Off to Uni

Hi all,

I know I've been incredibly quiet over the summer, well, since the beginning of June, so for ages really!! I've been busy having trips of a lifetime and enjoying a full summer before heading off to university.

I'm just writing this quick blog post to let you know that I got the A*AA I really hoped for at A level and am going off to Bath university tomorrow to study Psychology :-) I'm excited, but also a little daunted by the massive new experience. I have some scrapbooking stash with me, it's a tiny box that has added to the many that have completely filled our boot to bursting point! I hope to get a little bit done whilst I am away, although maybe not this first term! I kept a travel journey from both of my trips this year, I may get around to posting photos at some point. :-)

My summer has included two trips abroad, one to Poland with school friends, on a trip to help teach English in a Polish summer school, and the other, a trip of a lifetime, an expedition to New Zealand on my own.
I spent 2 and a half weeks in Poland, relaxing after exams, spending the mornings helping with a gorgeous group of young Polish children, and the afternoons enjoying the freedom of being away without parents :-)

 Gdansk

 Lake and beach at the end of a hot day

Gdansk

Then at the end of August I flew on my own over to New Zealand for 2 amazing weeks in the beautiful country. I spent the first week exploring Christchurch and Wellington with family members who live out there, then traveled up to Auckland for a week with the gorgeous Kirsty and her family from 365 days of Pinterest creations. The scenery out there is truly incredible, and I visited some great places. Here's a few of the 200+ photos I have :-)

 Kaikoura sunset

 New Zealand Fur Seal having a nice relax

 Albatross, I got to see an Albatross!!

 Sperm Whale

 Dusky Dolphins, these were swimming along with the boat and really showing off

 The gorgeous snow capped mountains

 Castle Hill

 Wellington

 Gannet colony at Muriwai

 Rotorua Geyser

 Hobbiton, the film set from Lord of the Rings

Outside Bill Bo Baggins house :)

Sorry for all the pictures, I couldn't choose!

I am sorry I haven't been able to visit any of your blogs this summer, I'm sure you've all been doing some incredible work that I haven't got to see. I have missed my scrapbooking, I just haven't had spare time it seems, eventhough I've been off school for so long, don't really know where it's gone, all I know is it's been great :)

Bye for now,

Hannah :-)

Catching up

Hello everyone,
Just thought I'd report in to say I'm still here.
I am in the middle of A levels at the moment, I have done 3 exams so far and have two to go. My last is on the 22nd June, and after that I am free!!!! I have many things coming up that I am really looking forward to, but for today I thought I would just share with you all of my creations from the last few months. :)

One of my brilliant friends turned 18 a month ago, and they love jelly beans, so I made them this cake :)

This is the birthday card I made, using mainly digital scrapbooking elements

I made a few of these cards for my Maths teachers. 

Yesterday was my final official day at school, we had a brilliant day, and as the theme for the day was royalty, I decided to paint my nails with Union Jacks.

So that's all of my crafting from the last month or so. I have some crafting planned soon, I have a couple of amazing trips abroad this summer so need to get my travel journal sorted before I go :)

Bye for now, thanks for looking :)

Hannah

Autism Awareness Day

Good morning all,

Today it is Autism Awareness Day. As many (if not all of you) know, my brother James is Autistic. I love him to pieces, and cannot imagine how different life would be if I hadn't grown up with such an amazing, caring, interesting character.
Back in November of last year (yes, that long ago) I started a digital scrapbook page all about James and my feelings and emotions. I had just bought a gorgeous digital collaboration kit from The Lilypad, in aid of Autism Awareness and the Listen Up campaign. Well today, on Autism Awareness day, I thought it would be quite fitting to finally get around to finishing the page off. So here we are, the finished page.

I am pleased with the finished page. I have spilled my heart out onto this page, explaining my feeling, emotions, thoughts etc, hence why I have blurred my journalling. Sorry, it does somewhat spoil the page that all the journalling, which is the bulk of the page, has been blurred out, but it is quite a personal page. I have used many elements from the lovely kit for this page, but unfortunately I cannot find the collaboration kit now. I have found this though, a mini version of the kit, which is still for sale at The Lilypad.

Thanks for looking again today, I hope you like the page.

I shall just leave you with this. Some of you may have noticed these words scrolling through in an animation on my sidebar, but this is a brilliant and very true acrostic of the word Autism.

Always
Unique
Totally
Interesting
Sometimes
Mysterious


Bye, hope you have a lovely day
Hannah :)

Poor little neglected blog

Hi all,
This is Hannah here, do you remember me? :)

Don't let anyone tell you that A levels are getting easier and people don't put in much effort for them anymore. It may be true in some cases, but definitely not in mine :) I have been working hard recently, with my final A level exams gradually approaching. It's the Easter break now, so lots of time to get some good revision done (well, that's the plan, I shall aim to keep to it :)

Hopefully I shall find a little time to craft over Easter. I have been crafty, but only a tiny little bit, in order to make items for mothers day. So, I'm here today to share them with you.

