Check these out.

Yesterday I was given these gorgeous roses by my lovely neighbour.


Their perfume is intoxicating and has spread through every room in the house.

I have been making Christmas bunting to sell at our cultural association's Gallery Day next weekend and the Christmas Twilight Markets in early December.

Unfortunately this photo doesn't do it justice. They are 3 metres long and made from a variety of Christmas fabrics, with each Christmas tree being double sided.

Here are some close ups:



What do you think?

Retreat

Last weekend I attended the Scrapbooking Premiere retreat in Mackay with my sisters Lea and Wendy, lovely friend Shaz and 32 other keen scrapbookers. We had a wonderful weekend, with so much fun and laughter...not forgetting learning new techniques.

Not a bad loooking lot are we?


Michelle taught us how to make our own embellishments from clay doing both free hand and using moulds. She even showed us how to make our own moulds! It is soooo easy and sooo much fun. We used white clay which was baked, then painted and dusted with Perfect Pearls. Don't you just love the overall effect? The little handmade roses were a challenge but we soon got the hang of them. The leaves and lockets were made with the help of a mould.

Here is my finished layout...a photo of my sisters and I taken about 2 years ago.


Our OTP challenge was this tissue box. We glued tissue paper roughly on the top, creating lots of texture. The side of the box were painted with gesso and then stamped.

The flower is cut from canvas paper, then stamped and painted.


Thea had a card class using paper serviettes.

As you can see, we did some 3D layering on our cards and added a flower bouquet.

There was a double layout challenge, which unfortunately I didn't get finished. We could only use what was in the challenge pack as well as embellishments that were in our freebie pack. The challenge packs were in pink and brown or apricot and brown. My original photos didn't suit the papers so I was on the phone to Craig and Kathryn to scan some pics for me....I knew exactly which photos I wanted.

Sandra did a quilling class. While I completed the quilling, I haven't put the layout together as it's very girly...and I have a houseful of boys!

At dinner on the Saturday night, there was a crazy glasses competition. One of the staff from the resort was the impartial judge.

Here we are in our crazy glasses.

Lea was declared the lucky winner.

Thanks for Sandra, Thea, Michelle and Kristy for such a fantastic week.

Christmas Baubles

This afternoon I finished off the Christmas baubles I have made....and thanks to the hot glue, a couple of my fingers are rather tender!
As you can see I have quite an array of colours (this is not all of them) and every bauble has either gold or silver,4 short strings of pearl like beads, and a gold or silver cord with which to hang the ornaments.





As well as the 75mm round baubles, I have also covered bell shapes and oval shapes. They will make a gorgeous addition to your Christmas ornament collection.

The round baubles sell for $10 ea and the bell and oval for $7.50 (with postage extra).

If you are interested in these and would like to know more and see all the colours, please feel free to contact me.

This afternoon I got a call on the 2way..." Put your camera in a plastic bag and I'll be there in a few minutes to pick you up!" As I headed out the back gate, I heard Nathan call "Better buckle up Mum 'cos I'm driving!" Nah.....didn't need my seatbelt but I know why the camera needed to be in a plastic bag...mud was sent flying in all directions!


First we headed to the house dam

and its backwater.

On the way we noticed the creek channel down the back was runnning very well....it's usually dry.


What a start for the summer!

Wet, wet, wet!

Would you believe we've had more rain?? We measured just over 2 inches this morning....add that on to the 3 inches we had last week! It's wet like you wouldn't believe! Nathan is having a wonderful time playing in the mud.

What an incredible year it has been....the rain that began in January has hardly let up! Our annual average is 19 1/2 inches (500mm). We are already up to 30 1/2 inches (775mm) to date and that includes one dry month and another with only 50pts!

I scrapped on Wednesday and Thursday...my first layout since July and I had so much fun with it. The photo is from a swap for a retreat.

World Teachers Day

Did you know it's World Teachers Day on October 29? Nathan was asked to make a card for his teacher on behalf of all of his classmates. While at it, we made some more for other staff members who play a vital in our school and Nathan's education.

Flooded River

These photos are of our flooded Barcoo River yesterday. In the first photo you can see where the bridge is situated and how close the waters got to the main street.

This view is from a little further downstream

The golf course.
This morning the water level was 1.37m over the bridge and still rising.

A lovely lady by the name of Helen took these photos.

Busy Week

We have been busy with lambmarking this week. By the end of Thursday all sheep were back in their paddocks. Martin had intended mustering the wether weaners so they were closer for shearing but Mother Nature had other ideas. On Wednesday night we measure 58pts, 130pts on Thursday night and and other inch on Friday.

Craig and Kathryn have been out here lending a hand and had planned to go back to Brisbane on yesterday, but it was far too wet and boggy for that. Fortunately Craig's car was still in town as he would never have got it into town with the road and creeks the way they were. This morning one set of creek channels was low enough to cross (0.5m) and then they hit the bitumen....only to find Boree Creek was 1m over the bitumen and to add to it about 500m wide! Just when Martin was considering he might have to take them the long way around a local fellow came along and then headed home to get his boat and call a friend to pick up on the other side. So Craig and Kath had 2 boat rides (the other being the Barcoo River) just to get to town!!! Surely that's all the drama they can expect on their long drive home.

