My sister Jane is rather fond of weapons, in particular medieval weapons. So I made her a few for Christmas, well at least a few to decorate her wall. They were very simple to make, but slightly difficult as I had nothing which would punch holes in the felt.

You need only a few things

• felt
• wool
• a needle that wool can be threaded through but is sharp enough to go through felt.
• glue and scissors
• sticks

First you will need some sticks, they could be the hardest to find. Living where we do around so many gum trees made it fairly easy. They could be of nay length but mine were around the size of a ruler. Trim off any other twigs. 

I just used my imagination when cutting the shapes out of the felt, you have to cut two of each shape though, one for each side. And you can see from the photos the kind of shape I went with. 

Getting the wool through the felt is the horrid part! It is really only for decoration, but so is the whole thing. Just push really hard. For the flights you will want to keep checking that you can slip the end of the stick in between the rows.

The next part is to glue the felt on. At least I did it in that order with some and I sewed the 'pretty' wool bits after with another. I don't suppose it really matters, except that you want to have the knots of the wool on the inside. Pour glue inside the hollow for the stick and just use lots... but not too much, I had to re-glue some because I had not used enough. 

Lastly snip the felt which is the 'flights' of the arrow. And if you want tie a bow with leftover wool near the head. Then wait for the glue to dry and you are done!

Have you ever made arrows of any kind?

Which colour is your favourite?

Thanks to Cait from Paper Fury and Tracy of Adventure Awaits, I have been tagged for the Bedtime Book Tag. Double tagged! So I shall endeavour to answer the questions belonging to this tag as best I can. (by the way I don't necessarily recommend all the books I mention here) 

We pre-ordered the book and it arrived on its release date! My sister read it that same day and I read it the next day. It was pretty much as I expected. Adventure, laughter, escapes, fighting with all kinds of weapons, well known characters and new ones, it is a great prequel to the Rangers Apprentice series. 

The book shop is the best shop in town.... and one of the most dangerous places for me to go, whether I have any money to spend or not. We are friends with the shop owner and I just enjoy being in there, with all the books! I may have walked out without a book once.... maybe... I took some photos last time we went, to go with a silly rhyme I made up. So come with me and take a tour of our local bookstore. Or at least many of the more interesting shelves.

It is here, the cover of The Tournament at Gorlan! And it is supposed to be released on October the 6th 2015. I had a lot more ravings about it in a previous post. I also linked to a place where you can read an exert, the first few pages of  The Tournament at Gorlan. Mostly it is Halt at his worst, or gloomiest.... typical Halt.

Photo from here

If you did not know already I will enlighten you on a fact: I really like John Flanagan's writing and have read all his Rangers Apprentice and Brotherband series... He is the only author our family buys new books from as soon as they come out... or before.... If you have not read any of them, well you should.

I have been watching goodreads and other places for months. Finally we got the synopsis for the next Ranger's Apprentice book, a Prequel to the others! Here is said synopsis;

"When Halt and Crowley discover that the ambitious Morgarath has been infiltrating the Rangers in order to corrupt the corps, the young Rangers travel north to Gorlan, seeking a royal warrant to stop Morgarath before it is too late. By weakening the Rangers, the most powerful force in support of the king, Morgarath plans to steal the throne. Yet when Halt and Crowley arrive in Gorlan, they discover just how close Morgarath's scheme is to taking root. Prince Duncan has already been taken prisoner and an imposter installed in his place. All the while, Morgarath has been earning trust and admiration from the Council of Barons while he secretly assembles a powerful force of his own. If the young Rangers are to prevent the coup from succeeding, they will need to prove their mettle in battles the like of which neither has ever faced."

That just says it all

Well The other day.... actually more like two weeks ago I hit 19999 page views. I actually saw the number... and remembered to get a screen shot of it. I also have an extra follower or two since then.

In my all time stats the US has also finally topped Australia. I do wonder though just how many of them are fake search engines and how many are real people.

And there are individual posts. I find these stats the most fascinating. Some of them make sense of how they got so high but others? Seriously that one on making door-stopper chickens? That was a very early post full of terrible photos and... well it has hundreds more views than anything else, I would assume someone must have pinned it to pinterest or something. 

The giveaway post is also high... well who does not like a chance to win free stuff? So I have been thinking about doing another when I reach 400 posts, I can't decide what yet. But as for the bottom two I have no idea why they have so many views.... I don't have any idea at all why they are so high. 

The movie review of God's Not Dead makes sense, as it could come up on search engines and people who don't normally read my posts would read and share it. As with the Rangers Apprentice one I suppose, and the DKT. In the case of the Blogger award one, well people like me probably keep finding it by following links back... forever. The riddle one though? I don't know. I never thought they were that good and the answers are there now too..... sure it got high fast originally but why is it still going up?

Ahh the mysteries of stats.....

As for the giveaway I thought it could be a handmade necklace..... that could be posted most places without much cost. 

Yes I did used to be that cute! Since I turn ... ah lets say old today I thought I should post photos of me, as time passes. I don't know who all these photos were taken by, probably my parents, though with the really old ones I took photos of the photos since we didn't have any copies of them on the computer. 

I am not exactly sure if they are in the right order (the old ones) but they are close. There is also proof here that my hair was not always long and it has been cut short once.......

So in celebration on eighteen years, from the beginning, me. 

Yes this it taken at our place..... it was so different back then..... I remember this moment, watching the storm come in.

And I'm rather confused of the order of the photos around here....

I was once taller than my sisters too..... and Jane had longer hair than me.

I know this was taken at school some time.....

And now the lovely digital age! these photos are in the correct order. The photo below was taken in 2006. With the digital age also comes me not being able to chose which photos to put here so there are a few more for each year..... oh well... Look how many freckles I had! Well I still do, but not so obvious.

The massive flood of 2007

I have never had a horse but if there is one nearby I will probably go and pat it..... even climbing onto private property.... though this is in a paddock next door, and any one can walk there.

This chook is still alive even though she has tried to die numerous times.

Do you like to look back over old photos?

Have you ever counted back the years to see if you are really as old as you are meant to be?