This is the card I made for Mother's day. I had been given inspiration for this card a long time ago, unfortunately I cannot find it now, but it was on Amber's blog 'Damask Love'. I was quite pleased with how it turned out, and Mum liked it which is the most important thing :)
I also decorated cupcakes for Mother's day this year. We had a cupcake night at my Ranger's, specifically planned with Mother's day in mind, and we had great fun making icing and decorating the cakes, oh, and making a mess too :)

Here are the cupcakes I decorated. I rolled out and formed some flower petals prior to the evening, so they would support themselves and look realistic when placed on the cupcakes. They didn't last :( Unfortunately by the time I had got around to taking photos and giving them to mum, the moisture from the cakes and icing had caused the petals to flop. I really loved making them though, I think I may make some more for Easter :)

So, that's the extent of my creative side over the past 5 weeks that I've been absent from this poor little blog. I do have other news for you though. I now have a job, which is another reason my creative time has been lacking. I have a weekend job at our local garden centre, which is brilliant, I am enjoying it and it is great to be earning my own money for the first time :) I work every other weekend, so it fits perfectly with my school work, and so far I have found time to keep comfortably up with both.
I have other news too, and this is the news I am most pleased and proud of. I resat some of my Math's modules from last year in January, and have been given the results back. I am very proud to tell you that I have now achieved an A* in Mathematics. I was so so chuffed :) My offer from Bath of A*AA now feels so much more achievable, and they do not mind if you have resat to achieve the A*, so now, I need 2 A's and I should, hopefully, very hopefully, get into Bath university :) It's a lovely weight off my shoulders, although obviously I haven't let myself slack now, and am working my socks off to get the other grades. I also sat two maths modules that count towards my further maths A level, achieving 100% in one of them and 95% in the other, which I am very pleased with :)

Ok, so that's my little update, hopefully I shall be back during half term sometime :) Thanks for coming back and looking at my blog again :) Sorry I haven't been able to look around at all of your gorgeous blogs and crafts for a long time.

Bye for now,
Hannah :)

P.S. Thanks again to Katherine (Sutty) for passing on a lovely blog award to me, it means a lot to know you like my work  :)

A long time

Hi all,

I'm so so sorry it has been ages since I've visited you all in blogland and posted anything on here. Life has been busy what with January modular exams, and many other things.

I'll give you a little update later in the post, but to start off I'll share with you a digital scrapbook page I have just made. I sat down today after school and decided to make a digi page. I wanted to finally get around to creating a page for Miss Smith's Just One Sketch Class, which started over a month ago. I created my sketch back in the beginning of January, but hadn't, as yet, managed to find time to start the class and use it. So here we go, my first page for the class.

Here is the sketch I have created for the class.

Prompt 1 for the class was to simply use your sketch to create a layout, so I have stuck quite closely to the sketch, and really like the result.

I also created this LO for the current TPV challenge which gives you photo inspiration. Unfortunately I have just realised and remembered that the main criteria for 'The Paper Variety' is the Paper, so digital layouts do not count :( Oh well, it was great inspiration and I like the layout so no loss really.
Here's the photo inspiration I used

I used the colours as inspiration, using only white, grey, black, green, and then a splash of the brown/ginger to match her hair. I also took inspiration from the fact the film is apparently set in Ireland, and scrapped a photo from my trip to Northern Ireland in 2010. I decided to mimic the text and fonts on my LO, so used a big white alphabet for the title, and then have written my journalling in the style of the credits on the poster. Here's a close up of the journalling to show what I have mean.

Hope you like it.

Right, so, where have I been and what have I been up to. 

University, I have a fair bit to update you on for that. I have finally heard back from the University of Bath, I was waiting for ages and beginning to feel quite impatient. They got back to me last week with an offer of A*AA. I am really hoping I can/have achieved that as I really really want to go to Bath, it's a gorgeous uni with a stunning course.

I have been to department open days at both York and Warwick over the last few weeks. I really like York too, not as much as Bath, but it is a lovely university with may opportunities and facilities, so it shall be my insurance choice. I didn't think much to Warwick at all, it felt too much like an industrial park, just lots of grey big buildings as the departments. 

What other news have I got. Oh yes, I am now legally allowed out there on the roads on my own as I passed my driving test last week :) So pleased to have passed first time.

I can't think of anything else, apart from being busy keeping on top of the A level work.

I hope you are all well. Sorry I have not been around to comment or anything recently, hopefully I shall get the chance to visit you in the next few days.

Bye for now. 

Hannah :)

Sad farewell to Sketchy Thursday's

Hi all,
I hope you are all well and have settled nicely into the new year. I've been working hard, desperate to do well in my A2 modules this January. I still have them all to come over the next 3 weeks, so don't have much time to spare for anything else.

I came on Blogger the other day to be greeted with the devastating news that Sketchy Thursday's will be no more. I absolutely LOVE that sketch blog, the sketches were so inspirational and easy to use and interpret, and the friendly community over there was so welcoming. It's a big shame to see them go, but on the other hand, with my work load as high as it is at the moment, I can fully appreciate how much work and other commitments can get in the way. I had to find a little pocket of time to create a scrapbook page using their final sketch, so over the weekend I slipped in a little scrapping here and a little there. Here's the finished page.

I have used a pad of paper sent to me from the lovely Suzanne as a thank you for being on the TPV design team. So this is a farewell page in many ways, a farewell to sketchy Thursdays, a farewell to being on the TPV DT, and a farewell to 2011.
The journalling reads :

A big year. The year I finish my A levels and go to university. The year I become more independent and begin to travel. Bring it on, I can't wait!!

Here are a few close ups. I hope you like it.

Thanks for popping by. I hope you are all keeping well, sorry for my absence, I'll be back after these exams as I will have Kirsty's Just One Sketch Class to catch up with and share :)

Bye for now, and farewell Sketchy Thursday's, thanks for all of those brilliant sketches.

Hannah