One of the first events that I attended this semester was an origami/paper cutting event. There were lots of colorful paper and templates on how to make paper crafts, like lanterns and what not. I was really excited to make a paper lantern, but unfortunately, due to a lack of scissors I wasn’t able to. That’s why, I decided to write small, random letters to my friends! I realized how relaxing it is to just write a random note to your friend from time to time, writing down inside jokes and just showing them appreciation. When I gave them the letters the next day, although we may have thought it was a bit cringe, they were very appreciative and I just felt really happy when I saw how happy it made them. It made me realize that sometimes we get so caught up inner own lives and although we know that our friends are always there for us and we are for them, its just nice to write it down and tangibly show it. The event made me want to continue writing thoughtful letters from time to time to my friends and family.

This was a fun arts and crafts activity to celebrate the chinese new years and winter. I started the event by creating a chinese lantern, but with more time left, I decided to spend the rest of my time with creating a paper snowflake. I failed miserably at creating the paper snowflake. I didn’t know that making paper snowflakes would be such a hard tasks, but it had a lot of little tiny holes that needed to be cut out. I ended up cutting out important pieces in the snowflake, which led to an unsuccessful arts and crafts activity. However, I was able to get a cute chinese lantern decoration for my room. This activity was very relaxing and I recommend people to do arts and crafts activities to relieve their stress.

The beginning of the semester is always a fun time. Professors have yet to assign mountains of homework, stress levels are low, and everyone is excited for a new semester. It was in this spirit that we all came together to make paper crafts—snowflakes and Chinese lanterns galore! I really think that I have not made a paper snowflake since I was less than ten years old. I always find myself too busy with school and work and adult responsibilities to let go and have fun like a kid. There is almost magic in paper crafts. They never come out exactly how you expect, but usually it is a good surprise at the end. Perhaps if we all could reimagine ourselves as children, even one night a week, our stress levels would decrease. We would find beauty in the ordinary. We would be pleased with the element of surprise. Making snowflakes and lanterns was almost therapeutic for me, I felt my anxiousness for the upcoming semester float away. It was such a simple, yet meaningful experience, and I truly hope that everyone can find their inner kid for some peace of mind.

On January 23rd, we had the opportunity to make Chinese lanterns for the Chinese New Year. The process looked to be very straightforward. We would cut out designs and paste them together to create a 3-d model lantern. However, the designs themselves were quite tricky to cut-out and intricate. This meant that the process was far more-time consuming than any sort of craft project. I was very impressed by the designs themselves. I have never seen a Chinese lantern up close before and found the patterns to be quite impressive. I had a great time cutting out these lanterns and had to modify my own design a bit after realizing that I had given myself too little space to create much in the way of a section that could be glued together to create overlap between the four pieces of paper that made up the four sides of the lantern. I enjoyed working together to create these lanterns with the folks that came to the event, we were able to view each other’s work and I was impressed by the different designs that others came up with.

Personally, I found this event very entertaining, because it was fun to use our hands to create artwork with simple cuts in paper. I especially admired the cultural symbols from Chinese New Year that were recreated by my peers, as it is amazing to use art to create a community connection with differing cultures that we are surrounded by and often oblivious to. I also liked the aspect of this event that embraced individuality, because even thought we were provided with general guidelines, everyone’s snowflakes and cut outs were unique. My roommate and I really loved this activity and hung up our artwork on our room door and they are still there today- reminding us of our unique creativity!

I had the opportunity to attend the paper cutting craft session hosted by Flora Rose House. Here, I was able to make Chinese New Year lanterns and snowflakes to use as decoration for my dorm! I’m really happy with the way that the snowflakes turned out. Granted, a few of them were rough around the edges as it was hard cutting through all of the layers of paper, but nevertheless, it was a fun experience. 

I remember making Chinese lanterns every year when I was in elementary school. Making these lanterns reminds me of how when I was little, I would craft these lanterns in school, decorate them, take them home, and hang them up in celebration of Chinese New Year. Even though I am unable to celebrate Chinese New Year with my parents this year, making these lanterns brings back memories of previous Chinese New Year celebrations and the experiences that I had with my friends and family.

It had been a while since I made paper lanterns, so the first one I attempted to make did not turn out so well. The lantern was not sturdy enough and flopped over. However, I tried again and made a second one, this time adding reinforcements to the structure, resulting in a sturdier structure that I decorated and finished. 

