Over-Thinker

Joy Wu: Over-thinker extraordinair, task-completer... barely there...

I have a confession.

I'm an over-thinker.

I think too much, I analyzing too much, but I find it difficult to carry out my ideas.

Take this past January (and February), for example. I've had at least five different ideas of topics to write about in Janurary. Many of which were time-sensitive (i.e. revolved around New Year's or Chinese New Year, etc.), most of which I already uploaded pictures for, and all of which I had started typing out, but never completed. Each week I had thought about something I wanted to write about, something I wanted to do... but, somehow, my aspirations always seem to fall short. Hence, the lack of posts for these past few months. Even this post, this very post, it has taken me about 2 weeks to draft and finally publish. I started writing this post in February. And now... its March.

You, as my readers, might be thinking to yourself, "No big deal, it's just a blog... nobody's judging or anything."

To which I would say, why thank you, kind readers. But your kindness does not comfort me.

You see, this habit of mine does not end with blogging. In fact... this habit overflows to much of everything in my life. Whether it be for projects that I want to work on, schools or jobs I want to apply to, or even areas where I want to serve in church.

I over-think. I over-analyze. I come up with every "what if" circumstance possible, even before anything has happened. Therefore, rather than moving forward and accomplishing things I have set out in my life, I stay stagnant and grumble about how I have not change. How my circumstances have not changed.

When it comes down to it, I fear the future. I fear change in the future, therefore I do not pursue anything. I long for change, but I fear the consequences and challenges that change brings.

In these times, the verse that I fall back on is this:

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." (Jeremiah 29:11)

Even though I fear, I know that God is there for me, telling me to keep working hard. Telling me not to listen to that small voice of doubt that tells me I will fail. Telling me that He does indeed have greater plans for me than what I am doing now. I just have to trust Him and pursue Him. If I don't want to end up like the servant that was cast out because he did nothing with the talents given to him by his master (Matthew 25:14-30), I need to pick myself up and DO. Something.

What a simple thought, but what a difficult task to carry out. I've listened to this story countless times, yet I'm still unable to internalize the lesson behind His Truth. I still stay rooted to where I am, stubbornly refusing to take a leap of faith.

To those of you that read my blog and know me, thank you for reading. To those of you that do not know me, (and can't understand why this author is spending time posting about feelings and whatnot) I still thank you for reading. I don't know how much longer I will keep up with this blog, but I hope I can. I hope that, by posting up a more raw, personal statement, I'll be more motivated. Not only motivated to post about my crafting endeavors, but to also pick myself up and do WORK.

Even though its three months later... Let's not over-think things and get down to work.

As always, thanks for reading! Here's to more posts to come.

:)

Canvas Photos

Hello World!

Since Christmas just rolled by... I had the chance to make a lot more crafts than usual. Because... Well, I had a deadline to meet: presents!! But I couldn't reveal my latest crafting endeavors until after Christmas was over. Haha. So... Here we go! Canvas photos!

This is one of the first crafting projects that I ever pinned on Pinterest, so I've been looking for the opportunity to do this project for a long time. The concept is rather simple: print out a photo on regular paper, and then transfer that ink onto a mounted canvas of your choice. The blog that I followed gave some pretty good tips and tricks, and now I'm adding a few more tips of my own. :)

To start off, gather all your supplies:

- Printed copy of desired picture

- Mounted canvas

- Gel medium (I used Liqudex, purely because that was the brand the blogger used and I didn't know which one to use. Haha)

- Spray bottle with water

- Newspaper (it gets messy!)

- Furniture oil

- Cloth for oil

One thing to keep in mind for this project is that there's always a bit of trial and error. I thought I would be pleased with my first attempt at this project, but I ended up redoing more than half my pictures because I didn't like how they turned out. Haha. 

For the canvases, I chose ones with a thick frame because I wanted the finished project to be able to stand up on its own. I chose small canvases (size 4x4 and 5x5) because I was afraid of starting with a canvas that was too difficult to work with. Even so, the "larger" canvas I used was already a challenge to work with. 

When I first printed out my pictures, I sized all my photos on Word so that I could print out more than one picture on one page. That... Was my first mistake. Haha. Even though the canvas that I was working with was rather small, it's still better to print out a picture with high resolution. After I complete my first batch of photos.... I was so displeased with the results that I had to redo them (I'll show you what I mean). For the second batch I printed the photos straight from Photoshop, which turned out much, much better. Another tip to keep in mind is that pictures with dark colors are a lot easier to work with than pictures with light colors, even if dark photos use more ink. Haha. 

