Some Layouts

I haven't shared any of my layouts for months. I did this one of Leah at the Florewen Scrapbook Retreat. Leah on Lorne beach when Dad was visiting last month.

I taught this layout at the retreat. Kady and Dylan at Bells Beach last October.

Another I finished at the retreat. Leah doing cartwheels down Lorne pier with my Dad encouraging her.

This would have to be my favourite childhood pic ever. My Dad kissing me. My Nan looking in from behind. My Uncle Mick scanned this photo and sent it too me after my Nan passed away earlier this year. It was out of one of her albums. The journaling is about my memory of Dad's psychedelic shirts when I was little. I used to get the hand me downs for art smocks at school lol. My Dad was a pretty trendy guy.

Kady and some friends. Leah took this photo of the three of them when they were visiting a friends and I was working. A scrappers daughter lol Lots of yummy Heidi Grace papers and Cloud 9 rubons.

A layout about all the clothing labels Kady loves at thirteen.

We visited this playground in January. I still have to journal. It was the BEST playground we have ever been too.

The following layouts are for my local history album. Not the best pics of the layouts. My camera was dying, so the colours are really off.

Journaling reads

The “half church” was dedicated in August 1877 in its present shape to allow for possible future expansion. The “half church” is an Anglican church.

A note in an early diary says, “went to church, preacher was Mr Scott”. Mr Scott was a lay reader with the Church of England at Bacchus Marsh but became more well known as “Captain Moonlite”, one of Victoria’s most notorious bushrangers.

He was active in the district in the 1870s and was finally arrested in New South Wales. La Cote Homestead, which was located in La Cote Road, was owned by Mr Shuter, a stipendiary magistrate, before whom Captain Moonlite appeared. Scott was eventually hanged in 1879.

As the goldfields lost their importance, residents abandoned the area and the Greendale Church, which was to have accommodated 200 worshippers, was never completed. Photo taken May 2007

Journaling reads

White settlers, as they moved into the Ballan area in 1838, encountered timbered country with little scrub. There was a great variety of native flora and fauna including large “boomer” kangaroos and kangaroo rats, which disappeared in the 1850s.

Bandicoots and two species of native cat were also plentiful up to the 1870s when they too vanished with the pressure of human habitation, disease and hunting. Dingoes were originally so common in the area that T. H. Pyke, an early Ballan settler who gave his name to Pykes Creek, hunted them far and wide with a pack of foxhounds he kept for that purpose. Birds such as the curlew, the wild pigeon and many parrot species have also gone.

An early pioneer described the country as “ … a very pretty part of Victoria”, with plentiful stands of wattle and wild cherry. “Wild flowers … were in great abundance and variety and they made the surface of the country resemble a gaudy carpet. They were of every imaginable variety of colour …”. This was in the time when stock was scarce and people scarcer still.

The first aboriginal tribes encountered by the Ballan settlers were the Kutung, the Wathourung, the Wurunjeri, the Jaara and the Ngurelban. These people were fairly numerous and there were inevitable clashes between them and the white arrivals. There were many eyewitness accounts of corroborees and tribal fights in the area during the early settlement. As more whites came to the district, stories of clashes between the two races became more commonplace.

The first white person to settle in Ballan, Robert von Steiglitz, typified the settler philosophy in his journal: “… it may be questioned by some feather-bed philanthropist whether we had the right to take the country from the blacks but I believe the general rule is that if people cultivate or graze the land they have a claim to it. These creatures did neither …”.

Many names in the area are derived from the Aboriginal place names: Bunjeeltap, Myrniong and Berembroke are examples. Cutumnimnip was the Aboriginal name for the creek which flowed through the centre of what was to become the property taken up in 1839 by Sir John Lewes Pedder, formerly the Chief Justice of Van Deimen’s Land. Pedder owned it until 1855 when it was sold to Mr Thomas Hamilton who named it “Glen Pedder”. The land on which Greendale now stands was originally part of this run.

