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 :-)

Christmas presents, biscuits and an Oxford update

Hi all,

I'll start off today by sharing with you the gifts I made for my girl friends. I decided to create a She Art girl for each, on an 8x10" canvas, with the girl based on them. I created an outfit that resembled an outfit I know they have or the style of outfit that I associate with them, and a saying that sums up their best quality. So here goes. I shall show you the canvases on here, and then shall post close ups of each on my Flickr page.

I hope you like them, and I hope my friends like them. Some have already opened them, but not all :)

I decided that whilst I had a little time and wanted a bit of a break, I would do some Christmas baking. So the other day I found a great recipe and set about baking some Christmas Spice Biscuits. I must say that actually they are really nice, even if I say so myself.
It was great fun to spend some time just baking, listening to carols and Christmas songs on the radio and smelling the gorgeous Christmas spices and the biscuits cooking. I had to take a photo of them ready to scrapbook, and took quite a few during the baking process, as I never seem to take many photos at Christmas, so am taking a lot this year as I have a Christmas pad that I am desperate to use :) I also really wanted to fetch out our 50mm lens and crank the aperture to f1.7, I love this shallow depth of field and don't seem to use it enough.
Here are a few of the biscuits :)

The recipe is here

So onto my Oxford news. Well I'm afraid to say that it isn't good news. I had my reply letter today and I have not been given an offer to Oxford. I say it's not good news, obviously I'd have been very proud to have received an offer and it would have been nice, but I'm not upset or bothered by the news, so it's not bad news. I am incredibly proud to have got as far down the Oxford application route as I have, and the interview experience was so brilliant. You may remember me writing shortly after visiting Bath university earlier in the year how much I absolutely loved it. Well it hasn't changed, and Bath and Oxford are both up there joint top of my university list. I haven't yet heard back from Bath, so my hopes now rest on there, and would be equally overjoyed getting to Bath as the course is amazing. Thank you very much for all of your support and encouragement throughout the university application process, I haven't given up hope yet and shall keep you updates with the further twist and turns of my application. :)

Ok, think that's it from me now.
If I do not get back on here before Christmas, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, I hope you all have a great time.
Bye for now,
Hannah :)

Favourite photos at TPV

Welcome to another of our challenges at TPV to celebrate our 1st Birthday.

So far, our first challenge on Wednesday was to use stamps on your project. Any form of stamps, we'd like to see you using them. This challenge is sponsored by the brilliant 'My Favorite Things', with the random winner being given a $25 voucher to the store. See here for more details.

Our fun blog hop is running until Monday, so please do head over to TPV here and start the hop. You'll see all of the DT's work and may also pick up some blog candy along the way :) 

Our second challenge began yesterday, and this time we are asking you 'Who is our favourite paper crafts company?' We are inviting you to use your favourite company to create a paper project and link it to TPV, to be in with the chance of winning a lovely prize. Seeing as they are your favourite company, we'd like 70% + of your project to be made with there products. See here for more details and what the tempting prize is for this challenge.

Spotlighted entries for all challenges will be revealed on Monday, then all challenges will close at Tuesday noon EST (5pm GMT). Winners will be announced later that Tuesday. The blog hop closes on Monday, with winners of blog candy being revealed on the Tuesday, so do pop back to see :)

Now, today, we bring you the third challenge.

Today we want to see your favourite photos.

You all have those photos that you just love, maybe because they are technically perfect, because they hold a precious memory, or are of someone you love. Whatever the reason, we want to see your favourite photo displayed pride of place on a paper project.

Here is my LO, including my favourite photo :)

Yes, I've noticed I've spent truly wrong!!! I can't believe it, the letters are now stuck fast and cannot be removed without ruining it!! What do I do? Any ideas?

This photo is of my brother. I took this photo and am very proud of it. Not only do I love it because his eyes (how gorgeous they are, I'm so jealous of his eyes!!) are in sharp focus, but also because he looks so much like him. I know that probably sounds weird, but sometimes you just capture a candid shot that shows someone as you see them, they are truly them in the photo. This is one of those, he looks so relaxed and in his own world, I love it.

I have used a lot of stitching and doodling on this LO, plus tried to keep the colours masculine. I have hand cut the scallops.

Here are a few close ups

I hope you like it.

I can't wait to see your favourite photos. Make your paper project, link it up to TPV here and you may be in with a chance of winning this prize :)

Echo Park: Apothecary Emporium

So, I shall see you and your work over there. 

Remember, you can also hop along on the blog hop, show us what you can do with stamps and use your favourite company to help us celebrate our birthday :)

Bye for now :)

Blog award and holiday pics :)

Hi, I don't have anything crafty to show you today I'm afraid, but I thought I'd pop by to blog a lovely blog award and some holiday pictures.

A few weeks ago, actually, just over a month ago (sorry Becky), I received a blog award from the lovely Becky Brombley at the Craft Jar. She has a lovely little blog, and creates a gorgeous mixture of things, from cakes to cards and many things in between, I only wish I had more time to go over there and comment a lot more often than I do. So, please do pop over and see her and her lovely work.

