A nation together

So who watched it then, the royal wedding? 
I was amazed at the amount of people who were in London yesterday, and the amount that must have been sat at home watching it.
I watched it, we ended up getting together as a family, my Uncle, Aunt, Nan, Grandad and us 4, all crowded around the tele watching it. Well, I say us 4, James watched part of it then went off to watch/do something else. Wasn't it incredible!! I wasn't expecting to watch it all and feel the way I did about it, but it felt such a special and momentous occasion, the thought that we have just watched a completely normal young woman marry into the royal family. My favourite part, although I never actually saw it, I have just seen little clips and photos, I loved the drive back down the mall in the Aston Martin. The reason I loved it, they looked like a completely normal and everyday couple, that's the sort of thing anyone would do, and it was so great to see :)
It was a very strong reminder yesterday that really, anything is possible. Kate will have grown up, very much like me and many others including some of you, playing dressing up, putting on a tiara, pretending to be a princess, watching Disney films (well, that isn't very me as I'm not a big Disney fan). It just goes to show that we don't know our future, we don't know who we'll stumble into, and which of our dreams may very well come true. They both looked so happy, so joyous, and what a wedding, she can't have ever expected a wedding like that, not in her wildest dreams when she was younger. So, congratulations to them both, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge :)

So, onto some crafting. On Thursday night, I added a girl to the bright background I made about a week ago. I am very pleased with her, here she is

 As the backgroun was very bright I felt it called for a very summery girl, wearing a summer outfit. So I gave her a vest top and demin shorts.

I attempted sunglasses and I am very pleased with them. I used a canvas another member of the class had done for inspiration for the hair, then created some sunglasses to sit up in her hair. I love the words I have written on the canvas, something I really believe in, they read 'True beauty comes from within'.

So, I hope you like her. :D

Bye for now,

Word-A-Week photography challenge #10

Wow, we're onto double digits now :)

So this weeks word is ...

Umm, interesting, well I'll see what I can do for that :)

Bye for now :)

Word-A-Week photography challenge #9

So, here are my photos for week 9 'light'

I'm very glad the sun was out yesterday as I wanted to get a photo like this but the weather had been overcast and it wouldn't have worked. I love the soft glow of the sky and the dark silhouette in this image, I love the beautiful light at dusk.

Another for this week, a feather. It is incredible how hard it is to find a feather when you actually want one. As soon as I drew the word light for last week I immediately thought of 'as light as a feather' so had to take this photo :)

Wow, onto week 10 now, I'll be back in a mo to post the next word :)

Friday's child ...

..is loving and giving.

These are the words I have written on my latest canvas. I am really pleased with it, it's the first one that I've created that I've been pleased with immediately.

Maybe the fact that I love the background makes the difference.

I love the little flowers that I made her hold

I decided not to add many rub-ons or details on to her dress as I really loved it when I'd finished and I didn't want to risk ruining it. Plus, as she is meant to be a young girl, I decided to keep her simple, free and delicate.

I did add a little detail to the bottom of her dress and gave her some small cotton socks with ruffled edges which to me just shout young girls (I always used to wear them :) ) I used tissue paper to make a ruffled trim to her dress.

I love this sun, it is a direct copy of the amazing sun that I saw Christy do and I just love it :)

If any of you have been struggling to decide whether to take one of Christy's classes, then don't hesitate, and if you haven't looked at her classes, then head over to her blog here and take a look. She is a fantastic teacher, and the HD videos that she makes are brilliant. As she is working away, she chats and makes you feel completely welcome and at ease. I am constantly saying cute now, and many times I find myself talking back to her on the videos and have to stop myself!! I don't think she is running the She Art class again for a little while, but she has a different one coming up called 'She Has 3 Hearts', so go and have a look if you are tempted. I have love love loved this class, and still have a few more videos to watch :)

I hope you all had a good Easter and have enjoyed the bank holiday weekend. We have another next week, yipee, thanks Will and Kate, you planned it well :) We had a good Easter, we had an Easter egg hunt in our back garden, take a look at Mum's blog here for some pics :)

Ok, bye for now

Word-A-Week photography challenge #9

Onto week 9 now.

This weeks prompt/word is ....

This'll be a great word as there is a few different interpretations. I have a few ideas :)
I hope you all have a good Easter and enjoy the long weekend :)

Word-A-Week photography challenge #8

I've finally done my week 8 photo. I've been busy taking other photos over this holiday and not thought once about my challenge. Here is my photo for doorway, this is a lovely old door on the end of the summer house in my Nan and Grandad's garden. It's not used anymore, hence they've let it chip and take the rustic look.

