos (fingers crossed).

Anyway.
Week 1 is The Rule of Thirds. Using a household Item.Please play along with us and leave a link to your photo in the comments so we can take a look at yours as well.

This one I am not that happy with, due to not having somewhere good to take the photos.
Geoff made some lemon Honey today with some of our fruit from the overloaded lemon tree.
So household item is the fruit squeezer. Electric even. I still have and use the old glass squeezer that was my Mums. I got it when we were newly married, she gave it to me Sharon LOL.....

I am not sure which I like best. I couldn't get the handles out of the way on the cabinet behind :-).  Please leave me some comments so I may learn to be better at taking photos etc.  :-)

Mid Years Resolution

Well, I have decided that I MUST blog more often. I am going to take a picture a day (fingers crossed) and try and post at least two or three of them once a week. You know the best laid plans etc. Hopefully one of my BGF Bevlea will give me a kick up the pants if I stray from it.

We are a little over the art stuff at this stage (for now for me, forever methinks for Bevlea and Lucy)  so it will be random stuff along with whatever art I do make. I want to get back into making replica teddies and some cloth dolls, not your run of the mill "country dolls" but more like Pam Grosse etc type dolls So lets see how it all goes. I will update on Facebook when I have done a post.

So here are the first photo's, taken on Thursday before we left for town and in town at lunchtime.
.
First is Aroha having her hair brushed, she sure still hates it LOL. No matter how I do it she performs. (Part of the autism)

Second is Paul, Toria and Aroha on the slide after lunch in the park.

Then third photo, the kids were given a voucher each for Christmas from a friend who we have met since being up here. We finally got to town with them to have enough time to browse and spend.
Aroha chose an electronic guitar and microphone etc. She just loves it and is a real little pop star.
Paul bought a large remote control monster truck and Toria chose a LeapPad, a bit like an Ipad which we are having trouble getting it started and the apps loaded on this satellite internet, We will get there with a little help from some friends :-)  Thank you Kel. you're a treasure. 

So there we are, first weeks post. Hope you enjoy..................See you next week.

Marions Postage People and more

OMG OMG, its been 13months since I have been on here, and noticed that the header is changed LOL Don't know when my GF Bevlea did that for me LOL.............. Shes a treasure.

Anyway, lots happened over the year. We are flat out here at camp and that keeps me very busy and not a lot of time for arting etc. I am so over Facebook that I think I will resurrect my time on Blogger and start doing this a bit more, even if its just family updates etc.  On that note the kids have grown so much, Paul is now 8 years old. Toria will be 7 on 26th July and Aroha will turn 4 in September.  They are little treasures (mostly)

Anyway, wont bore you any more on this post as I know Marion is "waiting patiently" for the pics of my ATCS.
So here goes......  They were fun to make.

Bride to Be

Belle Jardiniere

HMS Block 27 Warden

Madam Lilou

I hope the recipients like them...........
This one is one of two that I made also. One for me and one for Bevlea who was doing the swap but had to pull out :-)  

Mr Hobbit