Overall, it was a fun and relaxing experience being able to talk with other Rose Scholars at the event. It was a great way to relax and unwind after a hectic start of the semester!

In celebration of Chinese New Year, Rose residents gathered to make snowflakes and lanterns using colorful papers. I had a reunion with my inner artist since the last time for a science fair presentation 5 years ago. What a joy to meet an old friend!

It’s true that nowadays, it’s hard to even spend time decorating your room or do anything close to a craft. With homework, prelims and papers, we often neglect many of our creative inner selves. Although my paper lantern is heavily tilted to one side, it acts as a reminder to never neglect these creative and artistic sides within myself. I appreciate Rose’s kind consideration to revive these sides to many students. Perhaps, thanks to this event, I will continue to reunite with my inner artist more often.

I am pleased that I went to this mini-seminar as it reminds me of paper cutting with my family during the Chinese New Year. This is an extraordinary event in the first week of class as we can bond with each other while having fun cutting different kinds of lanterns or snowflakes. Everyone came up with their own unique design, which shows the creativity we all have. While making lanterns, we talk about the fun things we did during the breaks, so it was a great time to catch up with our friends.

This papercutting mini-seminar was a great way to start of the semester. I was able to go with two of my friends, and we enjoyed cutting paper lanterns and snowflakes and laughing at each other’s masterpieces. There were a lot of options to follow a pattern, or you could make your own designs. It was a great way to relax and destress at the end of the day of the first week of class. On top of this, due to the shortage of scissors, everyone got in lots of practice sharing. I’m glad that I picked making crafts with friends in a fun environment this week, and I’m looking forward to attending similar events this semester.

This Thursday night, I attended the mini-seminar on the paper cutting event. I always enjoy performing origami and doing other arts and crafts. It was relaxing to do an activity with my friends coming back to the campus. I enjoyed making lanterns and snowflakes with various patterns. As the semester goes on, I would like to try diverse activities, especially ones involving arts and crafts. I hope everyone has a wonderful semester and Happy New Year!

For my first Rose Scholars event post-holiday break, I attended the Mini-Seminar on Paper cutting and arts/crafts. In this event, I worked hard with scissors to turn pieces of paper into beautiful decorations, such as snowflakes or Chinese lanterns. Halfway through cutting out the necessary outline for creating the snowflake, I realized that it would be extremely difficult to keep on using scissors. The angle was just wrong, and any attempt for me to continue would just result in a mess. So, I decided I would just carefully rip the papers across the outline to accomplish my goal. In so doing, I realized something: this is what art is about. I am by no means an artist, but art is not meant to be perfect. Rather, it is meant to signify creativity, and finishing a work in your own way, your own style. My style may not have been the most professional, but it is most relevant to me, and it got the job done.

This Thursday was the day before the Lunar New Year’s Eve, arguably the most celebrated festival in the Chinese community. I attended the Paper Cutting Craft Night to both celebrate the New Year and wind down from the increasingly heavy coursework.

Growing up in China, lanterns were an integral part of the Lunar New Year experience. Since lanterns were sold in all supermarkets throughout my city, we would purchase them from stores to save us some efforts. The shopping for lanterns and other New Year essentials (especially duilian, or a couplet) was usually done in the week leading to the New Year. Lanterns are a symbol of freshness, festiveness, and pleasant wishes for the new year. In our family, new lanterns were not put up until the first day of New Year, when we also cleaned up houses and visited other family members.

Making lanterns myself was definitely a whole new experience for me. It was more difficult than I thought. First off, designing the shape and making it symmetrically beautiful require some ingenuity. However, the greatest challenge might be making sure the lantern was sturdy. The paper I got was not particularly thick, making it difficult to hold the lantern in shape. After some unsuccessful trials, I was finally able to make a lantern as I wished, and I added a string through the top for hanging. Making lanterns myself made me better appreciate the beauty of this rich cultural heritage of China, gave me an unforgettable New Year experience, and much to my delight, provided me with a new decoration for my dorm!

I attended the paper cutting night yesterday, where I made a paper lantern as well as a snowflake. Although my crafts didn’t come out quite the same as the template, it was really fun to sit down and do arts and crafts, something that I haven’t had the opportunity to do in a while. I feel like when I’m on campus amidst the craziness and business of the semester, I have very few creative outlets to destress. It was wonderful to start off the semester doing something creative, to remind me how relaxing and fun it is, and I am going to try to incorporate more creativity into my daily life while I’m on campus. I also felt that this event really brought me and those sitting around me together because we all shared our struggles cutting the snowflakes out (because there were just too many small grey areas to cut), strategies for how to fold or cut the paper to make it easier to make, as well as jokes throughout the night.