They have taken the last of our pups with them. Eddie is headed for his new home in Brisbane. Poor little fella had been car sick a few times, just getting to town...and he hadn't even had any breaky. He had a big drink at the creek though, to Kath's chagrine!

The final Chapter!

One day we decided to go for a drive up on the Tablelands. We called into the Visitor Information Centre at Mareeba and found it also incorporated a Heritage Museum...it was just amazing! If you ever get the opportunity, it's well worth the visit.


From Mareeba, we then drove to Mt Molloy, Port Douglas and Mossman. Of course no visit to Mossman is complete without going to the Mossman Gorge. It was raining while there, but so appropriate for such a lush rainforest area. There were people swimming in the icy cold waterhole.

Leaving Cairns, we headed to Mt Surprise and the Undara Lava Tubes. We camped at Bedrock Village Caravan Park, owned and operated by Joe and Jo. The built the park themselves, a mighty effort, especially when you see the rocks they had to deal with. We toured Kilkani Crater and some of the Undara Lave Tubes with Jess, a Savannah Guide from Bedrock Village.

The walk up and around Kilkani Crater is 2.5km and you get the most amazing views. She is over 900m above sea level.

This insignificant little bump on the horizon is Undara, the volcano that spewed forth and created the geological wonder of the lava tubes.

Inside, the colours were incredible and never cease to astound visitors. Two colonies of microbats live down there.

We would only too happily go back to Mt Surprise and take a full day tour of the lava tubes.

Finally we headed home through Charters Towers and Clermont. We arrived home to lush green paddocks after over 5 inches of rain in September...with more forecast for October.

More of our holidays

I have a little boy who's not feeling too flash today. He's come home with a horrible cold, so I think it will be a slow day at school if we do any at all.

While at Innisfail, we drove up to Millaa Millaa and Ravenshoe. We saw the most beautiful waterfalls (Ellinjaa, Millaa Millaa, Zillie and Millstream Falls) in that area and of course the wind farm at Ravenshoe.

Initially the wind turbines were cloaked in cloud but later in the day the sky cleared somewhat.

We then continued up the coast to Cairns. By now the rain had eased and we had showers at night with beautiful days. The highlight of our days in Cairns was going up to Kuranda on the Skyrail and back back on the Scenic Rail. At one of the stops on the Skyrail, we had a guided tour with Aaron and he told us about some of the rainforest plants. It was very informative and we came away knowing so much more. We enjoyed our day, but all agreed going on the Skyrail was the highlight. Would you believe we even came across one of the school's teachers up at Kuranda and sat opposite people nowing friends at a town nearby. What a small world!

We also caught up with my family at Cairns...they had been to Townsville for the Tim McGraw concert.

North Queensland

For our holidays, we decided to head to north Queensland. It had been over 27 years since we had been up there.

We arrived in Charters Towers and wandered the main street looking at the beautiful buildings and reading many of the plaques that dot the footpath. We discovered the Miners' Museum and Nathan had fun panning for gold. The fellow there recommended we travel to Townsville via Ravenswood, so we did and are very happy that we followed his advice. There are some beautiful buildings from the town's goldmining days. The windmill is made from timber, even the blades on the fan as well as the tail! On the way out of town, we came across The White Blow...a solid rock of quartz that has worked its way up to the earth's surface. It's over 300 million years old!


Then we had a couple of days in Townsville. Nathan loved playing on the beach. We also went to to the Museum of Tropical Queensland. Nathan was amazed by the displays, stories and part replica of HMS Pandora. He was very disappointed that he was too young to be involved in firing the cannon and has asked that we go back there when he's 8!

We then headed north, and decided to call in at Paluma. The road was very windy and quite often visibility wasn't the best because of the low lying cloud. On the way, we crossed the most amazing little stone bridge:

This is what greeted us at Paluma.

There were some houses and lovely little gardens but the only signs of life we saw were the garbage collectors and that was at about 10.45am!

From there we travelled to Innisfail. There we experienced our wettest days.

Have you heard of Paronella Park? I didn't think I had, but my dear mother informed me that I'd been there before....when I was about 3 years old!

This most amazing place was created by Jose Paronella, a Spanish migrant, who came to Australia from Catalonia in 1913. His dream was to build a Spanish Castle and Pleasure Grounds set in the tropical rainforest. If you ever get the chance, go there.... the determination, ambitiousness and sheer hardwork of one man will blow you away. The tours are excellent and we were give Jose's life story. I could feel the presence of the man as we wandered the park.

Cyclones and floods have taken their toll , but the current owners are doing their very best to restore this little patch of paradise to its former glory. Ticket entry also includes a night tour. Not only did we see the buildings beautifully lit at night, but we were also shown fireflies and luminous fungi, bandicoots and fed the turtles in their nesting area.

We will definitely be going back here one day.

Home Again

On Friday afternoon, we returned home from a wonderful camping holiday. We had a few days of rain with the worst of it while we were at Innisfail.

I will tell you more about it as soon as I can; we are doing catchup from being away, lambmarking this week, AND of course school starts again tomorrow.