Back from uni :D

Hi.... it's been so so long, how are you all?

I have a few crafty things to share with you, it's been 8 months since I last posted but I don't have that much in the way of crafts to show for it! University and scrapbooking didn't really work together, but I have thousands of memories and photos to scrapbook in the future!

Before I show you, here's a quick review of my last 8 months.... 

Well, I am home again, my first year of university has come to a close! It's flown by! I've just read my last blog post, it's interesting seeing what I wrote before uni, how I found it a daunting prospect. I can now honestly say it's been an incredible year, better than I ever imagined. Bath is a stunning city, I've been lucky to have the best set of housemates I could have been put with, and the course has been great. I did a couple of exams in January, I've been doing lots of coursework throughout the year and have just done my final exams of 1st year. I think they went ok, just got to wait and see now. I've been working hard, but having lots of fun too, it's been fantastic.

So here's a few things I've made since my last post. I've been using holidays and brief trips home to craft when I can :)

I've had the pleasure of sharing this last year with someone very special to me. Soon I will have been with my boyfriend for a year. We have been at school together for many many years and have known each other for a long time. We only decided to be together just before going our separate ways for university (our unis are 6 hours apart by train!) but I am thrilled to say that we have made it through our first year at university and remained together.
I made him this scrapbook page for Christmas, with many little pockets for notes, tickets and anything else we have been collecting from travels together. I tried to keep a theme throughout the pages, with pastel colours, washi tape and kraft.

This year was also my first of making and sending a proper valentines card. So, as you can imagine, I was bursting with ideas! As I mentioned earlier we are far apart at our unis, so this sentiment I found when searching through mum's stash was perfect for the card.

Most gifts I give nowadays have some form of creative aspect, so valentines gifts were not going to be any different! I made this ticket booklet using My Favourite Things dies and stamps. It was great to be able to personalise it, you can buy some pretty distasteful versions online so creating your own is the best way in my view. Here is a view of the inside tickets
(none of them have been used yet, he doesn't want to pull them out of the book! :D)

So, enough lovey dovey stuff now, sorry!

This year I have also been able to try something I have wanted to do for a long long time ... Ballroom and Latin Dancing. Yep I am a strictly come dancing fan, yep I looked around for classes after watching the first series and yep they were expensive and hard to get to. Going to university really is the best chance to try anything you want, it's on your doorstep and is often subsidised.
I am so glad I went for it and tried dancing this year, it's been a great experience and I shall carry on with it next year. I took a Bronze level medal test in Ballroom last week and am just waiting for the results now. The club needed cards as a thank you for our superb teachers, so I offered to make one. Here is what I produced

It took a while, but I'm pleased with it, and so were the teachers :)

Thanks for popping by again, sorry I've been absent all year. I have a busy summer, so I can't guarantee many posts, but I do have a lot of photos from the last year to scrapbook now :)

Until next time, thanks and bye,

Hannah x

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

Laughter is the best medicine

Hi all,

Well, I for one, definitely agree with the saying that laughter is the best medicine.
I have been absent from this little old blog quite a bit recently, because life is at that crucial stage for me where it throws a lot at you and asks you to cope. School has become very busy. I have been working like crazy to make sense of the madly insane and difficult entry exam I have to do for my Oxford application (which, when you are reading this, I will have just completed this morning!!) When life is this hectic, time to yourself and time spent with others is so valuable, and you really realise that laughter is the best medicine, it changes your entire mood for the better, for at least a short time :)

Anyway, you may ask why I am talking about laughter being the best medicine?

Well, this week, that is the challenge theme over at TPV.

Here is my project for this challenge

This weeks challenge at TPV is sponsored by The Paper Bakery.

They are going to give the lucky random winner $20 which can either be used off any of their single kits or off the first month's subscription price. If you haven't seen their gorgeous kits then do head over to their website to check them out. To win that great prize, create a paper project using this weeks theme and then link it up to the TPV blog here. I'm looking forward to seeing all of your entries this week.