With that being said... Let's move on to the actual project, shall we? I printed out my photos with the measurements being slightly smaller than the actual canvas size in order to give the finished product a border. I also inverted the photos so that the finished project would have an image that was facing the correct way. After printing out the photo, I painted a thin layer of the mat gel onto the canvases and placed the photo over them. I used a light behind the canvas and photo in order to center it. Then I rubbed the photo onto the canvas so that no gel bubbles remained. This is why you don't want to have a thick layer of gel. If the mat gel is too thick, it's easier for the picture to bunch up and form wrinkles in your picture. Another challenge I ran into was that the larger the frame/canvas, the less stable the canvas was. For the small frame, I could easily press the photo down, but with the larger frame, the center of the canvas was less stable, making it harder for me to ensure that the photo was properly glued to the canvas. 

After all photos were completed, I let the photos dry overnight. 

The next evening, I laid out some newspaper on the floor to catch the mess I was about to make. Hahaha. I took a spray bottle and sprayed the photo. The first time I sprayed too much water and ended up dripping water on the floor. The trick is to spray slowly and let the water soak into the paper before proceeding. 

After the water soaks through, start rubbing! Basically, here we are rubbing all the paper off, leaving the ink on the canvas. Since there is so much excess paper, I started by rubbing/tearing off the paper on the sides first. 

Before long, I could start to see the picture show through! Once you get a generous layer of paper off the canvas, I would start to slow down. When I was doing this part... I was watching dramas and I didn't really pay that much attention to my photo, which resulted in....

... This. Whoops. Haha. Although the missing paint effect makes everything look more vintage-y... It happened a lot quicker than I expected. Once a little bit of paint starts peeling off, it becomes a lot easier for paint to continue peeling off... So be careful!

This was my first batch of finished photos. As you can see, the lighter colored ones are still a little cloudy looking. That's because the paint started peeling too much, so I couldn't rub off any more. 

The blog said that I could take away the cloudiness if I used funiature oil, so I went out and got some furniture oil. Who knew it only came in such large quantities? I guess it make sense since you'd need a lot of oil for one piece of furniture. It took away the cloudiness for a little bit... But once the oil dried, the cloudiness returned. 

It looked good for a while.... But not for long... So I decided to try the project one more time. This time... I was ready....!

Again... Dark photos turned out much better than light ones. But dark ones are also considerably harder to get paint off at all (making it hard to create the "vintage" effect)

Here are some comparison photos from my first batch with my second batch. 

Much better. There was still some cloudy residue, even on the second batch... But I discovered that, if I load up on furniture oil (and I mean LOAD up. Don't be shy! Haha), the cloudiness really did go away. 

Finally I coated the picture with the mat gel that I used in the very beginning. This was more in order to seal in the photo and give it a waterproof cover. 

And viola! Canvas photos! Let me know what you guys think, or if you guys have any questions! 

As always, thanks for reading!

:)

Oh! And Happy New Year!!

Sharpie Mugs

Hello world!

It's been a while, but I'm back with more crafts! I haven't uploaded anything in a while because I haven't done anything interesting/new lately. I also have a few craft projects that are ongoing and incomplete. Sooo.... Yeah! Haha. Plus, with Christmas rolling around... I've been focusing my time on making gifts, but haven't been as diligent in documenting and uploading. Perhaps some of them will come out after Christmas. Haha.

This time I did DIY sharpie mugs!! I've been wanting to try my hand at these for a while. I've read so many different blogs on it, I really wanted to try them. Super easy, and super simple and fun. Most of the items needed are fairly easy to access, unless you are looking for specific types of things (like I was... I'll explain later). 

Before I embarked on this sharpie mug adventure, I wanted to make sure I had done my research right. I was a little bit worried because I was skeptical of whether or not the sharpie design would actually stick. Good thing I found this blogpost that told me all the tips I needed! I didn't follow all the instructions exactly, but this blogpost gave me a lot of very helpful hints.

