CURRENTLY #12

TIME: 2:13PM

LOCATION: Melbourne Central

FEELING: Super. This weekend is all for shopping before working that money back on Monday

LOVING: This outing day with mama bear

READING: Donna Tart - The Goldfinch

DRINKING: Frozen Fanta - yum.

ANTICIPATING: Work on Monday. Boo.

LISTENING: MKTO - Classic

WATCHING: People - because that's really only what you can watch when you're out. Hah.

PLANNING TO: Print some pictures so I can finally finish up my Project Life

LOOKING FORWARD TO: More shopping tomorrow. Yep.

CREATING: MTN spreads

NEED TO FINISH: January's Project Life spreads

WISHING: I didn't need to go to work...

MAIN GOAL: Wrap up January's projects before February comes around in two days!

SCRAPBOOKING IN MY MTN

I was hell bent into not creating an MTN scrapbook this year, because after all, I have my Hobonichi (which was meant to be documenting these things!). But my Hobonichi has now turned into an art journal more than anything else, and I haven't really felt the pull to print my photos out and stick them in there. So last afternoon, around 4pm, I was sitting in my room, looking at my stamp stack, seeing my unused printer and all my pictures not printed thinking, you know what, let's just start a 'no-commitment' MTN scrapbook.

When I say 'no-commitment', I mean documenting events I see fit to document whenever I want to. I used to document every week and then every day in my MTN, because it was really my only way to document my days. But now that I have a Project Life album, this scrapbook will be one that can see me scrapbooking as much as once a day, or as little as once a month. I'm trying to put no pressure on myself for these scrapbook layouts because I already have a hundred other projects that requires my daily / weekly attention.

Anyway, for this little project, I decided to use my kraft traveler's notebook. I haven't used a kraft notebook before and this will be a nice little challenge for me. I love how the colours pop while using kraft layouts, but am a little bummed that my yellow versamagic and Kaisercraft chalk inks barely show. I had to use my Yoobi chalk marker in order to make it more visible. The spread below showcases two different days with some journaling at the bottom. Again, I'm not trying to make this my new journal so I've kept my journaling to a limit. My full journal posts are hidden in my Hobonichi.

I used a variety of supplies for this spread from a number of different brands, including papers, inks, stamps and stencils from Kaisercraft (love the paper!), inks from Versamagic, stamps and dies from Kelly Purkey and Studio Calico, stickers from Sn@p, and washi tape from mt.

I love the empty spaces I've left out in this spread but because of it, find like this spread is missing something too (let me know if you think the same thing!). Either way, here's to a new beginning of scrapbooking in my MTN!

PROJECT LIFE 2016: WEEK 2

I know I'm jumping around with my Project Life weeks but I've been on a creative block for week 2 for the longest time. I just didn't know how to progress with my pages until yesterday. I was trying to find the 'perfect' coordinating Project Life card to go with my pages but can't seem to hit the nail on the head with all those I've been trying. I then decided to go out of the 'theme' of the week and actually found the perfect one. This is how the week looks overall:

Here are some close up shots:

I can't seem to remember the name of the Project Life pack, but it was filled with art journal style cards which looked amazing. However, I never seemed to find a layout that fitted these cards till I decided to randomly throw them into this week's spread. I'm actually amazed at how well it suited. I especially love the torn paper effect on the bottom right of the spread which matched the colour of the book I was reading.

Apart from the Project Life cards, I used my typewriter to type out the story of the week before cutting it into strips and sticking it on the PL card. I used alpha stamps from Kelly Purkey and Ali Edwards and stickers from Sn@p. I didn't use too many embellishments in this layout but love that it managed to look complete nevertheless.

WATERCOLOURING IN MY HOBONICHI

I've been getting questions from my followers regarding the paper Hobonichi uses in their diaries, how thin they are, how they handle watercolour etc, so I thought I'd give a little review on it. I'm no expert, but these are my experiences with using it so far:

When it comes to the usage of watercolour and a few other 'wet' mediums, I can say that the Hobonichi holds up well. There are two definitions when I mean 'well', and this is what I will go into.

Firstly, the Hobonichi paper is great in terms of the fact that most ink does not bleed through to the other side (However, please do try your own pens out in a spare page in your Hobonichi before using it on your actual page in case it bleeds through). When I mean 'bleed through', I mean being able to see ink marks on the other side of the page. You can forget about using Copic markers and any type of alcohol markers though because those will bleed through without a care in the world. When it comes to watercolour, however, mine (Koi and Daler Rowney paints, wet Gelato) have yet to burn through to the other side. That said, because the pages are super thin, some people may get annoyed with the fact that you can see through markings on the other side of the page. I used to get annoyed with this, and is probably why I stopped using one in 2015, but I tend to just roll with it now.

