Crafty and snowy days

There have been a lot of snow days in  Boston recently, and as a result, a lot of crafting as I've holed up in my cozy room with mug after mug of piping hot water (and sometimes hot cocoa and string cheese, but not together, of course).

Fair warning - this post has a LOT of pictures! Sorry, I didn't realize it until I'd finish writing. Well, read on below, you can scroll right down if you'd rather not be overloaded with jpg-blast!

First, a lovely view of Boston from recent days (from CNN iReport):

A photo posted by CNN iReport (@cnnireport) on Feb 16, 2015 at 9:20am PST

As much as I love snow and even enjoy shoveling to a certain degree (haha, degree, get it), I concur with the many around me who cry, we've had enough! Very thankfully though, we've only had a few casualties in mostly broken shovels and frozen toes, and my neighborhood still has wonderful heat, plumbing, and electricity.

With all the being-stuck-inside days recently, I have surprisingly not developed any sort of cabin fever! That's mostly because I've been finally getting a move on the many projects on my list. I'm planning quite a few big projects in the next few months, but here are a couple of smaller ones that I've finished in the first weeks of 2015 so far!

A scarf, aptly titled "Procragratification scarf", which I made while procrastinating on all the other projects I was supposed to finish up

Sidenote - I have a bunch more Ravelry projects! Come and connect with me if you're also on it! :) http://www.ravelry.com/people/luluhu

A penguin I made for David this Valentine's

With interchangeable accessories! I started off with one set only but then I got really into it

A little note to go with the penguin

Inside: Reuse-reduce-recycle the cut out heart

Chinese New Year cards for Year of the Sheep

Wedding card for the new Mr. and Mrs. Chin - Congrats!!

Some "gratitude journals" for my Sunday School class! I kept one for myself too :)

Learned to patch some holes in my nice wool sweaters (handed down from mom!) 

It's not QUITE there yet, but this was the closest one

Through inspiration from Tiffany, I impoved this old knitting needles holder that I made a while back... 

... and finally stitched the top flap into place so that the needles and crochet hooks don't run away so easily! 

All rolled up

I finally got around to making a mason jar pin cushion (the jar is from Andy and Jenny's wedding last September!)

I got into sketching on my iPad, so I tried my hand at making a fine-point stylus using King Lau's tutorial: http://tumblr.kinglau.co/post/6442455519/ipadstylusdiy

Here it is in action! The photo is a bit blurry but the lines are pretty accurate! Now to find the perfect drawing/painting app... 

Whew, that was actually a lot more than I had realized! There are even more that I didn't get to take good shots of, and still even more cooking adventures that I had the joy of going on with friends. I've learned so much about Chinese cooking, I tell you!

I'm glad to see that I've been pretty productive in the crafty realm these days. With the encouragement of Steph and Dominique, I recently started keeping a "projects journal" (as well as a normal journal, a prayer journal, and a sketchbook). In it, I wrote down all the things that I want to do within the next year, and it's helped me with my focus a lot!

I've always been a pretty idealistic person and haven't been the best at setting concrete goals or executing action plans. Truth be told, I am usually a "fly really fast by the seat of my pants because I sure have a lot of undirected energy!!!!!!!!!" sort of person or an "I'm totally going to fail at this if I try so I can't be bothered to get up" sort of person. Conversely, I also love planning things and putting lists together and being organized, so it's no surprise that for YEARS, many people have thought that I'm a super-organized and put-together, motivated, and reflective individual. Actually quite the opposite of me, since it's typically very difficult for me to carry things through, and I find it very difficult to sit down and just reflect! Even my past blog posts about self-reflection and discovery  Just these few weeks in 2015 of putting a list together and setting in some times to do them has been so eye-opening: You can really do stuff if you put a plan to it! Hah! Who woulda thunk!

There are a lot more things in my journals that I am actively praying for, hoping for, and hopefully, planning and preparing for. May He lead me to not only grow in personal diligence, but also active trust and obedience through these!