Bullet journal spreads, my experiences of trying out a range of craft activities and lots of wellbeing tips to help you get the best from life.
Author: Laura
A creative planning and journalling addict who lives in the North East of England, My current passions are my bullet journal, my Traveler's Notebook for memory keeping, my DSLR for taking nature photos, my new watercolour paints and my papercrafting supplies. I also own and run LJDesignsNE on Etsy where I sell pretty and functional goodies to fellow planner and journaling addicts.
A few weeks ago, I picked up a design pad containing line drawn images for watercolour painting. As I find drawing really difficult, I though this was an ideal way to practise my watercolouring skills without needing to draw my own pictures.
The pad contains 24 A4 size pages with 12 designs so you get two copies of each image. When I purchased it, I wondered why there was several of each image but as I messed up the first robin, I was glad of a second chance!
The pad contains animals and birds and one floral image.
I chose to start with the robin design as I love birds and we have had a robin visiting our garden each day for the past few weeks nibbling on the fat balls and seed mix I put out.
The paper in the pad doesn’t appear to be proper watercolour paper but I did find it easy to paint on and I was able to get the paper quite wet without it going soggy or wrinkling as it is quite dense.
I thoroughly enjoyed having a few quiet hours mixing and applying the paint and was pleased with the results on my second attempt which you can see below. I might add some highlights to the robin’s feet using my Posca paint pen or a white gel pen but I’m waiting a while and may do a test on a piece of paper as I don’t want to spoil my work.
My finished robin and my very messy paint palette!
I’m trying to find more time for doing creative activities as a way of boosting my mental health and after I’d finished painting I felt so relaxed and happy with what I had achieved. If you love getting creative, I can well recommend doing a little watercolouring as a way to wind down after a busy day as a change from sitting watching TV or mindlessly perusing the internet on your phone.
If you live in the UK and are interested in buying the watercolour pad, I picked mine up in Aldi but have also seen it at a slightly higher price in The Range shop. If you want to find out more about my watercolour set, click here for my previous post.
Hi everyone. Hope you’re all well and enjoying the beginnings of Autumn. We’ve finally got some okay weather this morning so I’ve been able to take some bright enough photographs of my BuJo set up for next month and thought I would share them with you.
I decided to keep my spreads relatively simple and to a minimum this time as I found that I was tracking far too much in September and couldn’t keep up with it all and got quite overwhelmed. I’ve just done a quote page, a cover page which features a little watercolouring piece that I did, a double page monthly calendar and a planning page for my blog.
For my quote, I chose a simple Autumnal reference and as I was writing it, I had a vague feeling I’d used it before. I checked back in one of last year’s Bujo and there it was. I figured it didn’t matter and that I must really love it!
3 bright and juicy Crayola supertips plus a drop shadow using the grey tip of my Tombow dual brush pen
This watercolour was created using my new Daley Rowney Aquafine Travel Set. I followed an online tutorial and although the results don’t look the same as those done by the professional artist that created the step by step, I’m pleased with the results as I’m a total beginner. If you want to have a quick look at the tutorial, you can find it here.
Autumn tree produced on an A4 sheet from a watercolour pad
I then spent about two hours working out how to scan the image into a format that I could shrink to stick into my BuJo. After much perseverance (and a glass of wine which was most helpful ha ha!) I got it sorted. I ended up sticking a piece of paper over a mistake I made with my brush lettering but I think it looks okay now I’ve made it into a border for my picture.
October cover page
And here’s the two pages together. I think the bright colours look lovely. What do you think?
For my monthly calendar, I chose to decorate with some Autumn leaves and berries. I’m not wonderful at drawing but I think it looks okay. I used coloured pencils to shade them in but the only problem I seem to have it that when I write on the next few pages of my notebook the colour transfers. I’m not sure if there’s a solution to this, maybe I press on too hard? If anyone has any ideas, I would be grateful to hear them.
And finally, my blog planning page. On here I’m going to record days when I’m planning, reading researching as well as the titles of my actual posts.
I hope you’ve enjoyed looking at my spreads for October. I would love to hear about your chosen themes for the month and what you have planned for the Autumn. Let me know in the comments if you get the chance.