I've used photoshop to change the colours and crop it, I quite like the look of it now :)

Second She Art

I'm back, with a second she art girl which I made earlier this week. At first I didn't like it, I felt I'd made it too grungy and covered up her dress too much, but it's been one of those craft projects that has grown on me and I now like it :)

I decided to use Emilie's colour challenge with this She Art girl, so I used the two shades of blue and the white in the background, then used the white and the brown for the dress. :)

Here are a few close ups

The photos don't really show it well, but this background is sooo textured, I can't help but keep running my hands over it!! I have created the texture by using some daler-rowney texture paste that I've bought from hobbycraft. It was fairly expensive but you don't use much on each canvas so it will stretch far and it was one of the best things I've bought for these so far, it's made so much of a difference to the backgrounds :)

I'm really pleased with her hair, I felt the colour and pen looked awful at first but with the addition of the hairband and flower I like it now.

I decided the other day to sit down and make just a few backgrounds as one of the things I don't like about the background of this girl is that the details have disappeared. At first, like I always do with everything, I tried to use too much on the backgrounds and went over the top, so I decided that doing a few canvas background at the same time would stop me doing this as I'd share the techniques between the two so they don't get overcrowded. I am really pleased I did it like this as I loveeee the two backgrounds I managed to make. Here they are

I shall show you some close ups of these background when I have done girls on them :)

On another note, I decided today, in the nice weather, I'd get mum to take a photo of me to set as my profile picture as the one I have at the minute is a few years old. It needed updating and you can't really get much more up to date than this, here is me, the photo taken this morning, and that is exactly what I look like as I sit and type this to you right now :)

I hope you're enjoying the lovely weather, well I say lovely, but being part of a family that's interested in the environment and my dad is an accountant for farmers, we are wishing for rain so that the crops don't fail!! I'm in my SHORTS today, that really isn't right for April !!!

P.S. for those of you who may have noticed, I've changed my watermark, and yes, it is now a dandelion, I really am obsessed with them, they look so beautiful at the minute, I keep seeing them everywhere at the minute and am resisting the urge to get the camera out. YOU HAVE ENOUGH PHOTOS OF THEM HANNAH!!!!

Anyway, bye for now. 

Happy 1st Birthday....

..... to my little old blog.

A year ago I set up this blog, like many other crafters, just so I could follow some of the amazing inspirational blogs out there and post a few of my layouts on here.

I never thought that a year later I would have had posted 89 times, had over 4100 pageviews, 360 lovely comments and have 32 amazing followers. So........

It really does mean a lot and brightens my day to come onto blogger and read some gorgeous supportive comments, so thank you so so much :D

So, it got me thinking this morning, what was my favourite LO over this last year......ummm..

I think my personal favourite is this one

I don't know why, I just really love it.

And that got me thinking.......

Which of my pages has been your favourite?

So, if you find time today I would love to hear from you, which has been your favourite?

Once again, thanks for your support over this last year, I hope it may continue.

Thanks you,

Lots of love xxx

Weekend scrapping

Hi everyone,

Today I have a LO to show you that I created over the weekend. When I saw this weeks Sketchy Thursdays sketch was a double page I decided to accept the challenge and actually keep it as a double LO. It's ages since I have tried a double page, and I've only ever completed one, so this was really fun to do. I am really pleased with it :)

Here's the sketch


I used a crafter's workshop template across both sheets of white card and spritzed pink through it, creating a background that I felt suited this layout perfectly. It's all about my Nan, I've wanted to scrap these photos of her for a long time but have never got around to it, until now. I have written some additional journalling which is hidden under the large photo, I made the large photo so it flips up and tucks under the lace to hold it shut.
Here is each page on it's own followed by a couple of close ups.

This page is interesting as it could almost be a page on its own :)

I hope you like it, I am really pleased with it, I do enjoy using the pastel colours and I am very pleased I did this as a double LO. :)

I have bought a few things off of my she art shopping list, so hopefully over the next few days I'll have another canvas to show you :)

Word-a-week photography challenge.... that's what I was going to mention. Last week I completely forgot about it, I never got around to doing the photo and never set a new word, so I am just extending last weeks word over this week as well and will be back with a new word this coming Friday.

Off to do some revision work now, I'm finding that doing a bit every day is really working, plus I can justify little pockets of crafting time if I've planned some time for revision :)

Bye for now,

She Art Girls

Hi everyone,

I couldn't resist, I saw so many of these gorgeous She Art girls from people taking Christy Tomlinson's workshop that I couldn't resist when I saw her advertising the second workshop. So I joined up, it started on Monday and boy am I glad it's the holidays as it's meant I didn't have to resist the big urge to have a go. As soon as you start watching her videos your creative juices start flowing, so here is my first canvas.