Greendale’s early settlement history was closely bound up with that of Ballan and Blackwood. The area was considered a handy halfway place between the two townships and was surveyed by Nixon shortly after the discovery of gold at Blackwood in the 1850s. He named it Greendale as it was “ … a beautiful hollow bounded by green hills with Dales Creek in the centre”. Dales Creek had earlier been named after Mr H. F. Dale, a manager of Glen Pedder.

The first to settle in Greendale was John Drury, who built and ran a coffee shop at the foot of Long Gully. A government Gazette of 1859 announced the sale of land at Greendale with town lots at £8.0.0 per acre and suburban lots at £3.0.0 per acre. During the gold rush days the settlements of Greendale and Blackwood almost met. Greendale was proclaimed a township in 1861 and supported a post office and at least two hotels, one of which, the Medway, survives today as the Greendale Hotel. The Greendale School was opened in 1869, and in 1870 had 61 children enrolled, although the average attendance was only 22 pupils.

As the goldfields lost their importance, residents abandoned the area. . The 1888 Municipal Directory of Ballan Shire shows that Greendale consisted of 87 people, one hotel, one school and one place of worship. For most of the twentieth century Greendale was a quiet rural area, with farming as the mainstay of the local economy. The school was closed in 1954, after which it became a state school camp.

Since the early 1970s residential subdivisions have opened up at Wombat Forest, Dales Creek, Long Gully and Hastings Road. The population has grown and diversified as people once more build homes around the beautiful green hollow of the Dales Creek.

This photo was taken after some much needed rain. For a long time the hills surrounding Greendale where dry and brown. After the rain the lush green grass returned. Such a pretty sight. On the right of the picture there is a road in the shape of a love heart. Locals know it as Love heart Lane. Leah’s friend ###### lives at the house on the top of the hill. The hill in the background is Mt Blackwood. The houses in the back of the photo are part of the Hastings Road subdivision.

Information on the history of Greendale taken from the Greendale Community Website.Photo taken May 2007

Journaling reads

During the mid 1800’s the area surrounding and including the present township of Blackwood was then known as Mt Blackwood.

Mount Blackwood is a prominent mountain about 9 miles south south east of Blackwood and was the highest volcano in the area with a summit elevation of 736 metres. Mount Blackwood is a prominent scoria dome built on lava flows extending 8 km to the south. The flows are narrow and elongated and followed an upland valley thus covering stream gravels. Korkuperrimal Creek and Myrniong Creek have excavated lateral valleys leaving the lava flows as an elevated ridge.

John Batman, originally named Mount Blackwood, Mount Solomon in 1835, after a friend of his who shared in the partition of the land bought by him from the natives. By 1838 it was changed to Clark’s Big Hill, after Mr Kenneth Clark, who was the first settler in the Bacchus Marsh valley in 1836. It was later named Mount Blackwood, after a Captain Blackwood, Commander of the ‘Fly” from 1843 to 1845.

Today Mount Blackwood is privately owned bare grazing land, which has a communications tower on the summit. Photo taken May 2007

Dylans first bed. I used the Fiskars Bling Squeeze punch

Ok that's all for now. Good on you if you read this far.

A Little Creativity

This Sunday our good friends Michael and Desley are having a naming day for their daughter Abbey. I made this album as a gift.

Heidi Grace papers. I used the "Bouquet" paper range by Heidi Grace. The cover is a premade Kaiser chipboard set (and I added a chipboard cut out square over the top) and I made all the pages using matt board. The patterned paper sides I left as is rather than put a matt for a photo so that her Mum can add as many photos as she like rather than restricting her to one photo.

Mini Concertina Keyring. Featured in the latest Scrapbook Creations Top Ten Keyrings. A monthly article I write. Cloud 9 papers and embellishments.

This is a mini concertina album that I taught at the Florewen Retreat. Thanks to Erica for the instructions. This was first taught at Crop For Kids by Lyn Dywer. Heidi Grace papers.

Click on any of the images to enlarge them for a closer look.

Kupboard Kreations

This months theme at the Kupboard is Pets.