For me, I knew exactly what photos I would scrapbook for this challenge, and I knew I'd need a double spread to fit them on. I took these photos a few months ago for one of CJ's brilliant photography workshops, and I hadn't yet had chance to scrapbook them. Do you remember me making a fuss about finding the moustache hambly screen print at Ally Pally? Well that's because I knew exactly where I wanted to use it and had been waiting to find it before scrapping these photos.

It took me a long time to make this LO, but I am pleased with the finished product, I think I managed to reflect the fun of the photoshoot in the LO which is what I wanted to do. Here are some close ups of the details

I was inspired for this LO after seeing Miss Smith's challenges for last month. One of her challenges was to scraplift a LO she loved, and this got me thinking. When I knew I wanted to create a double LO for these photos, I knew exactly what page I would scraplift.

This is the work of Leeann Pearce, an amazing Australian Scrapper who has a truly inspirational style. I had seen this LO of hers on her blog and in a magazine, and LOVED it. I'm sure you can see the inspiration of her double LO on mine, without me saying where it has influenced me :)
(Leeann, I hope you don't mind me scraplifting one of your LO's, please let me know if you do)

Thanks for looking, I shall be back another day to update you with everything, once this entry exam is done and I can spare a little time.

I thought I would just leave you with a close up of some of the photos in this LO, hopefully they'll make you chuckle and feel better. They were so fun to take, we had such a great laugh.

 ...and a final photo, unfortunately I didn't fit this one into the LO

Bye for now, and I look forward to seeing your TPV entries.

Hannah

A TPV recipe

Today at TPV we have a recipe challenge for you.

Here's my project for this week

So, the recipe,

Now, as a  family we don't celebrate Halloween much, so this was quite a challenge. I decided to scrap photos taken from the only Halloween where we did celebrate. It was quite a while ago, both me and my brother look so young in these photos. We dressed up and carved our home-grown pumpkin. I made the pumpkin myself from paper as I don't have any Halloween embellishments. I found it tricky to stick to only 3 buttons, but I managed, using gems instead of those extra buttons:)
Here's a close up

This week we are sponsored by one of our favourite returning sponsors...

Scraptastic Club do some brilliant kits, check them out here.

So, to be in with a chance of winning that prize, use the recipe to make a paper project, then pop over to TPV blog to link up your project.

Bye for now, thanks for popping by.

Hannah :)

Sketchy Thursday's and Colour room

Hi all,

I have a LO to share today and pics of the lovely stash I bought at Alexandra Palace last weekend. :)

First up, the LO.
I really liked the look of this week's Sketchy Thursday's sketch, so had to have a go and use it. It's also been quite a while since I took part in a colour challenge, so thought I would this time. I really love colour challenges, and often look at the Colour Room's weekly palettes, so this week I decided to use their gorgeous current palette. The combination of the two challenges left me with this LO :)

Here's the sketch

And here's the colour palette

This sketch was such a great sketch to use, and I love that collection of colours, the deep red, white, pale yellow and pale brown looks great together :)

I hope you like the LO, here are a few close ups

 Seeing as the LO is all about my art, and the long summers spent drawing for my art GCSE (even on our family holidays!!) I decided to actually sketch a little on the LO. I have seen others do this, so thought I'd give it a go and quite like it. I have also stitched a grid behind the two focal areas with a sewing machine, and numbered it, to mimic the type of grid you draw in art when you are copying from a photo etc.

 This rose has been created following Sutty's most recent flower tutorial, I just had to try them :)

I have used lots of washi tape on this LO. I LOVE this stuff, it is absolutely super. On this LO I have used washi tape bought from John Lewis (the colours were such a great match) and also some of the new hambly screen print washi tape (bought at Ally Pally)

Edited to add : I have just had a lovely comment from Beth Moore telling me about The Kraft Journal challenges. I am so pleased she has introduced me to this challenge, I love Kraft so it's the perfect place for me :) I have linked up this LO to their current challenge, 'lavish layers' :)

So, now onto Ally Pally.