According to the astronomical calendar, today is the first day of Autumn (also known as fall) and the time of year when the weather turns a little colder, the leaves of deciduous trees start to turn lovely shades of red, yellow, orange and brown and many animals start to prepare for the Winter months.
I love walking all through the year, but for me, Autumn is the best season to go out and explore what nature has to offer. You can’t beat putting on a warm coat and boots and going to your local woodland or forest for a refreshing stroll, especially through the crunchy fallen leaves in their bright array of colours. It’s the perfect time to experience the dappled sunshine peeping through the trees, catch a glimpse of squirrels collecting nuts for the winter and have fun spotting nuts, berries, seeds, an array of different types of fungi and beautiful and intricate spiders webs. You could even take one of the great nature spotting sheets which I found here on the Wildlife Watch website.
Not only is it lovely to see all of the changes in nature taking place, the benefits of walking in countryside spaces for your mind and your body are well documented. Being out and about improves your health by reducing your blood pressure and has been shown to decrease feelings of anxiety, anger and depression. It’s also great exercise and wonderful for increased energy and vitality. I find it so calming and relaxing and after just half an hour in a beautiful, natural space I seem to be more focused for the rest of the day. I also find it gets my creative juices flowing too.
Do you love Autumn and nature walks as much as I do? Where’s your favourite place to go and why?
As part of my compassion group learning over the last few weeks, we’ve been looking unhelpful and more helpful thinking styles. I’ve previously talked about the psychology of using the term ‘I can’t’ (click here to read this post) when we really mean we find something difficult. In today’s wellbeing post, I’m going to focus on the pressure we put on ourselves using terms such as ‘I should’ and ‘I must’.
At the beginning of the year, I went through a really difficult patch with my mental health. I was suffering from debilitating anxiety and everything was a constant struggle. I was having panic attacks and my mood was very low. I spent a lot of time worrying that I wasn’t going to get better and found it extremely difficult to motivate myself to do anything but cry. I’m pleased to report that I’m now feeling much better and life is good. However, my improved mood and elevated motivation levels did start to cause a few issues with my self talk and my thinking and it is this which today’s post focuses on.
As soon as I started to feel better, I totally went into what is known as ‘drive mode’ and felt like I needed to make up for lost time by doing it all and not stopping. I had finally found the joy in achieving things in my day and my head was full of ideas and thoughts. I was writing huge to do lists and spent my time flitting from activity to activity in a frenzied way from when I got up at 6.00am to when I went to bed at 10pm. My head was filled with talk such as ‘I need to…’, ‘I have to…’ ‘I should…’ and all of the other terms associated with the intense desire to be productive and get a buzz from it.
The therapists in our compassion group helped us to see, however, that constantly being in drive mode and making these unrealistic assumptions of how to live can be really unhelpful. Terms such as I need to, I must, I have to and I should, put undue pressure on ourselves to perform and create expectations of ourselves that are very difficult to keep up with.
The effects of using these rigid terms have been studied by a number of psychologists and was a key part of the work of Albert Ellis. He coined the term ‘musterbation’ which has certainly stuck in my mind since reading about it online! The following quote I found online sums up the effects nicely:
“Musterbation” is a term coined by famed psychologist Albert Ellis to describe the phenomenon whereby people live by a set of absolute and unrealistic demands that they place on themselves, others and the world. For most of us, these rules come out in a series of should statements that we repeat to ourselves over and over again. These “should” and “shouldn’t” statements leave us feeling bad about ourselves because they set up standards that we cannot realistically meet. They also leave us feeling frustrated and hurt by others when they inevitably fail to fulfill our expectations. Recognizing this habit to set rules for yourself, others and the world gives you the opportunity to relieve some of the stress these messages cause. When dealing with “should” statements, it is important to keep in mind that while it may be nice to reach your goals and be treated the way you want all the time, we are human and live in an imperfect world. Therefore, the pressure to be anything all the time is more likely to cause harm than good.
Rowan Center BLOG, 2015.
If you would like to read more of their interesting article click here.
