Fall is my absolute favorite season. A perfect blend of warm and cold, sweaters, fall foliage, Pumpkin lattes, and so much more! Who can resist sitting on the slope and looking out at all of the fall foliage? I’ve never made a leaf suncatcher before and it was so fun just being able to get creative and make some crafts. I really love decorating my dorm according to the seasons/holidays and this made such a great addition to the stickers on my dorm windows! It was nice being able to see everyone on the zoom call and I found it cool we had different leaves in our kits, it made it fun and interesting!

I’ve always loved natural light and am so grateful that my room has wonderful big windows to let the bright Ithaca sun in.  I was excited when Rose House hosted the fall leaf sun-catcher crafting session because Ithaca has made autumn my favorite season and I was ready to get into the autumn spirit. I’ve always been a crafty person but I had never made a sun-catcher before and though the use of tissue paper and contact paper was very interesting and innovative. I was surprised at how difficult creating a sun-catcher was for me! I wanted to go for a  natural-looking leaf to keep on my window all year as a reminder of the fall throughout the year (especially when all the trees die off in the winter). While I made my sun-catcher I was stressed because I was not cutting clean pieces of tissues into uniform shapes like most people were. I chose to rip up random sizes and colors and at the end I was very satisfied with the finished product. I absolutely love my sun-catcher and I like the way it looks when the sunlight passes through it.  I hope to keep this as a memory for every dorm room I stay in from now in because I think it really makes my window unique.

Fall is one of my favorite seasons, and I loved creating a leaf suncatcher at the Leaf Suncatcher Explore! Event. Hearing why everyone else loves fall too at the beginning of the event was really neat, as I found many of my peers enjoy going for walks around Ithaca and apple-picking, just as I do. I was excited to hear that some individuals from various places around the country were so excited to see the foliage, as they haven’t had that experience before coming to Ithaca. Creating the suncatchers was fun, and I appreciate the care and effort put into preparing the activity!

I love red leaves in the fall, the bright crimson that always catches my eye when I pass a red tree.  I loved going to the Rose dining hall this fall because of the bright red trees that surround the exit.  It was wonderful to walk on a makeshift red carpet while going back to my room from the dining hall.  And looking past the beautiful trees, out to the distant rising slope with houses dotting the colorful tree covered landscape, is breath-taking too.  Capturing these various colors was amazing, and I was happy to take some of the fall colors and bring them to my room.  This arts and crafts activity is perfect for brightening up a room.  The bright yellows, the deep greens, and the rich purple-red colors that I see so often outside look gorgeous around the outline of my maple leaf.  While it is sad that fall and all of the beautiful fall colors do not last forever, I am happy that no matter what the season is, I still get a reddish fall leaf in my window!

This event was very stimulating. At what appears to be a simple task, ended up taking a lot of hard work and focus (at least for me haha). I enjoyed picking the perfect color ratio for my fall leaf sunflower. I ended up doing the basic yellows and oranges for my leaf. I think that doing arts and crafts can help you slow down and enjoy the day. I also could appreciate that it is fall, which is one of my favorite seasons. I know that the Ithaca weather will turn harsh and cold soon so it was fun embracing the last of fall spirit before the cold winter. I especially enjoyed staying after most people left and being able to chat with staff and other rose scholars while we worked on our arts and crafts. I sometimes don’t like to speak over large zooms, so this was really awesome. I displayed my hard work in my room and was glad to brighten my space.

The suncatcher making session was the second hands-on crafting event that I’ve attended so far. Very rarely do we get to play with tissue paper (in my experience, at least) so I really liked the novelty of that. I went with the spiky one so cutting the leaf shape out was a bit difficult, especially cutting the inside out but I think it was worth it. Cutting the pieces of tissue paper to stick onto the clear sticky plastic sheet was very meditative. I did run into some trouble when spare pieces of paper starting sticking to the plastic sheet as well but ultimately the extra plastic was cut off so it didn’t matter. It was still a bit of a pain to seperate entire sheets of tissue paper from the plastic but it was actually pretty satisfying ripping it off. I went for a yellow-green-darkgreen color scheme for the inside of the leaf and added in some small orange bits to fill in the gaps. I was worried there’d be too many layers of tissue paper for light to shine through but it still did. There’s not much of a way to hang it up on the window but I’ll hold it to my desk lamp sometimes for fun!

