Category: Moms

Erma's Plournal 2019

12/29/2018

2018 was my first foray into full-on DIY planner/journaling; also known as bullet journal-ing. My book was a $5 everyday special from Michael's called a Purple Dot Journal by Artist's Loft. I loved this book. It held up extremely well to watercolor and Crayola supertips and the bevy of pens I tried in it. There were a couple of times where ink bled through to the other side but not enough to stop using the journal. I highly recommend this journal for people just joining the community and for all kinds of journaling.

The cover is hardback and plain. I decorated this with gold and silver paint pens, a black sharpie, and donated stickers of women from around the world and cute little owls from my BFF.

However, this year, I decided to make my everyday book a Seven Seas "CROSSFIELD" A5 Grid Journal. It has the famous Tomoe River paper and 480 pages of it. Now I can include all my research notes and endlessly drone on and on when I journal. I can't wait. The Tomoe River paper comes highly recommended for fountain pen users. It is the 2nd reason I chose this book. I am a calligrapher and like to write with actual calligraphy pens and ink, on occasion, and the Artist's Loft pages couldn't take it. I ended up gluing some pages together because of some extreme bleed-through.

For some people, the Tomoe River paper is far too thin for them. There is definite ghosting (show-through), the paper puckers when watercolor is used on it creating pages that "crinkle" when turned, and using a hard tipped pen tend to emboss the page on the other side. For me, these factors fell into my "sold" column. (Left: Puckered paper.)

I LOVE the crinkliness of the watercolor pages, the embossing gives the page texture, and I embrace the ghosting whole-heartedly. (Nanami has a fix for "show through", if you're interested.)

FIRST & SECOND

One of the very first things I do when I get a new notebook is to designate four pages in the very back for a Pen Test. It doesn't matter that I've tested the same pens in another book that is exactly the same, I do it again anyway. This serves 2 purposes:

1.) I use new pens I didn't have when I obtained the first book and
2.) It breaks the anxiety EVERYONE usually feels about first writing in a blank book.

Pen Tests let you know just how much ghosting there will be and if any of your pens will bleed through. Here are my pen tests for 2019.

I also run a water brush over all the writing to see if the water and ink from the pen will cause bleed through. It looks like I'm golden with every pen, so far. The next thing I do is a book blessing and protection.

THIRD
(optional)

While I do the first two, (and during the last month or so), I thought about what my word or quote of the year 2019 will be. Last year's was adopted in April,
"The magical and the mundane are not separate."

It is not an absolute that you have to have a word or quote. I only do it because I did it last year.

This year's quote comes from Star Trek: TNG but I'm not ready to unveil it yet. Here's a teaser.

FOURTH

I skip 4 pages for the INDEX. This was one of the ideas I found in the Bujo community that made me want to try it (along with collections). Last year's experiment taught me that the FUTURE LOG is an amazing tool for the DIY Bujo-er. All your important dates are in one place; easily accessible. I draw in my weeks and months as I go so this is the best place for me to pull all the information from to populate my monthly calendar and my weeklies.

Last year's future log (left) and this year's (right.)

The next four pages after the future log are the ones that cover Birthdays, Anniversaries, and Holidays. I tried to combine these in a practice book, but quickly ran out of space. As my mom says, "Ohma... You have too many friend."

I start marking (in pencil or with post-its) what my collections pages are going to be. I may start a few pencil sketches for them, but I definitely start working on the first month. The CALENDAR with space to write is the most important part of the month for me. It's like a mini-future log just for the month. I've taken to doodllng in holidays which I love doing. Drawing in miniature is so very fun.

Keep checking back. I'll be posting often as the year progresses.

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Art O'Mine
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Links
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