Creative Central

As expected, the Christmas break is flying by. I can't believe it's just a week till Christmas. I, however, am not as stressed about that fact as my parents are. I imagine this weekend will be spent writing cards and delivering presents. I designed and wrote a few Christmas cards myself this year. I've been working on a faux calligraphy, which is featured heavily throughout the cards. The cards are just done with some fine tip markers, as apposed to with crafting supplies, but I really like how they turned out. But since I've been home and have access to my scrapbooking supplies, I've made some other cards that are a little more intricate. I think making cards is going to be my new hobby. Ever since I had my new years resolution to write a letter and deliver it through snail mail every week, I've been a fan of sending snail mail (not every week though). Now I'm just adding making the cards to that. Although stationary areas in stores are still my weak spot.
The other thing I've been occupying my time with is wrapping Christmas gifts. I try and up my game each year. This year every gift has ribbon and a bow. I also try and wrap parts of gifts individually, because why open one gift when you can open 3? I made a gift basket of which I'm very pleased with. 
The 2016 gingerbread creation has been designed (here's a sneak peak: it's not a house). I'm going to make it next week, show it off for a couple days to the relatives, and then it can be consumed. I may have designed a bigger creation that I thought, but we'll see how it turns out. It's never exactly the size it's meant to be.
I went through my photos from when I was abroad and have selected a highlight reel to print off and hopefully scrapbook. It still ended up being over 70 photos. But I guess considering I took over 2000, that's not bad.
And in case you hadn't noticed the trend of crafty and creative things, the other project occupying my time is a t-shirt quilt I'm doing for a friend. It's coming along nicely, although there was a bit of a pause while I waited for the last two shirts to arrive. I'm hoping that I can have it finished within the next week. The deadline is unofficially when I go back to Stratford, so that I can give my friend the quilt the next time I see her. If I happen to have time during the craze of the week surrounding Christmas, I'll start working on another quilt that I said I would do for a family friend. Its been about 5 years, so I figured I should probably get going on that. I just wish that I had room to sew at my apartment. I can't wait till I retire and have unlimited time to do crafty things.

Cooper District

Today GBDA X01 officially ended. After 8 weeks, a group of 20 of us came up with a proposal for the Cooper Site behind the campus. We have a website, video, branding, physical models and blueprints (which I've mentioned before), and perhaps my favourite, a book, to represent what we are now calling the Cooper District. We were assembling the books today. It's a accordion style book, with actual front and back covers. They're obviously handmade, but I think they turned out really well. Each one is just a tad unique, and that goes along well with the branding we came up with - rustic and a bit edgy. I wasn't a part of designing the book, but a couple of pictures I took as well as the blueprints made it into the book. So that's my little claim to fame on that aspect of the project. If I can find the motivation to photograph the book properly, I'd like to add it to my portfolio. I really enjoyed the whole thing and I'm happy to be able to say that this is something I did because I wanted to, not because I needed to for a mark or school. I'm really looking forward to what we do next term.

Speaking of making the book, we were using bone folding tools to crease and fold the pages, and I now want one for myself. It would be really helpful for origami folding.
In other news, last night the SSC had their last event of the term, a holiday dessert potluck. We had 10 people, which was just about perfect for the space (and chairs) we have. There was lots of delicious dessert, one of my favourites being peanut butter and corn flake munchies. They were very good and I ate (too) many. We built the gingerbread house without any structural difficulties and one guest even made a cat out of candy. I ate the chimney today and the gingerbread is rock hard. I'm wondering if this kit might be leftover from last year? Or maybe I'm just so used to the softer homemade ginger bread that this is a rude reminder of what I used to enjoy eating as a child.