Mum and I had a great day, we really enjoyed it. It's a long time since we last went to the show, and it really made us realise how much our styles of crafting has changed. We were walking past stalls that once would have caught our attention for ages. 

Anyway, it was beautiful weather, so the walk up from the station was lovely. The building is so gorgeous.

Mum took this photo using her iPhone (love this app, I want an iPhone too now :)

We spent a good few hours at the show, and I spent most of the money I'd saved :) Here's what it was spent on

Do you see that moustache Hambly Screen Print? Yes...well I was extremely excited to see it there, so excited I bought 2 of them!! I have been looking for this for quite a while, I have photos that I've been waiting to scrap, just so I can use this once I had it. So pleased :D 

A lovely little collection of embellishments. I LOVE those little retro style appliances, I just had to have those. Also, do you see the scalloped calico ribbons? These are great, so versatile, I have used these in the LO above, spritzed with ink through a stencil :)

And lastly, this little collection of goodies :)

There were a great collection of stalls there, and I can't wait to get tucking into more of my new stash.

One of the highlights of the day for me though was helping out on the Scrap Revolution stall. I spent 2 hours helping out, restocking, working on the tills, and it was really good fun. It was also lovely to see my kit LO on display :) Speaking of which, the tutorial for the flower I created for the kit LO has been posted on the scrap revolution blog, so do take a look :)

Thanks for looking, sorry it has been such a picture heavy post, well done for surviving through it :)

Bye for now,

Hannah :)

P.S. Have you heard about the new UK scrap magazine, SCRAP365? It is amazing, I came across it a few days ago as some of the lovely people I follow are on the new fabby DT. Do check it out, I am so pleased to hear we will soon have a great UK scrap magazine, I've really missed not having a magazine since Scrapbook Inspirations stopped. I subscribed at Ally Pally, so can't wait for the first issue to arrive in November :)

Who's going to Alexandra Palace?

Hi all,

So, it's the Big Stamp and Scrapbooking Show next weekend at Alexandra Palace. Who's going?
It's a great show, I haven't been for a few years so am really looking forward to it. Craft shopping, what a great way to spend a Saturday :)

That's not the only thing I wanted to ask/tell you though. About a month ago I was in our local scrapbooking store, the brilliant Scrap Revolution, when the unthinkable happened. We began talking about our scrapbooking and blogs, as the Scrap Revolution designer Sue recognised me from here, and I was very thrilled and surprised to be asked to create a kit LO for the shop :D I was so blown away, and felt very honoured to be asked.

The Scrap Revolution create scrapbooking kits regularly, which are great value kits bursting with stash. So, I very gratefully accepted the offer and have created the following LO using the upcoming kit :)

The kit will be on sale at Ally Pally next weekend, and my LO will be on display :D It's all so exciting. I hope you like the LO, here are a few close ups.

The kit includes the vast majority of the craft stash used and instructions for creating this LO, with enough extra to create another scrapbook LO as well :D So, why not visit the Scrap Revolution stall at Alexandra Palace to browse their great supplies, see my LO and maybe even buy the kit. Or if you can't get to Ally Pally, definitely visit their website, the kit should be available via the website after the show :) If you do buy the kit, I'd love to see your version of my LO, or any others you create with the kit. :)

If you are coming to Ally Pally on the Saturday I may bump into you around the show, Mum and I are both going too. I'll also be helping on the scrap revolution stall between 12 and 2 on the Saturday which will be brilliant, so if you are there between those hours, please do make sure you come over to say hello, I'd love to meet you :)

Bye for now, thanks for visiting and reading my exciting news, maybe I'll see you there on Saturday :)

Hannah :)

Miss Smith's blog hop

Hello and welcome,

I am taking part in Miss Smith's giveaway blog hop today. If you are here from Louise's blog, then you are in the correct place. If not, head back to Miss Smith's blog to start off the hop.