I am really pleased with her. The background is very busy but I think it needs to be as she doesn't take up a very large proportion of the canvas so it needs to be an interesting background.

I hope you like it. Doing this first practise girl has made me realise which extra things I need, so I have my shopping list written!! :D

Bye for now :)

Jumping pillows

I don't know if any of you have ever seen these, but they're amazing. They're basically a huge trampoline/bouncy castle, that are like pillows in the ground, and they're so much fun. We found one when we were on holiday in Norfolk in 2009. It was surrounded by sand so you couldn't injure yourself if you slid off, and they could take lots of people.

This page shows how much fun we all had.

This page uses the sketch from pencil lines and the colour scheme from Emilie's blog (although I've added the yellow to the colour scheme, my page just seemed to need it!)

Here's the sketch

 

(I've broken the single photo into 3)



and here's the colour scheme.

I hope you like my page :)

Hannah

Word-A-Week photography challenge #8

Now, the next word for the challenge.

Doorway. Now, this is quite a restricting word. You could either deviate a little and go for door, but I think it will be quite interesting to see the different shots and variety available with the keyword doorway.
It's now the Easter Holidays, yippee, although it won't be much of a break for me, I'll be doing plenty of revision as I only have 11 school days left until we break up for study leave!! I shall make a bit of time to scrap and do other things though :)

Bye for now, I'll be back on Sunday with a digi page for Emilie's colour combo, head over here if you want a bit of colour inspiration over the weekend :)

Enjoy a nice sunny weekend wherever you are :)

Hannah

Word-A-Week photography challenge #7

Hi everyone,

Here are my photos for 'Rough'. It's amazing how much texture you notice all around you when you look carefully, that's why I love doing this challenge, it makes you look and think :)

This was the first thing that shouted out to me as rough, and I like the perspective of the ridges and it looks really interesting with the shallow DofF

The obvious, tree bark

I shall be back tomorrow evening with the next word :)

Bye for now, Hannah

Happy Mother's Day

To all of the Mothers that are reading this, I hope you've had a great day :)

I'll start with a layout I think this evening (which is a lovely evening here may I add, Mum and Dad are just outside finishing off from their productive day gardening and it's still a lovely temperature outside).
For this LO I have used the Sketchy Thursdays sketch and Emilie's colour challenge #4. I seem to be doing only LO based on sketches at the mo, since Mum's been part of blog land we've both stumbled across loads of lovely challenges. I might have to take a break from sketches soon, as I'm worried that I wont be able to scrap without a sketch soon!!
Anyway, here is my LO.

I'm really pleased with it. I loved the colour combination Emilie gave us but was stuck as to which photos to use with it. I'm glad I settled with these, the colours suit a grungy masculine page. I've taken a lot of inspiration for this page from this blog. I absolutely love her work and realised that the reason I loved her most recent page was the black mat behind each piece of paper, so that's what I've attempted here and I think it's worked well :)
Here's a few close ups.

Here's the sketch and colour scheme I've used.

I hope you like it.

Now, onto Mother's day.

I had great fun making Mum's card earlier this week, I would've posted it earlier but I never know when she's peeking on here. I was really pleased with the card, and she loved it which is always the most important thing.

I stippled around two hearts with Tim Holtz distress inks (I love those inks :D), then tied some bakers twine around the card and added the sentiment and button. The templates/stencils I had used for the hearts looked too good to throw away once I'd finished this card, so I used them on another. I made this card into an Anniversary card as I don't send many valentine cards so thought it'd be more use as an Anniversary card.

At my Rangers group, we made marzipan fruits for Mothers day and decorated a glass bowl for them to go in. I ran the Marzipan fruits evening, as even though I haven't tried marzipan fruits before I've worked with marzipan. The evening went really well and I was very pleased with my results.

Even though the hour and a bit we spent making them wasn't enough to make many, those that I did make I was really pleased with. they looked great in their little bowl.

Here is a compilation of photos of the individual fruits. I was pleased with the clementine and apple the most :)

Hope you all have a great evening and thanks for popping by. It's our last week at school this week and then we are off for 2 and a bit weeks for Easter, which will be lovely :)

Bye for now, Hannah :)

Word-A-Week photography challenge #7

Hi,

Here is the word for next week.

This should be great, looking forward to seeing what I can find.

Bye for now, I hope to find time to craft over the weekend so shall be back then.

Hannah