Bullet Journal, - a new approach

Hello friends, I hope your week has been going well, - nearly the weekend now😌

Today I want to share some pages from my bullet journal, something I have not shared for ages.
Some people seem to be able to blog pretty much every day, well I am not one of those people... Even though I create and journal every day, I don't always take the time to blog my creations.... So today just a small selection of my bujo that I have been working in every day since October.

I think the last time I shared some pages was back in April, well here you can see my June title page.
But, during the course of the first week in June I have totally changed my style, as I was getting tired of the way I did things. I nearly scrapped my B. Journal all together, but I do love the discipline of daily to do lists, habit and spending tracking etc. So I decided to continue, but just totally change things up a bit. Before I show you the changes, here first the pages as I set them up at the end of May:

My spending and habit trackers. The bits of decoration are hybrid stickers I made myself, as hand drawing/painting every bit of decoration was proving to be too time consuming.

My weekly grocery spending and gratitude pages, decorated in the same way.

And here an example of how I used to set up my weekly pages. This was the first one in May, all the other weeklies were pretty much the same, so this month I decided to give up weeklies altogether and instead do daily pages:

The first 4 days. I set up the double page in my new style and then add my daily to do list each day and so far I am really enjoying it.

And here is the second page, in progress as you can see. I have been really inspired by some of the journals on Instagram, and I love how relaxing and comparatively quick it is to set pages like this up, and I think it is actually more "me".......

Well that's it for now, - one of the things I love about bullet journal planning is that it gives you the freedom to set up your pages in the way that works for you, and this is working for me just now...

Thank you for taking the time to visit

To seek freedom is the only driving force I know. Freedom to fly off into that infinity out there. Freedom to dissolve; to lift off; to be like the flame of a candle, which, in spite of being up against the light of a billion stars, remains intact, because it never pretended to be more than what it is: a mere candle. Carlos Castaneda (Don Juan - The Sorcerer)

xxxxx

Rabbit in the snow

Hello friends. As almost all of you will know, the UK was hit by the so called Beast from the East, - icy blasts and piles of snow. It was this wintry weather that inspired this latest couple of pages in my nature journal.

On the left, my attempt and wintry thistles

And on the right a rabbit in the snow, wearing its wintry coat...

To tie the two pages together, I used some background stamping, stencilling and washi tapes, like usual in this journal.

I tried to choose washi tapes that had a wintry feel to them, so mostly monochrome in colour.

I found that when you take close up photos of your work, you suddenly notice things you had not seen before, some are good, others not so good. Here I am happy with the way the eye has a 3D look, while the inside of the ear and fur could have done with more careful painting. Ah well, you always learn more, that's what this journey is all about.

Because the cover of this journal was made with the Eileen Hull journal die, it's great that I can slip it out from underneath the elastic when I am working on it, and then when I am done, I can slip it back like you can see above.

Well, that's it, I can't wait for this weather to stop and some sunshine to return, meanwhile, stay warm and cosy and thanks for your visit like always!

xxxxx

Chickadees or Coletits?

Hello lovely visitors, today I am sharing another spread in my nature journal, you have all been so kind and encoraging about it, so thanks for that!!

It's not always easy to find suitable subjects to draw and paint here in the Northern Hemisphere in February. The weather has been so cold and windy, it's hard to even go out for walks. So for this spread I took inspiration from photographs, what I can see from my craftroom window, and my imagination...

This little chickadee was mostly copied from a photo on the wonderful Pamelia's blog, but I also looked at other photographs. Here in the UK we don't have chickadees, but our native coletits are very, very similar, though apparently not related... I used watercolour pencils, Prisma Premier pencils, watercolours and even a black Tombow marker.

Like usual, I also added strips of washi, old book paper and here also a few scraps of rice paper and a little stamping on tissue.. I love playing with little bits of collage around my hand painted elements to complete the pages.

This branche is based on the budding branches of a big chestnut tree I can see out of the window of my artspace (studio would be too big a word for it lol).

And here finally a couple of feathers, they are totally done out of my imagination, I just needed something to fill up the space....

The cover for this journal, as some of you may remember, was made with the Eileen Hull journaling die. I love that with the help of the elastic, I can take the actual journal in and out of the cover, which makes it much easier to paint. Here you can see it inside the cover.

Well, that's it for today. Have a lovely weekend  and thanks for your visit like always!

xxxxx

A journal, some news and a blog break....

Hello friends, - today I have quite a few things to tell you about. It's not often I share personal things here, so this is a bit of an exception. I recently retired which gives me the freedom to have other adventures and very soon I am off to China where I was invited to teach for a week. After that I will fly on  to Australia to be with my grandchildren right up until the second week in November. As this means I will be away from my craft space for a long time,  I will have to take a bit of a blog break, so after August 15th there won't be many projects here most likely until I am back. Of course I am bringing some art supplies with me, but I don't know how much time there will be to blog about them.
Anyhow, onto today's project. The one thing that always comes along with me is a journal, so I have prepped a few pages to show:

As time was at a premium, I kept it very simple, and used only minimal supplies. As you can see, it's yet another midory sized one using Eileen Hull's wonderful journal die, but more about that in a moment. I used some of my endless stash of scrapbook papers and washi tapes. (like stamps it's an addiction I'm sure) I'll let the photos do the talking, but as you can see I left everything flat and without embellisments, so it would be easy to carry and light in weight. The closure is a simple elasticated ribbon, with plenty of room for additional things I may want to add at some later point.

I know I will not have the time to do involved mixed media art journaling, so this is more in junk journal style, though rather minimalist with plenty of space to jot down notes and memories.

Here is the first inside page with a paperbag pocket. It has a little gusset, so will hold quite a bit in the way of ephemera etc.
Below some of the double pages with some more detailed photos inbetween:

Another little pocket, with space for tickets and things

At the moment it just hold further bits and pieces I want to use for following pages.

The ticket on the right side acts like a tab. I cut two and adhered them around both sides of the page.

Here is the other side. As you can probably see it was all done in a bit of a hurry and there is not much variety. Below some closer views of each side.

And here the final page I have done so far... travel themed as you can see.

Now for the news, - I was lucky enough to have been invited to partake in an Eileen Hull publication, produced by Bellcraft Publishing. If you are at all interested in journals, you have heard about it already on Facebook or seen it on blogs. There are the most stunning examples in there, all with links to the blogs of the people that created them, plus a load of other useful information, help and tips and ideas. You can read all about it, including costs etc on Eileen's blog The book itself is downloadable and available from HERE, and there is a discount if you order during August!

Well that's it for now, I'll try and visit blogs when I can, meanwhile stay creative and thanks for your visit.

xxxxx