Little Binder Book

I made this little book for Megan. She loved looking at photos of our trip to the zoo etc when she was over last so I thought I would make her, her own kid friendly book. I think the binder is from Maya Road. I have coated each page in modge podge and the cover is painted pink, then a layer of glitter glaze, cut out flowers and sealed with dimensional magic. I used cloud 9 Dee's Cottage Collection papers and stickers, Heidi Grace Rain Dots and lots of chipboard for the embellishments. We will give it to Megan tomorrow.

Update and Some Layouts

Monday I went to the doctor to organise the bone scan. My blood results were pretty good. Just my white cells were low. He said this could still be due to the effects of chemo. My mammogram results were good also.


Tomorrow I am having my bone scan. They inject something into you which takes about fifteen minutes. Two hours later I have the scan which takes about 45 minutes. My chemo buddy Helen is coming along to keep me company for a little bit.

I have all this week off. My first full weekend in a few months. Looking forward to relaxing. I am working five days next week though so it will be a busy one.

Megan and the trolley. Megan loved Leah's trolley. We gave it to her to take home along with the cash register and basket. I used an antique action on the photo.



Questions taken from Scrapbook Shortcuts for Kady.

Similar type of thing with questions for Leah this time.

My March monthly snapshot page.

Aussie Sketch Layout

Here is my entry into the Aussie Sketch monthly layout.

http://sketchesoz.blogspot.com/

No news on my mammogram results yet................

Scrapjacked

Here is my layout for the scrapjacked competition http://aussiescrapjack.blogspot.com/

The layout is a scrapjack of Mardi Winen.

Kuboard Kreations

Here are some recent layouts and cards I have done for the Kupboard. Gorgeous Cosmo Cricket papers and diecuts.

Scrapbook Creations

Check out issue 42 for my article on top ten journaling blocks. There are some fabulous layouts. Here's my contribution.

February Calendar Challenge

I don't think I shared my monthly snapshot. Have to catch up and do March's now. February was a month of highs and lows. The lowest was my Nan passing away (something I am still coming to terms with) and the highs were finishing radiotherapy and Dad turning 60 and D turning 2. Oh and it rained heaps during February. Lots of thunderstorms in the evening. Sadly hardly any since then. We did get 8 ml over the weekend which was nice.

Layouts To Share

The hot Artesian Bore Baths were amazing. We decided to go check them out but upon arriving we not sure whether or not to go in. It was still very cold and we were still wearing long pants and jumpers. After a few minutes discussing it we decided we wouldn’t be up this way for a bit so we bit the bullet and changed into our bathers, had a shower (prerequisite before entering the baths and very chilly in the change rooms) and got into the pools.

There are two pools at Lightning Ridge. The smaller pool is a little cooler than the larger pool. The larger pool maintains a constant 41.5 degrees Celsius. The pools are free and are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. One of the local ladies ( who had the hairiest armpits we had ever seen) was happy to tell us a little about the pools. She said that at times the temperatures get up to 50 degrees in Lightning Ridge and the locals head to the baths to cool off. The water temperature at times is cooler than the air temperature. The water felt quite hot when we first entered the pool but after a while it was a good as soaking in a hot bath.

The water comes from the great Artesian Basin (one of the largest freshwater basin in the world) and the water in the pools come from 1 kilometre below the ground and is approximately 2 millions years old. The basin contains approximately 8,700 megalitres of water. Natural pressure sends the water to the surface through an artesian bore.

Over the last few years’ changes have been made to conserve the amount of water lost through seepage and evaporation. An annual amount of 450 million litres was lost because of this. Water used to flow at 20 litres per second and 800 tonnes of salt entered the landscape. The water is now capped and no longer flows continually and 170kms of underground pipes now replace open drains. Water now flows at 11 litres per second and the equivalent of 450 Olympic sized pools is saved annually. Used water from the bore baths is piped to the opal fields to separate opal from waste rock saving even more water.

August 2005

You can’t visit Lightning Ridge without trying your hand at noodling. We spent an hour or more searching for opals in the mullock heap beside the visitors centre. We found quite a few small opals and even a black opal. None of them were very good quality but it was still fun trying to find them. Only months before a man found a large black opal in the same mullock pile that was worth a considerable amount of money.
The local aborigines have an explanation of how the opals came to be in Lightning Ridge. According to legend a huge wheel of fire fell to earth and sprayed the countryside with brilliant coloured stones.

