Really! Another month gone!

Can you believe we're in the last week of February?!  Almost 2 months of 2022 gone already!

Just a short planner/journal update todate.

All ready for this week.  I may have gone overboard with the stickers!

But when you have a week with not much on and therefore little to write about, then it's all about the stickers!

Here's my March calendar.  Hopefully the weather will start getting better and I can get out of the house more.

Thanks for stopping by
Bernice

Journal 2021

Four months of the year has gone already.  Most of which I have spent indoors!  This time last year we were walking 2-3 miles each day.  Apart from appointments I haven't been out of the house.

I have kept up with my 2021 journal.

 

Looking back I see I haven't shared the pages with you.  I've been enjoying the inspiration that Valerie provides in the Plan With Me Premium some of which can be found for free on her website.  However, I have tended to stick to a colour scheme and a design that suits me.

I've used stencils and stamps.  Plus I'm trying to use up my washi tape - I have a lot!

This month's theme is Beauty using flowers as a motif.  However I don't have any flowery washi tape or flower stencils.  So I'm using a leaf motif.  Plus the only flower stamp I own.

 

Have you kept a journal or a diary this year?

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Journal Update

I shared about setting up my 2021 Journal in January.  Today I'm sharing some of the pages starting with a vision board.

My word of the year is Intentional.

I'm following along with Valerie Sjodin's Plan-with-me.  She uses the Dutch door for her word of the month but I am using it as the month divider.

Here's the calendar for February

 

 

And on to March.

And the March calendar.  As you can see this month's theme is butterflies.

I'm hoping that by the time we get to April's calendar there will actually be things to put in there.  I have tended to fill in the calendar at the end of each month which to be honest generally is a record of zoom calls!

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Journaling 2021 with Valerie Sjodin

I bought a 2021 calendar this week.  Now I'm wondering why.  What will I put on it?  The two in-person workshops I have booked in January may yet get cancelled.   The one I was planning to do in mid-November has been cancelled!  But this is life currently, so we just have to make the best of it.

My friend Valerie keeps a journal each year which focuses on a particular word.  As you know I choose a wrod of the year also.  Although it's still only October Valerie has started to think about what she will be doing in 2021.  I thoroughly recommend you looking at her latest blog posts about this.

How to plan and organize a Word of the Year Bullet Journal

and

Choosing a Word of the Year

Next week I'll update you on my 2020 journal so far.  And show my answers to Valerie's questions.

 Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Setting up my 2020 journal

It took me a long time to decide what sort of journal to use this year and how to set it up.  Was it just going to be a journal for my word of the year or become an everyday journal.  Of course there was the added issue of deciding to change my word.  Fortunately I had changed my mind before I started on the journal.  I bought this Port Red Leuchtturm with squared paper.

The journal comes with pages labelled Content so I left these to be filled in as the year goes on.  The pages are numbered which helps.

I did this year and next year at-a-glance calendars.

Then two double page spreads of monthly calendars.  The January to June is full of workshops and outings already.  Here's the second half of the year waiting to be filled in.

I did a double page listing on the left the online courses I have in my 'library'.  On the right are the courses I signed for this year (but haven't necessarily looked at!)

I printed out the in-person workshops I have booked.  Mary recommended a pad of Newsprint which is much thinner than printer paper.  I was concerned my printer might not like it but it was fine.  It doesn't bulk up the journal like printer paper does.

Two pages for textile groups I belong to and the work in progress.

A year long Gratitude Log.  I found this layout online.

I moved on to double page spreads for Bible verses and quotes about my word of the year, Walk.

A monthly calendar for January.  I tried out using Gelatos through a stencil.

By this time it was already January 13th so to catch up quickly I drew 12 boxes and wrote in each of them for each day.

This is the record of photographs I am taking for the Head, Heart and Hands daily practice.

In our Facebook group, Valerie is currently posting weekly activities or questions relating to our word.  Her first suggestion was a word study.

On to this current week.  This is part to-do list, part diary.

Hopefully you have noticed that I use washi tape, stickers and coloured pens and pencils in quite a simple way to make my pages look colourful and 'arty'.  You don't have to be good at 'art' to produce pleasing pages.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Living Your Word 2020

My friends Valerie Sjodin and Mary Brack, and I share insights through blog posts for creatively living a word of the year. In our Facebook group, we encourage one another by posting questions and prompts to inspire living out a word focus, keeping a journal etc. It is a safe place to ask for prayer and support. If you would like to connect with others in creative ways about living your word, you can ask to join our Living Your Word of the Year 2020 by clicking on the link below.

Join our Facebook group: Living Your Word of the Year

On social media: #livingyourword2020

To ensure you get updates from Valerie, Mary & I why not subscribe to our blogs.
Mary:  www.foundonbrighton.com
Valerie: www.valeriesjodin.com/blog/
This one: www.newlycreative.com/

Calendar pages

It's hard to believe that it's already June.  This will be the sixth month that I've been living with my word of the year: Commit.   In my journal I have a page for a calendar each month.  I have shown some of the pages on the blog during the year.  But as I was preparing the June page I went back through the months and put photos of key events onto the previous calendar pages.

January

February

March

April

May

And ready for June

I have found it quite dificult to photograph the book so I'm sorry about the quality of the images.   The April page is a bit of a mess as well.

If I journal next year I think I will start with white pages!

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Starting work in my 2015 Journal

Regular readers will know that I am using a Dylusions Journal for a monthly calendar, my Take Me Deeper devotional and my word for the year.

I described how I prepared my journal here.

I started with the January calendar.   I found some scrapbooking cardstock and cut narrow strips.

I stuck the strips down on the left hand page and on the flap on the right.

I put some clear gesso through a snowflake stencil.

I used 3 colours of Distress Ink over parts of the pages and took the colour off where the clear gesso was.  This technique works better with spray inks!

Using a punch I cut 31 flower shapes and then stamped the days of the week.

I stamped snowflakes with Archival Ink.

I stuck the flowers down and wrote the numbers on.   There isn't much room to write something for each day but to me that's a good thing!

Take Me Deeper and logos365 don't officially start until January 1st but I thought I would do my main word page.

I started by putting gesso over the page.  When that was dry I scraped 2 colours of acrylic paint onto the bottom third of the page.   I pressed a spider's web stencil into the wet paint in the hopes it would dry to look like parched earth.

At the top of the page I scraped modelling paste through a raindrop stencil.  I put a thin coat of two tones of blue acrylic paint over it.  However I forgot to take a photo of this stage.  The cracks didn't show up very well when the paint was dry so I stamped on it with Sepia Archival Ink.

I printed out the word thirst and stuck the letters front side onto a page of a Bible that I bought from a Dollar Store for the express purpose of using it in  my artwork.   I cut them out and stuck them onto my page.  When the glue was dry I drew turquoise lines inside the letters.

I printed out the verse from John 4:13 and stuck it onto my page.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice