Journaling and planning: August - September 2017

September has been so crazy, and I didn't have much to share sewing wise... however here is a two months review in my fantastic Emerald Leuchtturm 1917!!

For disclaimers about how I personally use this Journal/Planner system, please refer to these previous posts: July review, Mid-year review, May review, April review, March review, December review (evolution of a Quilter's Planner), November review, October review, September review.

(click on each picture if you want to see them in more details)

I kept on with the practice of selecting an artist each month and using her art to decorate my planning. Since this book has many pages, I decided to start making "month cover pages" and this is my August page, inspired by the work of Helen Lundeberg.

Each week now is on two pages, and this gives me space to be creative (by integrating the artist style into the decoration of the days) but also to be practical (by listing daily taks, ideas for meals, exercise practice and even some new recipes or plans for quilting projects!)

What you may notice is that I integrate what I want to get done in the house, with exercise, meal ideas, recipes, events, etc.
It looks extremely messy, but it is NOT!! :) the amount of information that I have at the beginning of the week is very minimal and things get added as I go along with my life! And I am blessed to have a full life, so that's why my pages are full! :)

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Below you can see the daily tracker, with my weight tracker and my steps tracker. I stopped tracking my water intake, so I decided to add a list of different things to do this month.
This list has been an absolute blessing, and I got sooooo much more things done just because of the list!!

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I coundn't keep  up with the Free Motion Daily Doodle spread (each day is a different design from Leah Day's blog)... This is the beauty of planning in such a dynamic and white-canvas journal: as I realized this is not useful for me any more, I just dropped it for Septemeber. It may come back, it may not, who knows!

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Various trackers!

These trackers/collections are great to keep specific topics under control: for example I am running a blog hop (Art with Fabric blog hop) and I need to understand who sent their picture, if those have been added to my intro blog post, etc. A simple table on a single journal page is all I need to have a clear idea of what's coming next!! :)

Tracking health or the Lush products I like, also just require a simple table! Those things are so simple but they give you great insights if you complete them on a consistent base.

Finally the 5% challenge (I heard about it in a podcast, but I cannot remember which :) )...

I am trying to spend 5% of my monthly salary to support creative people that share their talent on the web for free!! Youtubers, Quilters, Creators, etc. I want to support their business so I support them through Patreon or by buying their products. They fill my life with joy, creativity and inspiration and I think it's important to support them financially since they share so much for free!!

I encourge you to do the same! It doesn't matter how much you actually devote to this, even few dollars make a big difference for small creative businesses!!

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Similar setup for September (Vincent Van Gogh as my inspiration artist).

I used washi tape in the weekly spreads... I do not like it, and I will go back to simple lines and text.

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And some creative spreads, just to celebrate special events that happened during the month: in this case, I went to the movie theatre to watch "The Dark Tower".

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I am all set up for October: I changed up few things that I want to track, dropped some, added others: this is the beauty of this planning style, you can change it up to suit your mood and style!

If you have any question about my planner, my spreads, my comments, etc, don't hesitate to comment below. Also please share planning, tracking and productivity tips, as those are always welcome!!!!

Journaling and planning: July 2017 update

I think I finally converged to my ultimate journal!

My planning journey is like my quilting journey: from the first weeks I immediately know what I like and what my overall style is. However the more I plan, the more tools I want to buy and the more experiments I want to run! This month, off again to a new journal!

For disclaimers about how I personally use this Journal/Planner system, please refer to these previous posts: Mid-year review, May review, April review, March review, December review (evolution of a Quilter's Planner), November review, October review, September review.

As mentioned in my May review, while I liked the blank pages in my pink journal (and the thick paper that allowed me to color in without ruining the back of the page), I needed some kind of structure, and the dot grid of the Emerald Leuchtturm 1917 provides the right amount of space and structure.

Before jumping into the monthly and weekly pages, since this is a new book I needed some general project and event trackers

(click on each picture if you want to see them in more details)

So I created a tracker for my packages and cards (to send and receive) so that I can know in a glance what is missing and what's coming up.
I created a "Rubity, Scrubity, Sweepity" tracker to record things that I need to do regularly but not too often (like washing quilts, color my hair, change the air filters).
I created a "Brain dump" where I pencil in things that I should not forget but they don't have a space or a time just yet. Then I started a reading list, to keep track of the books I read.
And finally I creatd a page where I record the blocks I make for the 70273 project.

I kept on with the practice of selecting an artist each month and using her art to decorate my planning. Since this book has many pages, I decided to start making "month cover pages" and this is my July page, inspired by the work of Agnes Martin.



Each week now is on two pages, and this gives me space to be creative (by integrating the artist style into the decoration of the days) but also to be practical (by listing daily taks, ideas for meals, exercise practice and even some new recipes or plans for quilting projects!)

Below you can see the daily tracker, with my weight tracker and my steps/water mandala. I stopped tracking my water intake, so I will change it up for next month! :)

These trackers/collections are also great to keep big project under control: for example I am running a short Quilt and Stitch along on Fandom in Stitches (Long live the King, Stephen) and I need to understand which patterns have been tested, which ones are in PDF format, if they have been added to the blog post, etc. A simple table on a single journal page is all I need to have a clear idea of what's coming next!! :)

I kept it up with the Free Motion Daily Doodle spread: each day is a different design from Leah Day's blog... it is very interesting to practise all these designs in small spaces and see if I like making them or not: no thread or fabric wasted :)  I also added a coloring legend to remember which designs I love, like or don't like: that's essential for times when I want to pick a quilting designs and I don't remember which one I enjoyed and which was frustrating to draw!!

Last but not least...

Few words about the Leuchtturm1917 dotted journal

• it may look like an "expensive" journal, however consider that it has 250 pages and for the first month I used about 20... which means that the journal will last me about a year! If you divide the price for this amount of use, I think it's totally worth it.
• the quality of the page is kind of "weird" for me: it's smooth, off-white and I love writing on it! and I think that the dotted grid is the perfect balance of structure and freedom. However pens ghost (which means that you can kind of see what it is on the back of the page. The weird thing is that the ghosting does not bother me at all!! Actually it's very nice because it helps when I need to reproduce the same spread (like every week) and it's a metaphor of life (as everything we do is affected by what happened before and it will affect what happens next :) ).
• Ghosting is different than bleeding... and I didn't have any ink bleeding in those pages! Even if my August cover page is heavily colored with black markers, no ink is visible on the other side (just the shadow of the coloring itself)
• The rigid cover is so fantastic to take the journal on the go and use it anywhere! I made full spreads and collections on a chair waiting for a doctor appointment and I didn't have any problem at all!!

I am all set up for August: I changed up few things that I want to track, dropped some, added others: this is the beauty of this planning style, you can change it up to suit your mood and style!

If you have any question about my planner, my spreads, my comments, etc, don't hesitate to comment below. Also please share planning, tracking and productivity tips, as those are always welcome!!!!

Journal and planning: Mid-year review

Instead of sharing my June planning/journaling pages (which by now are very similar to previous months), I thought it would be a good idea to share with you the fantastic benefit of the daily practice of journaling/planning!!

This was my evolution:

• last September I discoverd bullet journaling! I grabbed a cheap lined notebook and start making lists, spreads, watching YouTube video... my love for paper, doodling, little creative bits every day just exploded!
• in October I wanted to see if the practice would stand the test of time... would I keep doing it daily for months? oh yes!! it grew stronger and stronger and I needed more space!!
• in November I moved to the Quilter's Planner! Now I have a ton of space to play with!! I didn't like the bound coiled format and played around with different options. But I kept experimenting with the regular daily lists, tasks, goals, projects, doodling etc
• in December I discovered disc bound planner options! Wow, watching youtube planning videos got me into the rabbit hole of stickers, pens, DIY covers, dividers, etc... all this while the daily use of the planner was keeping my life in order!
• January and February were crazy for million reasons... I tried to keep up with the planning... I did some, but not very consistently... but that's the beauty of this system: you can start, stop and restart at any time!
• in March I experimented with more ideas like "habits" and "weekly specials": they changed my life (see below)
• in April I consolidated those ideas and I started including exercise in my trackers because it's good to get in better shape!
• in May I moved out of the Quilter's Planner to a smaller journal: I graduated to a blank journal where I can express myself more freely and where I can customize every page to my own needs!
• in June I tested if I really like that size of journal... I love it... so I moved out of that journal and graduated to a "higher end" journal (more on this next month)

Lesson learned:

1. writing things down (todo, tasks, etc) makes a HUGE difference in getting things done... it may sound counterintuitive, but the more time I spend planning, decorating and sketching in my journal, the faster and more efficient I am when I am actually doing the tasks I wrote down! Probably is because my brain already processed the activity so I don't need to think about it, I just do it!
2. the only way to improve is to do something over and over again: there are pages that are decorated in a way I don't like... well, I turn the page and move on. There are so many beautiful talented people that share their creation... I don't need to be like them, I can be inspired by them and learn from them... but the important thing is to keep doing it!