I’m now much more aware of when I’m using these terms (I haven’t stopped using them and I’m very much conditioned to their use, I’m just more mindful of when I do) and I try to reframe my thinking to be more helpful. This is taking time, but I do think it’s a really important step in increasing my good mental health. I’ve also noticed that my husband is fond of saying ‘I’ve got to…’ ‘I need to…’ and the like and so we laugh about it and then help each other to create more compassionate thoughts and beliefs too. Here are some examples and how I’ve re-articulated things:
I need to get rid of all of the weeds in the garden this week >>>> it would be great if I found some time this week to do a little bit of weeding as it would make the garden look a little nicer
I must take new and improved photographs of my products today >>>> If the lighting is okay today, I might take a few new photos of a couple of my products and upload them to Etsy
I really should get all of that washing done whilst the weather is okay >>>> it would be good if I did some washing this week as the basket is getting pretty full. I might do a load tomorrow and hang it out in the sunshine
You’ll notice that I’ve been more gentle and kind with my expectations too as another way of putting less pressure on myself. This is a big part of being more self compassionate which is what our wonderful therapy group is all about.
I hope you’ve found this blog post interesting and helpful. Maybe it’s made you think about the expectations you set and how you might re-frame your thoughts. Perhaps over the next week, you might notice yourself using ‘I must…’, ‘I need to…’ and ‘I should…’ a lot and you might try to be more mindful of what you say or think. It would be great if you let me know in the comments, but remember, you don’t ‘need to’ or ‘have to’, you just might like to or want to!
The finished pot, ready to be air dried and then fired in the kiln in about one week’s time
At the beginning of the month, I started a ceramics for beginners class. Working with clay is something I’ve been wanting to try for a while and I was so excited to find a fully funded course where I could develop the basic skills, have fun working on some exciting projects and meet some lovely people who enjoy getting creative.
Following on from week one which was our enrolment, paperwork and getting to know you session, we spent the second session learning the skills involved in creating a pinch pot, making spirals and using a press to form tiles. This week, we actually got to make a finished product that we could put in the kiln and then glaze. I decided to try my hand at making a small plant pot to put a potted succulent inside.
In order to make a nice and even pot, I decided to create a circular base and build up coils around the circumference. The previous week we’d learnt the score and slip technique which is used to join pieces of clay together. Click here to see a great tutorial I found online which shows this technique in action to make a simple clay pot.
The photograph below shows the circular piece which I created with a pastry cutter and the first rolled length of clay for the sides. After making these pieces, I then score lines around the edge of the base and along the thin roll of clay for my first layer. After the scoring, you dip your clay covered fingers in water and wet both pieces. The two pieces of clay are then pushed together. This creates a good join.
Scoring lines made using a plastic modelling tool
After making and adding each coil of clay, I blended them in to the base using my fingers to create smooth sides. This took me a long time but I was determined to get a good looking pot by the end of the three hour lesson!
Two coils of clay smoothed into the base to build up the sides
Four coils blended
By the time I’d made four thin sausages of clay of the same width, scored and slipped each and blended them, I’d had enough of that technique and decided it was time to have some fun with adding texture. used a jewelled strip, wrapped it around gently pressed it in. I repeated this several times until I was happy with the effect.
Attaching a jewelled strip around the outside
Finally, I created further texture around rim of the pot using a piece of metal dowel to make small dimples and added a trio of little feet (which I made prior to constructing the pot) to the design.
With added texture and some small feet added using the score and slip technique
And here’s my finished pot, ready to be left to air dry before going in the kiln. I’m quite pleased with the results as it’s the first pot I’ve ever made. I’m looking forward to glazing it in a few week’s time and just need to decide on a colour.
My finished pot!
Have you ever had a go at making anything with clay? If so, what did you make and did you enjoy it? I found it to be a wonderful and relaxing experience. I only used half of the clay that I was given for the session so the tutor wrapped some up in cling film for me to use at home. I’ve just ordered some modelling tools and I have plenty mark making craft materials in my stash to experiment with.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my ceramic pot making experiences. Watch this space to see how it looks when it’s been glazed and re-fired. Hopefully I’ll be able to find the perfect potted succulent that fits inside.
