A Creative Yu -

Papercrafts 2025 Weekly Creativity: January 1 – 4

January 4, 2025 Andrea

Four days into January and I have spent most of it setting up my new planner. Although I have loved using my 5 x 8.25 inch hardcover Moleskine weekly planner for the last two years, I decided to switch it up in 2025 for something with a lot more page real estate. I chose an 8 x 10 inch soft-cover Eccolo planner instead. I love the monthly view! At a glance, I can see how busy my December was and can appreciate all the different groups of people I met up with based on my colour coding. The adorable planner…

Papercrafts 2024 End of Year Craft Round Up

December 27, 2024 Andrea

Every year, I make many more crafts than I post. I always intend to post them but I frequently put up mental barriers to stop me from actually doing so: I need to wait for better lighting to take the photos, I haven’t thought of the perfect caption yet, I should wait until the second attempt at this before posting…. And before I know it, it’s the end of the year and it seems like the time for sharing those projects has passed. I look back and get frustrated at myself for not following through on my plans. So…

Book Review Sustainable Gifting: Upcycle, Hand-Make & Get Creative with Zero-waste Presents & Packages by Michelle Mackintosh

May 14, 2024 Andrea

Environmentally-conscious living is admirable, but I have become cynical about the use of terms like “sustainability” and “zero-waste” in popular culture. Frequently, they are employed to market a particular aesthetic of products or services instead of referring to solutions that truly address the underlying problems. This book reads like “sustainability-lite” – meant to be inspirational rather than instructional. At its core, there are essentially three main “sustainability” suggestions: Handmake your gifts Gift food or consumables Use recycled items for packaging There are a few interesting ideas and the tone is of someone trying to convince you that being environmentally friendly…

Productivity Setting Up My 2024 Moleskine Weekly Planner

January 16, 2024 Andrea

Ever since I got my first full time job, planner shopping has been a much-anticipated annual fall event. I made do with the free school-issued agendas while a student, but one of the pleasures of becoming an adult was finally having the income to indulge in my hobbies. Although Happy Planners, Erin Condrens, Passion Planners and Hobonichis dominate most of the Instagram accounts that I follow, I am actually not drawn to them as personal planning systems. (I admit that the cost of entry gives me pause…) For two years, I loved my Michael’s Recollections planners which have a similar…

Cardmaking The Flames of Inspiration

April 21, 2023 Andrea

“Does anyone have a 50th birthday card? At 2 am on Saturday morning, the message went out on my family’s Whatsapp chat like a card-maker’s bat signal – I was so ready for this! There’s nothing like a goal and a deadline to increase the odds of completing a project. I did not have a lot of time since my extended family was throwing a surprise birthday party for one of my aunts that evening and I still had a list of chores to complete. As I sipped my morning latte, I scrolled through my Pinterest account, looking for inspiration….

Desserts Happy Year of the Tiger!

February 4, 2022 Andrea

Welcome to my new blog! Having the inaugural post during Lunar New Year seemed like the perfect way to start things off. Tang yuan (湯圓) is one of my favorite Chinese desserts. It’s name is a homophone for reunion and so traditionally, it’s eaten at family gatherings during festivals. The first time I made tang yuan was with my friend, Shirley, to celebrate the Year of the Rat. We were hundreds of kilometers away from our families (the first Chinese New Year that I had ever spent away from my parents and siblings) and the sweet rice balls were a…