One of my words for the year was "Habit". Every month I wanted to focus on building specific habits. And here is where my journal changed my life.

From flossing my teeths, to cleaning the fridge, to doodling, to cleaning my scrap bin, to reading all these activities were added in my planner (as daily, weekly or monthly activities). It's not that I wasn't doing them before :) but I was not consistent... by building these activity into the structure of the planned day/week/month I am now doing all those (and more) without even thinking about them! That's the power of habits!

I also started cooking (more)... again, I was cooking before :)

I am actually quite a good cook and I bake great cookies and cakes too... the "problem" is that I do it only for "special events" so when I have to think "what should I have for dinner" I default on boring things :) so, thanks to the "Weekly specials" section in my planner I tested 36 completely new dishes in 4 months!! :) :) some of them ended up amazing... some a complete disaster, never to try again :)

But now I have some more tested dishes that I will add to my regular rotation and my meals will be less boring!! :)

The point is, I just needed some motivation and structure! so including 2 new dishes a week was duable and fun!

I started learning more about female artists!

As part of my monthly spreads, I have my "Doodle an Artist", where I pick one artist and draw/doodle pieces of their work in my planner. This year I will be exploring female artists because women were not included in my art history classes :( :( :(

I learned about Kara Walker, Yayoi Kusama, Beverly Fishman, Kesley Montague and MadC. I am exploring now Agnes Martin.

It's not in depth research, it's just an activity to open my eyes to artists out there! :)

I also started reading again!! I have a "reading list" where I track the books I read... just setting up that last month reinitiated me to the pleasure of reading paper books... in 2 months I already finished 4 books (which is not much considering that I was reading about 200 books a year during highschool... but it's better than the 0 paper books a months that I have been doing in the past few years :) ) 

And last, but not least, I am getting extra money! :) :)
By watching youtube videos about DIY planner covers I discovered channels that I started following. On one of those channels, the host mentioned an app (Ibotta) that gives you cash back for purchases you make (grocery and much more). I heard about these apps, but I don't have time for coupons and other things like that so I never explored that. This sounded simple enough and I tried it. In 4 months I got about 70 dollars of cash back (that are sent to the paypal I use to buy crafty things :) :) ). Not bad for very few and easy steps! The app has also ways to earn more money if you connect to your friends on FB but I will never do that (I am super suspicious of apps that want to get too much information from me... why do you need to know my friends to give me 50 cents cash back for my tomatoes purchase???? :) )
Anyway, here the lesson is: you never know what you will learn when you explore more about the world around you, so by learning about planning, you may earn extra money :)


I am all set up for July: I moved to another journal and I love the new one! I will share all about her next month :)

If you have any question about my planner, my spreads, my comments, etc, don't hesitate to comment below. Also please share planning, tracking and productivity tips, as those are always welcome!!!!

Journaling and Planning: May 2017 update

More progress and evolution to my planner!

My planning journey is like my quilting journey: from the first weeks I immediately know what I like and what my overall style is. However the more I plan, the more tools I want to buy and the more experiments I want to run! This month, off to a new journal!

For disclaimers about how I personally use this Journal/Planner system, please refer to these previous posts: April review, March review, December review (evolution of a Quilter's Planner), November review, October review, September review.

As mentioned last month, while I initially loved the disc bound system that I used to transform my Quilter's planner, it starts to bother me the unused layout that I have to erase to create my own... and it's hard to write with those discs... and it's a bother to take the page out every single time...
Long story short, I moved into a (smaller) bound journal. I found a fantastic one (pretty cheap) at Micheals... it has thick paper, which means I can play with markers and be more creative... having less pages it's also good because I can finish it in few months and if I don't like it I can change system again :)

Spoiler alert... I moved out of that journal too :) while I liked the blank pages and the thick paper that allowed me to color in without ruining the back of the page, I need some kind of structure, and the dot grid of the Emerald Leuchtturm 1917 (in the picture above) provides the right amount of space and structure. But more on that next month...