I love crafting and the fall season, so I was particularly excited to participate in this activity. Although I was unable to get my supplies, I found some autumn leaves outside and made a leaf dream catcher. It was very relaxing to craft while listening to music. Now I have a nice fall decoration to hang in my dorm.

Making fall leaf suncatchers allowed me an opportunity to build on a previous Rose event with Professor Schwartz, where during the event, he stressed the importance of taking time to reflect on experiences so they may become growth experiences.

GRF Karina set a kind and safe atmosphere by playing nice music and welcoming us to interact with each other, albeit via Zoom.  With this backdrop of cozy laid-back interaction, I soon found myself somewhere between cutting paper and thinking about how I could have improved my week. And I also replayed in my mind what I enjoyed most about the week’s events and how I was grateful for this suncatcher event that allowed me the time to think freely.

It was great to take a break during my studies and get crafty for this week’s Rose Scholars program. I love arts and crafts, and because of academics, I haven’t been able to pick up on anything creative since school started. I joined GRF Karina’s workshop and made these beautiful leaf suncatchers with construction paper, fall-colored tissue paper, and laminate sticker sheets. I decided to cut my tissue paper in triangles and with a color palette that included all the colors of the tissue paper, in a way where the leaf was still transitioning it’s colors. It was a gradient between green and yellow, and then rich oranges, reds and browns. These reminded me of stained-glass windows in a way. Although it was gloomy outside, my finished leaf still looked very pretty against my windows, and the light captures the many layers of tissue paper well.

My finished suncatcher taped to my window in Mennen Hall overlooking Rose and West Campus

I am never one for arts and crafts, but this event was one I really enjoyed. Not only because of the Alicia Keys playing in the background, but because of the inner kid that came out while doing this. Although the laminating sheet was very sticky and at times made the activity frustrating, the end result made the work worth it. Cutting with small scissors, making an art project, and listening to calm music in the background took me on a trip down memory lane. The finished product was very cute, and I would definitely look forward to this event again.

If you did not think it was fall in Ithaca (because it hadn’t gotten too cold yet), you woke up this morning like I did: freezing. After probably the last warm day of the year, the cold has settled in Ithaca. This afternoon I joined GRF Karina and other scholars in making leaf catchers. I find craft-making relaxing and, in my cozy sweats, it was a great way to decompress as we head into the last month of the in-person fall semester. What I enjoyed most about this session was staying after the designated hour to talk with and get to know Karina and two other scholars. I have found Rose Scholars a great way to get to know other people and connect with fellow Cornellians when everything is confined to the virtual world. As I finished my leaf catchers and spoke with my peers, I was reminded of how much I missed being able to meet new people. I was also reminded how much I like exploring the greater Ithaca area. I have not been apple-picking, to a pumpkin patch, and have not been able to get off-campus to do simple activities like shop. As I look at my finished leaf-catchers, I let all of my thoughts fall onto these leaves so that I will not forget the connections I have made.

Saturday afternoon I joined other members of Rose House (over zoom) for a crafting session where we made leaf suncatchers. It was so nice to take a break from my busy day and do some crafting as we listened to music and generally chatted. I haven’t been this creative in a while or done any projects so it was fun to almost act like a child again and do a fun project. Although it was actually more difficult then expected (especially cutting out the outline of the leaf) and problems did arise (my sticky sheet kept sticking to everything but what I needed it to), I think the final product turned out pretty good! It’s currently hanging on our window. Hopefully we have some more sunny days so it can really shine!