Gift Gorgeousness 2018 - August Update

Hello everybody!!!!! I am here again. 

I have been busy with other things and  didn't have time to update my flower collection, but it is going on. The last flower I showed you was the rose made in May. After that I finished three more flowers. In June I did a nice daisy. Petals are originally in white but I changed the colour to a very pale blue as in white they were really difficult to see in the fabric.

In July was the turn of an iris or lirium, I don't know exactly what it is. But I don't really care about the name. It is looking gorgeous in the collection.

The one I did this month can be a fuchsia but I have no idea if I am right or wrong. But again it looks very nice in the whole of the embroidery.

And I cannot go without showing ho is the full job going. Only four flowers are missing and I need to make the months' name and that will be over.

As usual comments are welcome.

TUSAL - August update

It is a long time now I am not showing my ORTs jar for the reasons I have been explaining. I am bit more free now, my plot is under control (well, all under control that can be, there is always something to do) and I am having more time for stitching. I didn’t do so much these last months but the amount of ORTs in my jar had increased a bit.

As in every update, you can see all my ORTs in the portable box and how is my jar after I transferred them. It is nice to see the increase compared with the last post.

Happy New Moon and see you next month.

August Bullet Journal Layout

August is the first month I am going to plan completely in my bullet journal. I started it by the middle of July and made only half a month. Still I don’t feel very confident in drawing, lettering, etc and that is why I am going to plan a minimalist August layout. I am practicing some lettering and doodles as training to make more beautiful layouts.

August is the month when the first harvest festival (Lammas) is celebrated. That is the reason I chose a cornucopia full of fruits for my August cover page. Just after the cover page I introduced the monthly calendar for August.

Two collections very useful for me are the habit tracker and the sleep log. I think I improved both compare with the trackers I did in July. I left more space between lines in the habit tracker and I am using a different colour for each day track. I reduced the size of my sleep log to have space to have more information. I fixed slots of sleeping time instead hours and a space for quality of my sleep.

For the mood tracker I decided to draw 31 leaves in a cup. I like the design and at the same time it is easy to draw mainly when I am not very good in drawing (hope to improve with my training). That is going together with a mood graph where I track my mood (good, normal, bad) in the morning and evening. I included also a space to write or draw what make me feel happy or bad and finally the Level 10 Life which I will fell by the end of the month.

After that there is a page for doodles (or I should say rubbish as I am terrible drawing). I am following the August Doodle Challenge in Instagram hosted by Christina77 (@christina77). The theme for this month is zoo, but looking at my animals it seems to be a joke……

After that I will include the weekly layouts. I am changing them because I don’t know which design is better for me. That is something I will keep changing until I find the best for me.

Do you have any idea, suggestion or comment? They are all welcome.

Starting my Bullet Journal

It is done. I finally started my bullet journal with a mixture of excitement and fear. I have seen very beautiful bullet journals on Instagram and Pinterest and I know mine is not going to be like them. But my hope is that someday, after drawing and practising a lot, I can also do something nice.

I don’t like the plain cover of my elephant notebook so I decided to change it. I chose an adhesive paper in white and red diagonal stripes and I covered my book with it. For the inside part I chose a flower paper from my card making supplies and decided to make a small pocket in case I want to carry stencils with me. I cover all with a transparent self-adhesive book cover to protect it. In the inside part, I included something which resonate with me.

I started as it is advised for bullet journal, with an Index and Key pages. In my notebook there are two pages for Index, but I left two more pages just in case. After the Index and Key pages I prepared a Password Log layout.

I have included after the password log all the collections which will be in use the whole year. First I made a future log for half a year, from July to December. I prepared after that a spread to track if my monthly bills are paid and I dedicated a page to my lovely Luna (when she needs her pipette, anti-worm tablet, vet appointment ...).  I dedicated couple of pages to my embroideries, one of them containing all the projects I am working in or I am going to work in and the other page is for tracking the advances on my WIP.