For now, let me show you how I used my dark pink, artist notebook.

Below you can see the daily tracker, with my weight tracker and some excercise tracker. I also included on the same page the Weekly/Monthly ToDos and the Habits that I would focus for the month: it's great to have everything on a single page!

(click on each picture if you want to see them in more details)

I kept it up with the Free Motion Daily Doodle spread, decorated with the artist of the month... see below to see who it is :) each day is a different design from Leah Day's blog... it is very interesting to practise all these designs in small spaces and see if I like making them or not: no thread or fabric wasted :) This month I also added a coloring legend to remember which designs I love, like or don't like: that's essential for times when I want to pick a quilting designs and I don't remember which one I enjoyed and which was frustrating to draw!!

The week-by-week daily activities (with the Weekly Specials recipes meals in each page),

The Fitness Mandala (split between steps and water), and the tracker for the Art with Fabric blog hop: it's complicated to coordinate so many people and a tracker made the process much easier!!

And the "Doodle an Artist" spread, that migrated to a different journal!
I reflected on what I want to accomplish with this project, and I found another journal in my house that I wanted to test (Moleskine): I heard that pages are terrible for heavy pen/markers/colors so I decided to dedicate the entire journal to doodling different artists! If the pen/color bleed through the pages, I can glue pages and move on.

This month, in my "Doodle an Artist" I picked Beverly Fishman, an Artist-in-Residence at Cranbrook Academy of Art. For the past twenty-five years she has worked as a full-time artist and has dedicated herself to educating young artists.
As usual I tried to "Steal like an Artist" and extract part of her pieces that spoke to me and mesh them all together in two pages!

Last but not least...
I had few tough weeks and I needed some cheerful and inspirational quotes
Keep our composure... from Old school and Bon Jovi's song "it's my life"

I am all set up for June: I changed up few things that I want to track, dropped some, added others: this is the beauty of this planning style, you can change it up to suit your mood and style!

If you have any question about my planner, my spreads, my comments, etc, don't hesitate to comment below. Also please share planning, tracking and productivity tips, as those are always welcome!!!!

Journaling and Planning: April 2017 update

Super busy month but full of progress and evolutions thanks to my planner!

For disclaimers about how I personally use this Journal/Planner system, please refer to these previous posts: March review, December review (evolution of a Quilter's Planner, November review, October review, September review.

Maybe you remember how I absolutely praised the advantages of the disc bound system that I used to transform my Quilter's planner... its flexibility, easy to customize, add pages, remove pages...
Well...
I changed my mind and I don't like that any more :)
I think it's like when you start sewing... first you start with whatever fabric or thread you have in your hand... then you start going to big box stores and buy only nicer things... then you want to step up your game and you start buying all the tools, designer fabric, etc...

That's where I am with my planner.
I enjoyed using the Quilter's Planner but it starts to bother me the unused layout that I have to erase to create my own... and it's hard to write with those discs... and it's a bother to take the page out every single time...
Long story short, I will move into a (smaller) bound journal. I found a fantastic one (pretty cheap) at Micheals... it has thick paper, which means I can play with markers and be more creative... having less pages it's also good because I can finish it in few months and if I don't like it I can change system again :)

So here are the last pages in my Quilter's Planner... I will keep using it to track Quilt projects that have no time constrains, so it won't be abandoned :) but I am so excited to work on my blank pages of the new journal!!!


Below you can see the daily tracker (quite sparse, but not too sparse), with my "TV bike" exercise tracker and my weight tracker... I didn't put any number on that tracker because I do not care about the number per se... I want to be healthy and lose weight in a relaxed way, so I use the tracker just for tracking the trend :)

(click on each picture if you want to see them in more details)

I kept it up with the Free Motion Daily Doodle spread, decorated with the artist of the month... see below to see who it is :) each day is a different design from Leah Day's blog... it is very interesting to practise all these designs in small spaces and see if I like making them or not: no thread or fabric wasted :)

The weekly/monthly todos (with the songs of the month and the three habits that I decide to focus my attention on... simple things, but so fulfilling when I can check off those boxes!!