Secondly, the Hobonichi paper is great in terms of its ability to dry flat. If you've used normal 80gsm printer paper with watercolour, you'll notice that once the paper dries, it crinkles up in places where you've placed the paint down. For the Hobonichi, this happens only to a minimal extent. You could actually say that the page basically dries out flat again, and I think this is the true beauty of the Hobonichi paper. BUT, and this is the greatest but of all, in the first few moments of laying down water and paint on the paper, the Hobonichi will warp up much much much more than any usual paper. Just don't freak out, trust me; be patient, let it dry up, and you will see that you panicked for nothing (but of course, wet your paper within limits!), because for some miraculous reason, the paper manages to dry up so much that it will lay out flat again.

Anyway, here are some examples of spreads I currently have in my Hobonichi. Below is a spread I did using Gelato (some parts wet, some parts dry) and watercolour paint:

While the next spread, I used purely watercolours for the splattered looking background and a stamp with brown Kaisercraft ink.

Here's how the latter page looks like when it's nice and dried:

It does flatten out quite nicely, doesn't it?

So look, don't be afraid to wet your pages. Experiment. Let your creativity flow. I used to be afraid of using my Hobonichi and ruin its pretty clean pages, but once I made the initial marks on it with paint, it has morphed into my art journal, and I love it. I'm able to let myself go on those pages without knowing the actual outcome and learning from the experience at the end. Try not to pressure yourself so much into creating beautiful masterpieces every time. Besides, it's your journal, not anyone else's.

To sum up, here are just some sample pages from my Hobonichi so far:

Hope this proved useful!

BULLET JOURNAL PART III

It's been a while since I've given an updated view of my Bullet Journal, so I thought I'd give an overview of how my 2016 Bullet Journal has been set up. I know it's probably a little late seeing we're already half way through January, but it may give you some ideas on how to set up February.

We start first with the title page:

I made it relatively simple using stamps and alpha stickers. The stamps were from Studio Calico and numbers were from Kaisercraft.

The next two pages was a January calendar I did myself and a January monthly overview. I know I could've written the events in the calendar, but I think it would just look too messy. I'll probably scrap the calendar for next month as I barely use / look at it. The monthly overview details what happened / is about to happen on each day.

The next two spreads are my January tracker list and my goals list:

I particularly love the habits tracker list as it keeps me on top of the things I need to do for each day and prevents me from writing it down in my daily to do lists each time. Although, if I do fall back behind too much, I do write it on my daily list to remind myself further!

Now we come to my spreads: because my Bullet Journal spreads aren't organised into any particular week, I'll just call them Spread 1, Spread 2 etc. This would be Spread 1, which marks the beginning of the new year:

This first spread was relatively simple. I barely added any decorations to it, other than my tasks. I of course, found it a little too boring, so I jazzed it up from next week onwards.

Spread 2 was inspired by coffee mug stains:

It was relatively simple to do. I didn't actually use coffee for the stains as they aren't exactly fadeproof etc, so I used brown watercolour paint. Use any mug / cup and paint watercolour on the base of the cup. When it's nicely coated with brown paint, plonk it down onto your page and you've created a nice little coffee cup stain. Easy peasy. The coffee stamp was from Sweet Stampshop and the gold glitter alphas are from Heidi Swapp.

Spread 3 was decorated using Kaisercraft stamps, and washi:

Spread 4 takes on a more tropical green theme and I think it has to be one of my favourites so far:

The leaves stamps are from Studio Calico while the 'happy' phrase from Kaisercraft. I love the calming nature of this spread and it was so simple and quick to put together.

The last spread which takes us up to this week was inspired by my watercolour musings. I've been obsessed with watercolour recently so I had to move it into my Bullet Journal spread:

Apart from all my daily tasking, I've been lusting over Midori spreads seen on Instagram currently as I do miss the size of it all. I don't want to start a new booklet because keeping it in my current MTN cover makes it just too fat for comfort, so I thought: why not just incorporate it into my Bullet Journal? I woudn't do it together with my daily tasks, but I'm planning to do a weekly overview (kinda like my weekly Project Life spread) in a facing spread to summarise the week. This way, I'll be able to keep my pretty pictures and my tasks all in one. Brilliant.

I hope you enjoyed this post!
Till the the next Bullet Journal post!

CURRENTLY #10

TIME: 12:16PM

LOCATION: Craft room / bedroom

FEELING: A little sad that I won't be able to go back to Singapore in February because of my new job but grateful that I actually have a job (finally!)

LOVING: Watercolouring!

READING: Donna Tart - The Goldfinch

DRINKING: Good ol' plain water

ANTICIPATING: Full time work starting in 2 weeks!

LISTENING: Maroon 5 - Sugar (current fave!)