First, gather all your supplies:

- Sharpie(s)

- Cups/mugs

- Oven

For sharpies, regular sharpies are supposed to work fine... but I wanted to be extra sure that mine would stay on, so I bought an oil-based sharpie. They are on the pricier side, so I decided to just buy one color: black. Haha. Maybe if I really like making these cups, I'll invest in more colors.

Since I bought a black sharpie pen, I wanted to find white, ceramic mugs. These were, strangely, the hardest things to find. The blog told me that cheap, ceramic mugs work best... but I went to 3-4 different places... and couldn't find ANY ceramic mugs. I was so tired of walking around... looking for these mugs that seemed to be ever-evasive. Everywhere I went it was porcelain, porcelain, porcelain. So... I finally went with porcelain and hoped for the best. I bought cups that had a square base, and a circle mouth. I forgot to take a picture of them... but they kinda looked like this:

Why are ceramic mugs so hard to find??

After finally purchasing the mugs, I rinsed them and dried them. Then, I let the cups sit for a while to "ensure maximum drie-ness." I'm not sure if that was needed... or even scientifically necessary, but whatever. Haha. During that time, I sat down and tried to figure out what I wanted to draw on my mugs. I thought about freehand drawing on the mugs, but realized that I was overestimating my creative capabilities. Plus, I didn't want to have to get rubbing alcohol to erase my mistakes and start over. Took me a while... but I finally got a design I wanted!

Creativity takes trial and error

Next, I had to carefully draw out my design on the cup. Be careful not to get any oil on the mug, or else if you try to draw over it, the oil will cause the ink to rub off when you wash it, even after the cup is baked. I was extra cautious, and I wore gloves while drawing on my cup. Haha. XD

One thing to consider is which side will be facing outward. If you mostly hold the cup with your right hand, you want to make sure that your drawing is on the right side (when the handle is pointed towards yourself). This ensures that your drawing faces the outside when you hold your cup. A small detail... but hey, if you want others to see your work... you have to consider every aspect. ;)

Right hand

Left hand

After I finished drawing, I set the cup aside to dry for a few hours. The blog said wait 24 hours just to be safe, but I ended up being too impatient, and I put the cups into the oven after 4-5 hours. I followed instructions and baked the cups at 425 degrees F. Remember to put them in and let the cups warm up with the oven, and leave them in the oven afterwards to let the cups cool down with the oven. I let them sit in the oven for about 30 min (start the time after the oven has finished warming up), and then let them sit overnight in the oven to cool down.

The next morning I ran the cups under hot water, and even tried scrubbing them a little. But they looked fine! I'm sure the design will stay for... at least a few washes. Haha. XD I've used one of the cups for a few days now, and still going strong! If it ever starts rubbing off.... I'll be sure to update this post. Haha.

And, there you have it! DIY sharpie mugs. One more craft checked off my bucket list! 

Thanks for reading!

:)

UPDATE:

This is a very, very overdue update on how the sharpie mugs held up... But I'm going to claim "better late than never" for this bit. Surprisingly, I still see people re-pinning this on Pinterest, which leaves me flattered and honored.

But anyways, I'm sure most of you are more curious about the mugs themselves as opposed to my inner thoughts.

The sharpie mugs lasted about 2 years of hot water washing before I started to notice that the drawings were starting to wash off. I would recommend avoid using soap on the actual design (inside is fine), and just rinsing the outside with water. As for those that chuck it into the dish washing machine, I would probably avoid doing so as much as you can.

One of these days I'll experiment again and see how that goes!

DIY Bowl

Hello World!

A few weeks ago, I attended a friend's wedding, and for their wedding, I was commissioned to make another item! This time they asked me to make a ring bearer bowl for the wedding... and I decided to take up the challenge. I hope my friend is okay with me showcasing this item... Haha. XD Anyways, dunno how well it turned out, but you guys can be the judge of that!

Originally the tutorial came from here. My friend sent me the link to the website. The concept is quite simple, and the outcome quite stunning. 

Looking back, I think it would have been wise to do the following:

- Buy a rolling pin for clay

- Buy and use a doily

- Buy a separate bowl to use as a mold for the clay

- Start making the bowl earlier... 

Looking back, I was glad I did the following:

- Create my own design

- Use gloves because... let's face it... white clay + dirty hands = no good

Let's get started, shall we?

