This is how I journal now

Picture property of Stormberry

I found recently a picture of how I used to manage my planner some years ago. Oh boy, kids, this is from 2017! And back then I still used filofax inserts (Wo2P - week on two pages). I think this is the one that came... no. The one that came with the planner were the Wo2P in columns (it is an A5 Malden after all), and since I've got my planner in Europe (it was too expensive to have it shipped to the American continente), and I think I shortly after visited my friend Tina and we switched inserts because she loved the vertical distribution, while my way of planning (appointments to the left, tasks to the right) works better on a horizontal set up. I was crazy for color (as I still am, mind you) and back then I used frixion pens because they allowed me to write in ink and erase the notes when something needed to be rescheduled. Before that I tried using colored led mechanic pencils, but colored led was hard to come by (and then I've got a shipload of them, and now I have them here to use, and haven't used them in quite a while. This is how I function.).

I still remember my boyfriend from back then, who was mindblown that I had spent about 180,- € (including the shipping) for a planner. Three-four years later I'm still using that planner, and am completely in love with it. One of the best investments I've ever made, if you ask me.

I no longer use inserts, but I get dotted paper (have stocked up on a few of them... several times, so I think I'm safe to go through the quarantine for a while solely on my stock), or cut graph paper to size, punch it and use it for bullet journaling, which is how I plan today. Curiously, I migrated my appointment/task setting to my bullet journal, and I don't use indexes, but instead keep on using the sections all filofax lovers adore, and fitted both worlds to my personal need. As everybody should.

Property of Stormberry.

Something else that has been changing is how I journal too. And when I say journal, I mean that sort of sit down and write your thoughts, impressions, events, personal analysis of what goes on, gossip you don't want to forget... or whatever you write in your journal. And yes, not all of us are Anaïs Nin's (I know, I LOVE Anaïs Nin. Deal with it.), but our thoughts and impressions and experiences are all valid and all deserve to be recorded.

In my earlier journals - you can find pictures, I believe, if you go back far enough - I used less media and more text. Here and there I would paste a news clipping, but it was all mainly text written in a single color ink. I wasn't much of a spread creator or a visual arts enthusiast, nor I consider so myself up to this day, but I have been starting to cut and paste more and more pictures from magazines or pictures I print out from photos and internet searches, and add them in.

Washi tape sometines also gets involved in my entries. And now sometimes I draw too, or do some lettering, or add an extra page in this baking-sheet-like paper (this translucent, resistant paper, like the one you can see in this second picture, from which I folded a simple envelope to keep some of thsi cut out and clipped pictures), on which I paste whatever memento in order to save pages I can use for writing.

Property of Stormberry

I have always been one to keep souvenirs and either I collected them in a box (or more than one. Don't ask.), or just put them between the pages of my journals. It was through the influence of my friend Tina, who does a lot of art journaling. I started experimenting more and more with this sort of journaling, and then tried to scale it back, because I am not an art-journaler or an artistic-spread-making kind of journaler. I don't think I would ever try to make whole artistic spreads in my journal, for my way of journaling is through words, and I strive for all pictures to have something to do with the entry. Or so I try. ^_^

In my last journal book (a Leuchtturm 1917 A5 Copper), I tried to regain the old style, minimizing as much as I could the use of art, with not much avail. It did was significantly reduced compared to my previous one, an A5-ish, jaw-dropping Bomo Art plain paper journal of absolute beauty. Yes, I'm adding the link and I'm promoting it shamelessly (but not being paid in any shape or form by them or any other company) not because they are a Hungarian company I love, but mostly because the product is GORGEOUS and the whole universe should know about them.

So, that Bomo Art journal was my most artistic so far. Now I'm writing in a HEMA, which was gifted to me by my friend Arjen. This notebook has been in my collection for a while - as about 10 others, I gather - and though I wanted to start another Bomo Art notebook, my hand went to this one.

Lined Paper, which is not my preferred, and a cover/inside combination that I LOVED when I first got it because it took me from light to darkness - the hearts desire of many a witch ^_^ as we don't fear darnkess but learn to work with its power - and yet now, with such a hard 2020 under way, I needed to find light in me, and so I changed the cover. And what to know something? HEMA notebooks are sooo cooperative! Even an unskilled person like me (yes, I am actually quite clumsy, but fix all mistakes with washi tape and good attitude) was abe to change the cover so that it looks like that was how it was originally planned to be. And this forgiving, yielding, happy, considerate, ample notebook has tapped again my visual veins and I've started perusing Pinterest and clicking, printing, cutting and pasting again.

The point, my dearest Reader, is that when it comes to journaling, all you have to do is just do what you want to do. Just that. Journal for yourself, and if you are proud of it and want to share it, share it! Hey, and if you need some encouragement, write to me ^_^ or just link here the pics of your journal entries or your journal book, and I'll go and give it some love. Because whatever you do, for yourself, it is BEAUTIFUL.