STUDIO SUNDAYS ☼ vol. 2

I accidentally missed the month of February but that's because I've been busy making things and having fun, I swear. The long weekend in February was filled with celebrations: Valentine's Day, a Valentine's birthday, and Lunar New Year. I spent that weekend couch-surfing across the GTA.

I was busy working on Valentine's Day gifts, which is why I waited to write about them here. I am a sucker for anything involving pink and hearts so I kept busy with crafting and baking. My focus shifted from crocheting to baking at the end of January.

Not everything is pictured, but I promise I made:

• Smiski fruit hats (strawberry and orange for Ran and Can, respectively)
• Love letter book sleeves (now with heart buttons!)
• Crochet egg coasters (the only crochet items my friends actually want)
• Chocolate-covered strawberry crochet keychains (there is a crochet Youtube tutorial for everything, I swear)
• And various pink and heart-shaped baked goods: chocolate cupcakes with strawberry icing, a raspberry chocolate ganache tart, brownies with (leftover) strawberry icing, madeleines and pink marshmallows which were only partially successful, strawberry cheesecake rolls, personalized sweetheart sugar cookies, and strawberry chocolate chip cookies

This was perhaps the most baking I've ever done in my life. I spent a small fortune on butter.

I've been having more fun this winter than I usually do. It's likely due to a combination of different factors, but I think a large part is because I have more (close) friends to chill with in this city now. C: It is also probably related to better daily habits. I have discovered that eating better, exercising regularly, and sleeping more really does make you feel better, unfortunately. :C

STUDIO SUNDAYS ☼ vol. 1

I am starting this year off with the intention for somewhat more regular updates. But I'm really only interested in sharing the things I'm making, leading to the creation of this series. The "studio" is just my studio apartment where I make anything and everything.

To start off the new year, I spent most of the weekend decluttering and reorganizing my arts and crafts supplies. I've accumulated a lot throughout my lifetime. It is my main hobby and I enjoy playing around with so many different media, but it makes me uneasy when I have a lot of junk (art supplies) sitting around my apartment. I don't have enough storage space for that. On the other hand, sorting through all of these materials inspired me to restart a few half-finished projects I'd forgotten about. I watched four Stephen King movies as I was decluttering.

I have a lot of things I wanted to crochet last year, but that fell to the wayside once the weather got warm and I refused to stay inside. Then I crammed a bunch of crafting in December for Christmas gifts. Now that the holidays are over, I am slowly working through my crochet list. I am starting off with a practical love letter book sleeve so I can carry my books around without them getting damaged. But I ran out of white yarn so it ended up being too small for my current book.

I also have quite the stationery collection, which only grew with my most recent trip to Japan. There are so many high quality stationery goods in Japan, but I get overwhelmed by choice so I ended up purchasing brands I was already familiar with. Below is the Hobonichi Weeks and A6 blank Midori I started this year. This is my first time trying the Hobonichi weekly planner and I am loving it, it has a lot of fun themed pages. I am using my Midori as a catch-all for notes and brainstorming and I covered it with a pink paper book sleeve I also got in Japan.

I don't know how often I'll update this series. Maybe only when I have something interesting to say or share. Until then.