Lightning Ridge is the only place in Australia where the highly prized black opal can be found. Black opal has carbon and iron oxide trace elements in it producing a very dark stone that still has hints of blue, green and red. The first European to discover these coloured stones was Charles Nettleton in 1902. Nettleton had been an opal miner at White Cliffs but his luck and money ran out and he moved to Queensland. Convinced that there were more opals across the border he returned to New South Wales and started seriously prospecting on a hill, later known as Nettleton's Hill, on Angledool Station. This was to become the site of Lightning Ridge. The Lands Department later gazetted it as Wallangulla and it was known as that until World War 1 when it reverted to its original name. A number of famous stones have been found at Lightning Ridge, including the 822 g 'Big Ben' and the 'Flame Queen’, which was sold for £80 because the miner hadn't eaten a proper meal for three weeks. August 2005

The story of the walk in mine as told by Amos Randell (Sandy).

I came to Lightning Ridge in my mid forties to start mining. I married a local lady and we had five children together.

I chose the ridge at the walk in mine as they reckoned in those days that the best opal was to be found on the ridge. So I staked a claim at the walk in mine to find my fortune.
But now we all know that this is not true and good opal can be found anywhere.

The first year at the mine I worked with a pick and shovel and candles and moved 2000 yards of dirt by hand during that time. It was very hard work.

It was consistent for me to work up to 16 hours a day down the mine and sometimes at night. The days and nights I worked the mine I remember it got very hot in summer time and I used to go down the mine where it was much cooler.

We used to use flour and water and pour it down the fault lines to see which way the water was running and this gave us a good clue as to where to start digging.

At first I found black nobby’s with no colour and then I got onto some nobby’s with some blue and green they weren’t worth very much though. One of the biggest nobby’s I got weighed 4 oz.

I did find some reasonable ‘trace’ under where the old camp used to be before it burnt down. Most of my good opal I got from the six-mile field.

There was very little water available in those days so we had to catch water where we could to wash our dirt.

I soon got tired of the pick and shovel and made a motorised version of the modern jack hammer which made life a little easier.

In those days a lot of tourist buses came to town. I remember one Easter there were many many buses that came into town as people would go down the walk in mine as this gave them a good idea about how mining was done.

Some notable people who have visited my mine are Lord and Lady Casey and they were amazed at the lifestyle that miners chose to live.

The things I loved about living at the walk in mine was the sunrises and sunsets because I was high on the ridge and it was always a spectacular view with plenty of wildlife and birdlife.

Amos Randell (Sandy) 3/7/1915 – 28/10/2002

We found the walk in
mine fascinating.
We went to the mine
early in the day.
It was still quite cool
outside so we wore
jumpers.

Inside the mine
it was cold and damp.
We watched a
great short film
about the mine.

August 2005

Some Layouts

using lots of my old stash.

A layout for the house album. We had a nook in our lounge room that was once used for a bar. Five months after we moved into the house, Jason built a wall and added a door on the other side. Now we have a walkin cupboard (for all my scrapping gear lol) to store stuff in. After these photos were taken he added shelving. Kady's school camp in Grade three. Gosh how time flies. Now I have to scrap the rest of the school camps.

Looking for gold in the Quartz when the family were visiting three years ago.

Some older photos of when the family came to stay for christmas three years ago. We explored the forest a little when they were down.

Last page for last years monthly snapshot album. Have loved doing these. Great to look back on and see what you did each month. This year I am going to use a collage of photos for the month.

A layout for the pre-kids album. We used to hike a lot to some remote places off the track. This is Red Cave in the Grampians. We hiked cross country up to this cave. It was fantastic. J and I are looking young and so skinny.

Some Layouts To Share

My first Christmas. Not the best photo but the only one I have. No traditional Christmas colours on this one. We were living in Upper Lewis Road, Brighton. I can see Nanny's leg in the background, the fire place and the carpet. Surrounded by presents and wrapping paper.

A couple of layouts I did last month for Karen's Kupborad.