I was abroad for the fall semester and coming back to Cornell for the spring has been such a whirlwind. It feels like there has been one thing after another coming up and I can feel the stress already starting. I was so excited to see an arts and crafts activity as one of the events for this week. I thought it would just be a fun start to the semester, but little did I know how much I would need it. My Thursday was packed with classes and responding to emails and finding books for classes. I was exhausted and I almost forgot that I had a Rose Scholars event to attend. My friend Joanna and I love doing arts and crafts and the minute we got there I couldn’t help but smile. I loved making the snowflakes and lanterns. I think half the fun was messing up and still trying to make it work by writing it off as an artistic choice. I am so glad that I decided to sign up for this event and I’m pretty sure I got an A for effort. Not a bad start to the semester.

I really enjoyed this event yesterday ,and I really glad i met new friends. I learned how to make ribbons and snowflakes with just paper, glue and scissor. I hope we can have more event like this! Happy Chinese New Year!

Last night, I had the opportunity to do some arts and crafts, and meet some new people who I haven’t meet before. I was able to make a few snowflakes and added a bit of my own taste to them. I made a few snowflakes with unique shapes and sizes. These are one of the few events you can partake in that allow you to be creative.

Also, I was able to meet some peers that I share classes with when I thought I didn’t know anyone in my classes this semester. I enjoy participating in events like this because it’s relaxing and requires creativity. I choose to go to this event because I thought it would be similar to the event where we made nightlights from gourds, which was an event filled with creativity. I would enjoy going to other events like this.

I can’t remember the last time that I sat down to cut out paper snowflakes. The lack of paper-and-scissors crafting in my life is partially my own doing. I have a sad track record of deciding that instructions are for the weak and then cutting something I wasn’t supposed to cut and ending up with a mildly depressing product. Eventually, I gave up on paper snowflakes and snowman-chains. Fortunately, the Paper Cutting event tonight did have very detailed instructions, so that wasn’t an issue for the most part. (I did end up with a suspiciously elongated paper lantern. I think I may have cut it the wrong way.)

However, a larger part of the reason I don’t do many crafts anymore is a lack of free time. Sitting down and messing around with paste and ribbons isn’t typically built into the collegiate schedule. But tonight, I got to make a paper lantern (or royally screw up a paper lantern, depending on the way you look at it), cut out patterns on paper snowflakes, and attempt to hold a semi-coherent conversation while doing so. It was a good exercise in multi-tasking, allocation of scarce resources (namely scissors), and dexterity. My snowflakes actually look pretty good, if held at a distance.

Crafting and chatting was a nice way to ease out of winter break. I have the tendency to feel that as soon as the semester starts, I constantly need to be doing my readings and getting my life organized far in advance. Obviously, all of that is important. At the same time, the earlier part of the semester is also the least heavily-scheduled portion of the semester. It’s really important to take advantage of that and make time for relaxation and fun. I’m glad I got to do that this evening.

It was an enjoyable night of creating snowflakes and lanterns from templates and our creativity. I cut out an intricate snowflake with butterflies on the end from blue paper. I had chosen the blue paper because snowflakes are generally blue or white or somewhere in between. After cutting it out, it reminded me of May and beautiful brilliant blue butterflies. The semester has just started and I’m already wishing for spring.

I was also inspired by other people who were making lanterns in honor of the Lunar New Year. I’ve always loved the lantern scene from Tangled and wanted to recreate something similar. I attempted creating a color gradient but it didn’t turn out as I wanted so instead, I decided to try and layer an orange and a red snowflake to create a dual colored one similar to a sun.

Tonight’s event was a fun way for me to be creative and create something with my hands, something I haven’t done in a while!

Today, we had a paper cutting session at Rose House Seminar Room to commemorate the upcoming Chinese New Year. We had the chance to cut different intricate lantern designs on coloured paper. It was nice to engage in such a relaxing activity amidst the start of a busy semester.

What I liked most was talking to our friends about our winter break. It’s not common for many of us to find time to just chill due to the never-ending schoolwork. In some sense, it was a very informal reunion with our friends, which is similar to the family reunions every Chinese New Year.

I hope we have more relaxing events like this over the next few months!