WATCHING: Scorpion

PLANNING TO: Paint watercolour flowers after I've done catching up with all my posts!

LOOKING FORWARD TO: Shopping on Thursday. Yep.

CREATING: New digital stamps for my PL spread

NEED TO FINISH: My Hobonichi spreads. Project Life week 2

WISHING: The weather was cooler.. cmon winter!

MAIN GOAL:   Finish up my blog posts. Create digital stamps. Paint some flowers, and love every moment of it.

PROJECT LIFE 2016: WEEK 0 & 1

I'm still going strong over here with my Project Life spreads (although, it IS only week 1...), and that may only be because I'm still free as a bird. A different story would be told when February comes around and I start my first job as a qualified Radiographer - I'm sure I'll be drowning in projects then. But for now, here's a little look into my Project Life world:

Week 0 of my Project Life spread was actually December 29th when my baby cousin was still around exploring + shopping Melbourne with me, I didn't really do anything for New Year's day (like every other year), so this spread focused on all the pictures we took then. Here are some close ups of the spread I did:

Unfortunately, for privacy reasons, I can't really show you the full spread. I'm sure my cousin would love the publicity but I'll save it for now and go with the details.

Week 1 of my Project Life spread, however, was filled with job interviews and meets with one of my closer uni friends:

Here are some close-ups:

I primarily (99%) used stamps from Kelly Purkey because for one, I've been itching to use them since forever, and for another, I love how they can match so easily with a variety of different themes and projects. I stamped all my white phrases with Brilliance Archival Moonlight White ink, however, when it comes out to light or not at all, I go over it with my Posca white marker.

I'm probably going to add some digital stamps to my next spread knowing there'll be lots of white spaces in them, and not having any ink that will stain my pictures without wiping off. It should be fun playing with digital stamps. I'll be using my digital stamp creations that will be available in my shop to give you an idea of how they can be used. Till then, hope you enjoyed looking through my first two weeks!

2016 PLANNERS: UPDATED

Compared to last year, I think my 2016 stack has needed an update faster than I thought it would be required. Don't get me wrong though, most has stayed, some has replaced others, while others have just changed roles. Hopefully this new list should be the final edit for the rest of the year:

1- Midori Traveler's Notebook - Bullet Journal & Scrapbooking:
I take back what I said in my previous post here about being able to keep up with both a planner and a Bullet Journal for my to-do list. Truth is, there really wasn't any point having the same thing written twice. Not to mention, the writing area was just too small in my Personal Planner to incorporate all of the items I needed to do that has been written in my MTN. So that has in fact been scrapped of the list. My MTN now holds everything I need to do for the day in one booklet.

My MTN holds a separate Kraft notebook as well for my creative outlet. I must admit, I miss putting my photos in my MTN. It's funny, every time I use my MTN, I'm always wishing for more space to work with, but now that I have my A5 Hobonichi, I have no idea what to with all that space! So my MTN now has a booklet for documenting some special moments.

2- A5 Kikki K Planner - Journaling:
Despite the fact that my A5 Hobonichi is now able to document lengthy journal entries, I miss having an outlet for an overall summary that highlights the important points of the day in a few sentences. This used to happen in my weekly Midori booklet and because I was so used to having it around, this has transferred on to my A5 Kikki K planner. And because it's A5 sized, I have that little bit more room to document compared to last year's Midori. Not to mention, I'm thoroughly happy that I've finally found a use for my A5.

3- Personal Malden Planner - Work:
I'm hoping and hoping that I'll be getting a job this year... soon, because my personal Malden is getting lonely and it has been allocated the role of work hours. It's probably too big for that but at least it's going to get used for something! It still holds my expenses, and notes about all kinds of things though.

4- A5 Hobonichi - Scrapbook Art Journal:
I was hoping to use this as an every day scrapbook journal like my daily MTN used to be, but because of the abundant space it has, and me being absolutely lost in knowing how to use that space, it has converted itself into an art journal scrapbook. And I'm thrilled by that. I love the paper the Hobonichi has. Despite it being super thin, thinner than the regular 80GSM printer paper, it is much much stronger than it in terms of crinkling. I'm planning to dedicate a whole post to the paper used in the Hobonichi so I'll keep it short here.

5- Standard Memorandum - Sentence A Day:
A tiny book slimmer than a passport Midori, this is going to be my sentence a day highlighting the main event. This was probably (definitely) an impulse buy but this stays in the zippered pocket of my MTN and will be useful for dated planning

6- Kikki K Sentence a Day:
I managed to get my friend into doing one of these (can you tell I'm proud about that?) and even she was impressed that I managed to get one year done with it already. It is now one of the list of things I do daily and its activity is tracked in my Bullet Journal so I don't forget

7- Project Life (6 x 12"):
Not exactly a planner, I know, but this needed to be included in the list due to its weekly demand. I managed to do one spread already and love the format so far. Because it's 6x12", it doesn't require too many pictures (which I know I probably won't have) for a full spread. Not to mention, the minimalist design is making the creation of a spread easier (and much more fun) than I expected. I definitely should have started it sooner!