A month ago, Kirsty (Miss Smith) posted her 200th post, and decided to celebrate with a fab giveaway with a twist. She had been experimenting with making her own embellishments, so decided she would make some to giveaway. We were then to use the embellishment on a project, and join in on this blog hop. So here I am, on the blog hop.

I mentioned the giveaway on my blog, which some of you will have read, so I was lucky enough to receive two of the embellishments. Here's my project, a layout using them both.

They're great little embellishments :) I based the colours of the page around the colours on the embellishments, which just so happened to be lovely shades of blue and green, colours I like using. This LO fell together very quickly compared to normal, which was surprising, but I am pleased with it.
Here are some close ups :)

Thanks Kirsty for the chance to join in on this great blog hop and giveaway.

Now hop over to Sonja's blog, to see how she has used her embellishment.

Thanks for following the hop and seeing our work.
Bye for now,

What's your favourite embellishments? -TPV-

Today at TPV, it's the final one of our 5 special challenges to celebrate our 1st Birthday.

If you are here for the blog hop, you'll find it here

So, today the challenge is to use your favourite embellishments.
We all have embellishments that we grab time and time again and appear on all of our LO's, and at TPV, we'd like to see them.

I found this quite a challenge at first, as I have so many favourites. So I settled on this...

Yes, I LOVE that background paper from Crate paper, but that isn't the 'favourite' that I've used on here.
My favourite embellishments are handmade ones :)

All of the flowers and buttons on this LO are handmade :) I had brilliant fun making these. I think one of the reasons handmade embellishments are my favourite is because they are sooo fun to make, can be tailored to suit your project, and they are great fun to use :) This was the first time I had experimented with making my own buttons from Fimo, and it was really good fun. There are so many different designs and things you can do.


Here are tutorials for the flowers:


Large purple/blue book print flower -
This was made using this tutorial, which is really great. I have used book paper, and then coloured each layer with watercolours as it gives it a gorgeous mottled colour effect, and because of the water, the petals become easy to shape and then dry crisp. It is amazing how water can allow you to create such form from paper. When it dries, it dries crisp and keeps it's form. I now wet most flowers I make.


Large white flower -
I think I made this using roughly the same technique and tutorial as above, which is here. The main difference with this flower is that I haven't coloured it and have used mulberry/handmade paper. I have then misted the layers with water and shaped them by scrunching the petals and using a cocktail stick. The paper absorbs water very well and really does keep it's shape :)


The teal ribbon flower -
This has been made exactly the same as most ribbon flowers are made. I'm sure you know how to, but if you don't, I shall give you the basics. You start with a circle of card, then stick the ribbon to the centre. As you wrap the ribbon around into a circle, twist it as you go , making a coil of ribbon. Cut off the remainder of the ribbon once you have reached the edge of the card base, and glue it down.


Small purple flower -
This has also been made using roughly the same principle as the first two, with this tutorial. I have created 2 layers like these with book paper, and then one with some coloured card. I have misted them, and shaped them, then let them dry. I have then rubbed an ink pad over them to bring out some of the creases and definition.

I hope you like the LO, I was really pleased with it, I really like that colour combination, I should use it more :)

So, pop over to TPV here and share your projects with us, and make sure you use those favourite embellishments, they deserve that attention!

The lovely prize on offer for this challenge is..

This is the "Sophia" kit from CTMH and is filled with patterned papers, cardstock, buttons, twine and a clear stamp set! Isn't it lovely. I am straight away drawn to those buttons, which are another of my favourite embellishments. :)


Here are a few close ups of my LO :)

Bye for now,


P.S. Thanks to those of you that commented on my last post and gave suggestions as to what to do with the spelling mistake. I have taken your advice and tried replacing the 'e' with a heart :)

Rescued? Does it look ok?
Thanks so much :)