I made a page for the books I want to buy during this year once they come to the market and other to keep all the ideas I have to improve my journal.

After that I will be including monthly layouts and collections. I hope I can improve in the future and have a journal that I can proudly show,.

New Project: Bulley Journal

In 2016 I read about Bullet Journal for the very first time. Maybe most of you know what is that, but I am going to tell what it is for those people who don’t know. The Bullet Journal or BuJo idea was created in 2014 by Ryder Carroll. You can have a look to his website, BulletJournal, for interesting ideas. He defines the Bullet Journal as "The Analog System for the Digital Age". It is basically a journal, diary, to-do lists, notebook, etc. It is 100% customizable and you can include whatever you feel and want. And the most important thing is that even if you can buy expensives notebooks and pens, what you really need is ONLY a notebook and a pen.

The first time I read about it I thought, even if I liked the idea, that it was a bit time consuming and wasn’t for me. I didn’t think about it anymore. But recently I can’t remember where, I read something about it again. When something comes twice to knock at your door it should be for a reason, so I decided to go deeper into the Bullet Journal world and start looking for information and reading about that. And surprisingly, I found myself thinking that Bullet Journal is ideal for me. I like to make lists of all but I keep them in a sheet, post-it, middle of a notebook, etc and I can never find them when I need.

I am going to give a try. I have been doing reseasrch for some time to check which are the best notebooks and pens and I found that they are all quite expensive. I decided then to buy cheap brands in case I don’t like and decide to stop. If I enjoy and want to continue with my bullet journal I will by slowly the good brand supplies. But I wanted to share what I got now and show my ideas. If you have experience, ideas, suggestions, etc feel free to let me know, I will appreciate it.

The Notebook

The best notebooks for Bullet Journals are the one with dotted pages. There are lots of brands in the market, being Moleskine and Leuchtturm 1917 the most popular but also the most expensive. I want to try in the future both brands and compare, but for the moment I bought a cheap notebook. It has dotted and numbered pages, a page for the KEYS and couple of pages for the Index. The brand is Elephant and I bought in Amazon.

Pens and Pencils

Pens are the other thing you can’t miss for bullet journaling. As for notebooks there are many brands and types and it is not easy to decide what to buy. I bought cheap brands and I will be buying the most expensive ones with time.

Most popular pen’s brands are Sharpie, Tombow, Micron, Zebra,.... But I made a cheaper brand collection to begin with.

I have normal fine liner pens to write what it is the proper planning (events, tasks, appointments,....)

I have a collection of gel pens in different colours including metallics and neon shades. These gel pens are my favourite. There is no bleeding or ghosting when I use them. It is also important for me to have pencils. I have some Staedler pencils for drafts in different hard and darkness and a collection of 36 coloring pencils bought in Hobbycraft.

I have a crayola collection which can be very usefull as they also don’t do ghosting and for lettering (what is something I still don’t know well how to do) I have a collection of brush pens and a collection of waterpencils.

Washi Tape

That is not completly neededbut as I had lots from other craft supplies I decided I can also use them in my Bullet Journal. Washi Tape can be very usefull as decoration and in case you need to correct a mistake. I have plain color washi tapes in pastel and neon colors and lots of decorated tapes that I normally use for cardmaking.

Other Supplies

Obviously you don’t really need the following supplies but they make the things so much easier.

I have a set of eraser and sharpener, very useful when working drafts. The ruler is a ‘must have’ for me, I am not able to draw a straight line otherwise. Tracer and charcoal papers can be also very usefull if you want to copy a picture from elsewhere (br carefull and take only free pictures). I have a set of stencils to make the most common shapes that will save me lot of time.

That is all what you can need. Ah, no. I forgot something very important. You will need also your imagination, patience and art to keep a beautiful journal.

As I am newbie in Bullet Journal any comment or suggestion you have will be welcome.