So this is my updated list that I go through currently. I know some of you may be wondering how I keep up with all these but truth be told, I don't. Not all, at least. However, right now, I am in this weird phase of my life where I've just finished uni and am in search of jobs, making me have ample time to keep up with all of it at once. When I get busy, or when I'm lazy on some days, I tend to do things in batches. For example:
1- My MTN is my every day go to journal because it is basically my to-do list. It is the master of all planners and notebooks. It keeps track of everything, so it's a no brainer when I say that this never gets left behind or not updated for days on end. I write in it whenever, every day. and so takes no effort to keep up with.
2- My Hobonichi gets updated in batches - two days at a time usually, so I can dedicate some time to writing up my entries
3- My A5 Kikki K planner gets updated nightly. It serves as the basis for my Hobonichi if I forget what happens on a particular day. It doesn't take long to write in it, so it's a definite habit for me to write in it every night.
4- The personal Malden planner is currently not in use (until I get a job), so apart from any expenses I need to write down, it's pretty dormant.
5- The Standard Memorandum gets updated whenever I feel like it. There is no set time
6- The Kikki K Sentence a Day is another nightly routine that gets done once I've finished my A5 Kikki K entry. Doesn't take too long, after all
7- As my Project Life gets updated weekly (or whenever I get the photos printed), I am able to do it whenever I want, on whatever day. I just have to make sure I keep up with it because once you fall behind, that's when everything crumbles!

So overall, if you think about it, all these planners don't really take up much time. Put aside half an hour each day and you'll be able to document your life without any problems!

CURRENTLY #9

TIME: 6:49PM

LOCATION: Craft room / bedroom

FEELING: Satisfied with my craft haul today, but anxious about my upcoming interviews

LOVING: My shopping haul from yesterday

READING: Cecilia Ahern - The Year I Met You

EATING: Natural Confectionery Company's Party Mix Sweets

ANTICIPATING: My job interviews coming up in 3 days!

LISTENING: To the trees rustle outside

WATCHING: Sherlock - The Abominable Bride

PLANNING TO: Practice some interview questions before the big day

LOOKING FORWARD TO: Going back to Singapore in February

CREATING: New digital stamp sets

NEED TO FINISH: My Hobonichi entries

WISHING: I had bought more Natural Confectionery packs...

MAIN GOAL: Finish my Project Life spread. Update my Hobonichi. (Get some dinner in between). Ace the interviews. Get a job. Yes.

PROJECT LIFE 2016

I'm all about trying new things, and since the new year has just begun, I thought I'd give Project Life a go. Instead of the usual 12 x 12" album though, I've decided to follow Kelly Purkey's footsteps and run with a 6 x 12". I knew that my local Spotlight had these 6 x 12" Thickers album in store already (as I've been eyeing them for months!), so I was pretty much set to start straight away. The best part was, they've decided to put the album on clearance, so I got it for cheaper than I expected it to be. Hurrah!

I'm still waiting on my Project Life (Design H) inserts to arrive from an online Aussie Project Life store, but I decided that since I had some left over 12 x 12" inserts already, cutting them up in half works like a breeze as well.

I'm probably regretting not starting this album last year when my life was a little bit more busy though, but I guess the empty uni load will actually help me get through one succesfully this year. I'm looking forward to finally using up my stash on this year-long project and finally using those accumulated Project Life cards! I'll post some layouts on my blog when I get the chance (amongst the many other layouts), so stay tuned!

LETTERS IN NOVEMBER: SHOP

Seems like yesterday that I opened up my Bigcartel shop to sell some stationery items. This time, my Bigcartel shop will be housing digital stamp sets. I have found myself a pretty great stamp manufacturer in the US, but because of the low Aussie dollar, I will have to postpone production of physical stamps for now, but rest assured, they're coming! But to kick things off, I have started with 5 (there will be more designs coming in the future!) digital stamp sets all priced at just $5 each. You will receive a zip file containing PDF, PNG and ABR (digital brushes) files with each purchase of a digital stamp set.

Here are some of my digital stamps that will be on sale in my shop:

And to celebrate the new year and my new adventure in the digital age, here's a little freebie printable for you guys. Hope you like it!

To download the file, you can either:
1- Right click on the image, open in up in a new window, and save it
2- Click here to download it from my dropbox

You'll be able to print it out and use as this as you wish (but please, only for personal use!)

Do check my shop out!