A new spread... to track my allergies... and what works and what doesn't work... I am new to these allergies and I do not remember what worked or didn't work last year... so I want to be prepared for next year :)

The week-by-week daily activities (with the Weekly Specials recipes meals at the bottom),

The Fitness Mandala (split between steps and water)

And the "Doodle an Artist" spread

This month, in my "Doodle an Artist" I picked Yayoi Kusama, a Japanese artist that will be my inspiration for a second piece I will make for the Art with Fabric Blog Hop (coming in just few weeks!!!).

As usual I tried to "Steal like an Artist" and extract part of her pieces that spoke to me and that I will be able to use in my piece for the Blog Hop. In the meantime, if you are curious to see more about Yayoi Kusama you can check this link  or this other link.


I am all set up for May: I changed up few things that I want to track, dropped some, added others: this is the beauty of this planning style, you can change it up to suit your mood and style!

If you have any question about my planner, my spreads, my comments, etc, don't hesitate to comment below. Also please share planning, tracking and productivity tips, as those are always welcome!!!!

Journaling and Planning: March 2017 update

Wow, the first quarter of the year was quite a crazy time for me!

For disclaimers about how I personally use this Journal/Planner system, please refer to these previous posts: December review (evolution of a Quilter's Planner, November review, October review, September review.

January started strong with planning, lists and other tracking activity... and by the end of the month I was totally overwhelmed and rarely doing much in my Quilter's Planner...

February was still crazy and I didn't do any tracking at all...

That's the beauty of the disc bound system that I used to transform my Quilter's planner: empty pages are bothering me? I just take them out, and they are gone without traces :)
Since I am manually numbering the pages for my index system, none will ever know what happened... well, you now know, but that's different :)

So in March I decided to get back into the planning and tracking routine... with no pressure but some commitment to a Ketchup month :) :) :)

Below you can see the daily tracker (quite sparse, but not too sparse), the Free Motion Daily Doodle spread, the weekly/monthly todos, the week-by-week daily activities (with the Weekly Specials recipes meals at the bottom), the "Doodle an Artist" spread and the Fitness Mandalas.
(click on each picture if you want to see them in more details)

This month, in my "Doodle an Artist" I picked Kara Walker, an African American artist that will be my inspiration for the piece I will make for the Art with Fabric Blog Hop (coming in May).

As usual I tried to "Steal like an Artist" and extract part of her pieces that spoke to me and that I will be able to use in my piece for the Blog Hop. In the meantime, if you are curious to see more about Kara Walker you can check this video  or this other video.


About the Fitness Mandalas, I have few notes:
In January I had a different idea on how to set this up: I was using each wedge as a day and the amount of decorations depended on the number of steps I took. Since I am not so consistent the Mandala looked pretty ugly at the end :)
Then I decided to use a color scale for each range of step count and then I draw the mandala designs on top: in this way the inconsistency is actually interesting because different colors add visual impact :) however I hated coloring the last days of the month because the circles were so big and coloring with pens is not very pleasant.
So for April I decided to use again color coding, but I will split the mandala in two: one half will be step count and the other half water intake (as tracked by my smart bottle). In this way it will be cheerful, visually appealing and not too difficult to draw/color.

Finally I added a spread to keep track of my Weekly Specials recipes.
I am not good at meal planning or meal prepping...
I am good at cooking and baking for events, but everyday cooking is just too much for me to deal with. So I decided that a good  mid point was to "force" myself to find two new things to make every week and then I can keep these recipes for future reference.
The things can be easy spread, hummus or other sauces or full meals or cakes or cookies or salad. Really anything new :)
With this method, from last January, I collected a good list of things that I cooked that I loved (especially the recipes with the Instant Pot), others that were just ok, and others that I totally hated :)
I don't want to write any of those recipes again since they are already in my planner, but I need a way to find them: so I designed the "If you don't try, you'll never know" (a quote from my favorite Disney Movie (The Sword in the Stone)

I am all set up for April: I changed up few things that I want to track, dropped some, added others: this is the beauty of this planning style, you can change it up to suit your mood and style!

If you have any question about my planner, my spreads, my comments, etc, don't hesitate to comment below. Also please share planning, tracking and productivity tips, as those are always welcome!!!!