Now, as a recipient of this award, I need to tell you 7 things about myself. Arghhh..... right ok then, here goes,

1. My oldest proper memory (I think!!) is visiting my Brother in hospital when I was 4 and buying him a packet of the magic stars chocolate sweets from the hospital shop. I think it's an accurate memory, although no-one can definitely say that it is accurate, but I like to think it is.
2. Marmite. You either love it or you hate it. My opinion, I HATE IT!! :)
3. I also don't like rice pudding (which is odd as I used to eat it a lot when I was younger) or baked beans (which isn't helpful when you are trying to do a really simple meal when camping).
4. I love notebooks and pens, when I was younger (well until relatively recently actually) I would buy a notebook and pen from anywhere I went with a gift shop. I wasn't interested in toys, take me to a zoo or somewhere and I'd come away from the gift shop with a pen and notebook, and sit scribbling.
5. I hate being told off or shouted at. Luckily it doesn't happen often, but when it does I hate it.
6. I want to travel, and I hope I will in the future. There are so many places I'd like to visit, in the UK as well as abroad. When I get the opportunity to travel, I know I will, I just keep thinking of all of the photos, scrapbook pages and memories, oh it'd be great :)
7. I don't have a lucky number, colour, object, anything, and I'm not particularly superstitious. I count magpies if I see them and work out their meaning from the rhyme, but then just turn around and forget about it, I don't believe in it all.

Wow, so there are my 7 things. Quite random, I've just sat here trying to think of vaguely interesting things and that's what has come up, really very random, but hey ho :)

Now to pass it on to 7 people. There are so many blogs I follow, and I really do love scooting around everyones blogs as they're all so interesting and unique. One thing I would really love is more time, so I could actually get around and comment on people's work, I've really struggled recently, you're all just producing too much great work for me to keep up!! :D :D So, here's my 7, I love looking at these peoples inspirational work.

1. Miss Smith of Curiouser and Curiouser.
2. Lisa of Artfull Scrapbooking.
3. Anne of hobby d'un jour.
4. Georgia of Starting to Scrap
5. Tessa of Perfectly Precocious
6. Anthea of Our Life Story
7. Leah of A Musing to Create

Take a look over at their work for yourself, such amazing talent from them all :) Thanks again Becky, it meant a lot to know you enjoy reading my little old blog :)


So, now for some pics of our weekend break camping in Norfolk.

It was the first time we had used our new tent, and we really appreciated the large living area and the fact we could stand up, even James could stand up in it!!

Cooking - It was such good fun cooking for ourselves, it was the first time we have really cooked whilst camping

Some lovely group shots from the hol, we all thoroughly enjoyed it and I think it shows in these pics (maybe except some where James just wouldn't smile nicely :D

James especially enjoyed playing on the beach, as you can see, we all had our feet buried at some point :)

I love this photo mum took, that jumping pillow was such great fun and it was great for posing action shots :)

These are a selection of the many photos I took of the beautiful sunsets. It was World Photography day on Friday, so I had to get the camera out and snap away. All of these were taken at varying times on Friday evening :) It was brilliant to finally get a chance to try the slow shutter speed effect on water :) I was quite pleased with the result.

One of the best bits was being allowed to have camp fires on the camp site.We had a camp fire on 2 of the 3 nights and it was such good fun, although I can still smell it in my hair!! :)

I hope you liked the pics, and I'm so sorry it's been such a great big long post. Well done if you got this far :D

Bye for now,

I want to be like you

Hi everyone,

I've a layout to share with you today, using this weeks Sketchy Thursday's sketch. It's a great and very interesting sketch this week, and I really enjoyed making my layout.

I started this LO last Friday, but finally managed to find a tiny bit of time to finish it and photograph it. I am really pleased with this LO, I love that crate paper background paper and I really like using these colours at the moment, they're similar to my 'for one weekend only' layout. It's quite fitting really, Father's day yesterday and my scrapbook page is about me and my Father.

The journalling reads  'These photos make me laugh. Maybe this is where my love of maths has come from. Sitting on Dad's lap whilst he works and reading his accountancy magazines at the age of 2, it's no surprise I'm interested in maths!!'

Here's the sketch I've followed

and here is a couple of close ups

I have recently found another fab challenge blog, it's brilliant. It's called the Paper Variety, and this week their challenge is

So I have followed this challenge, using 4 different fonts for my title, plus including my handwriting on the LO. It's a great challenge blog, with very different challenges each week, so why not head over by clicking here, and take a look.

My exams are over!!!!! I've had my last one today, yipeeee. Well it would've been nicer if I'd finished on a high, my exam today was awful. It was a maths exam (yes I know I've just said I love maths, but today I really don't). It was an A2 level exam though, I am taking maths and further maths, so am taking A2 modules this year, eventhough I am only an AS student, so it's bound to be hard, but I hated it, I loved my one last week, felt it went quite well, but this, this was completely different.

Anyway, I shall now be enjoying a bit more freedom, I shall not be having to do work every night, so expect to see me here a bit more :)

It's Mum's birthday tomorrow, I've made her a card tonight, but shall not show you it untill tomorrow, or she might spot it on here. Pop over to say happy birthday to her, I'm sure she'll post at some point tomorrow.

Bye for now,
Hannah  :)

P.S.

I am taking CJ's portraiture photography course, which started last Friday, but as some pre-workshop homework we had to do a 'summery' self portrait. Here is mine, it was great fun taking this, and I really like it, I shall definitely be scrapping it :)

Thanks to Miss Smith for the inspiration for this photo, she often takes her photos from this angle and inspired me to do so :)