First, I started with a generous amount of white clay, which I softened by repeatedly kneading. The only time I've ever used so much clay for something was for my friend's wedding cake topper, and other times I've worked with actual clay -- not polymer clay. So... I had this incredible urge to slam the clay down on the table repeatedly (when working with ceramic clay, you do so in order to get out air bubbles). Unfortunately, I didn't have a sturdy enough working space... Nor did I find it appropriate to slam clay on a table at 10:30 PM. 

I'm not even sure if slamming polymer clay actually helps to get out bubbles out, but in any case, I was left with clay that had bubbles in it, which was kinda annoying to work with. 

Once the clay was soft enough I rolled it out (annnd, since I didn't have a rolling pin... I used a glass jar that I happened to have lying around. Resourceful, no?) to the desired thickness.



After flattening out the clay, I used a circular template to trace out a circle.

This is actually the first bowl that I made...
and some of these pictures are my 2nd attempt at making a bowl... Haha.

Then I took the clay and placed it into my mold in order to hold its shape while I worked on the design. My mold actually is the cap of one of my food bowls.... which I now kinda regret because... it feels "unclean." Haha. I'm pretty sure as long as I wash it a few times with hot water and soap it won't be a huge deal... but I still recommend purchasing a separate bowl to use specifically for crafting.



Oh right, I almost forgot. Before I placed the clay into my mold, I used the end of one of my tools to make two holes in the circle. This is where the rings could be secured to.



Next comes the creative part! When I first made the bowl, I didn't have a doily... and I was far too lazy and cheap to purchase a doily... so I thought it might be easier to "create" my own design...

I actually spent a lot of time carving these images out... Haha. But at least I entertained myself by watching dramas while I worked. XD

I started by tracing out a rough outline of the feather/leaf image. And then I decided I didn't like it being such a flat image, so I started carving out the body of the feather. The hardest part was making sure that I carved out an even amount of space. I left the center of the feather untouched so that it would give off a 3D feeling.

The initials were another issue. I originally wanted the entire bowl to be pure white, but I decided, last minute, that I would add some color to the bowl by coloring in the initials. The initials were originally carved out, and I carefully inserted the appropriate color into the hollowed out space.

After everything was completed, it was only a matter of baking it and sanding it down. I'll admit, I didn't do a very thorough job of sanding it down.... :/

Also, I wasn't super careful of making sure that the bowl was completely flat against the mold when baking... which lead to a bubble forming at the underside of the bowl, making it tilt to the side. When I first saw that imperfection, I wanted to re-do the entire bowl... but my friend told me (graciously) that the imperfections would make the bowl unique. And, at that point, I was so tired that I quickly accepted that excuse without hesitation.

I would have liked to spend more time on this piece. Although I like the general result of this bowl, I think I would have been able to do a better job, had I given myself more time to make practice bowls. But... knowing me, I procrastinated and waited until the last minute to start working on it. :/ Even though I graduated college, procrastination still haunts me. Haha.

Anyways, what do you guys think?

Thanks for reading!

:)

Buuuurrrrrdoooockkk!

Hello, World!

Today I'm going to try something a little bit different. This post isn't about crafting, nor is it a personal rant about my life. Instead... its about food!!

The reason why I decided to post this was because I had far too many people asking me... What the heck is that?? And... how does one cook something like this?

What I'm talking about is... Burdock! (Or, in Chinese 牛蒡 - Niu Bang. Or, in Japanese ごぼう- Gobo). If you want to know more about this root, check out Wikipedia! Can't go wrong there, right? ;P

In any case, I was first introduced to this food from my mom, and it's super easy to make (well... let's face it... everything I cook is super easy to make). I'll put out a disclaimer though... I cook like the stereotypical Asian person: I don't do measurements. My method of cooking is eyeballing ingredients, which I know drives some people crazy. But I'll do my best to try to guestimate what I use in one serving size.

Ingredients:

 - Burdock root (1-2 roots)

 - Chopped garlic (3-4 cloves)

 - Shredded meat (I usually use 1.5-2 lbs of beef)

 - Soy sauce (about 1/2 a cup, or to taste)

 - Brown sugar (1 tbsp packed, or to taste)

Directions:

1: Wash the roots! Typically, when I purchase the roots, they come in packs of 2-3, which makes for a LOT of burdock. But because I hate having to cook a little bit at a time, I tend to throw all of it in the pot... making for lots of leftovers.

2: Chop off the ends of both sides (it tapers out towards the end, which tend to be dry, so I usually cut them off), then section off the roots into more "cutting-board" friendly sizes.

3: Using the backside of your knife, or a spoon, scrape off the skin of the root. You're welcome to use a vegetable peeler as well, but the skin of burdock is actually very thin, and I've found that I usually end up taking off too much when I use the peeler. By using a spoon or the backside of a knife, I only take off a thin layer of skin, which allows me to save more of the root.

4: Slice the roots into thin slices, diagonally (kinda like julienne). The reason that I slice it diagonally, rather than straight through the middle is because I want very thin slices. And, since there is a lot of root to go through, I try to slice it thinly, diagonally, with as much surface area as I possibly can. As a plus, I think the vegetables look prettier this way. \ (^o^) /

5: After slicing the roots diagonally, slice everything until you end up with thin slices, as pictured below. Don't worry if some slices are bigger than others, everything will get cooked in the end. So no worries!



(Tip: If you have a vegetable slicer, now is the time to break it out!! My arm always gets really sore chopping up all these roots. But if you can have a machine do all the work for you... why not?!)

Now, you're ready to cook!

6: Heat up a pan on medium heat, and add cooking oil.

7: Saute garlic until slightly brown, then add your meat (in this case, beef). I haven't tried adding other types, but that's probably because I like beef so much, I don't want to be disappointed if another meat doesn't work as well. Haha. But, pork sounds like it would work well with this dish too.



8: After everything is cooked through, add the roots and saute for another 8 min or so (cover with lid if necessary).



9: Add in soy sauce and brown sugar.



9: Cook for another 5-10 min, until you see all the roots start to take on the darker color of the soy sauce.



10: Done! Serve and enjoy! :)



I realized... I forgot to take a picture of the actual dish when I plated it. Oh well! Sorry! :p

Burdock doesn't soften like other roots, like potatoes or carrots. Instead, it retains a kind of crunchy texture, which I really like. Burdock also has a slightly sweeter taste, so you might find that you don't have to add that much sugar to the dish. Remember, the measurements that I have listed out are only for reference -- tweak them to your own tastes! :) You can also choose to thrown in some green onion for extra color or flair.

Hope you guys enjoy!

Thanks for reading

:)

A Little Piece of Home

Hellloo world!

Happy Labor Day weekend! 

This weekend, I decided to take an impromptu trip back up to my hometown (mainly cuz a friend offered a ride.... And why should I turn down a free ride home?? Haha). I've only been home for half a day and already I have the urge to just stay here and not go back to work (don't worry, San Diego folk, I'm not making any rash decisions... Yet).

I was looking around my mom's home office, when I spotted one of my clay creations I made a while back. It happened during one of crafting sessions with a group of church friends a while back. I made the clay sculpture in San Diego, then brought it to NorCal to show my mom. She liked it so much that I just gave it to her, but didn't take any pictures of it. Haha. But now that I'm back for the weekend, I decided to that I wanted to document it. Perhaps add it to my non-existent portfolio. 

The most difficult part of this creation was to keep it centered and keep the glass itself free of fingerprints. The first thing I did was create the foundation of the sculpture by molding a piece of clay to the bottom curvature of the glass.

Then I made and assembled all the pieces (house, bears, stones, grass, etc.) on the foundation, outside of the glass and baked everything before putting it inside the glass jar.

I glued the clay inside the glass in order to prevent it from sliding around.






Although I had a lot of experience making clay bears... these were particularly difficult to make due to its small size.

They were probably a tenth of the size of the clay keychains I make. In other words... really tiny. Haha. XD But they were fun to make, nonetheless. It was also fun thinking of a scene to put them in. Rather than just having one character, it was an entire scene for me to make: a happy bear family in their new home.



I think I mentioned a couple posts before (DIY air freshener) about the glass etching I did with my friends. This is one of the jars that resulted from that crafting session. The design for this was very simple-- just a few clouds along the outside of the jar. I thought up the design for the inside after I had finished making the jar.



When I purchased these glass jars (in the wedding party favors section) they came with little cork caps and twine and pretty cutout labels to go with each jar. I think adding those elements to this project really completed the look, making it truly seem like a "piece of home" in a jar.

Mmmm... not much else I can think of to add to this post. Haha. XD It's also getting rather late, so I should probably head to bed. :P

Thanks for reading!

:)