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razielimSo I somehow ended up with a bit of a junk journal on my hands.
I made no conscious decision to transition to one, but transition I did. Just in general, whereas my planner always put functionality first, these days, functionality is a far second to design. I used to have to need "catch up" days because I'd fill out weeks/days but forget months, or some other combination, but now I need "set up" days to decorate things at least partially ahead of time because I deadass won't use a page that hasn't been decorated yet and it's a pain to catch up after not recording anything anywhere for even just a few days.
The functionality of my planner has been reduced to three (rarely four bc it doesn't look as good) bullet points per day plus a few habit trackers. I started off with three check boxes, but recently I don't even plan ahead that I need to do A, B, and C, I just record what I have definitely 100% done because there's just no room to cross things out and replace them lol.
(Not planning ahead anymore will definitely come back to bite me in the ass at some point.)
I still leave blank pages occasionally in case I want to actually journal again, but so far, it's been like pulling teeth. I just don't want to journal anymore! The like brief scraps of paper showing through between stickers, washi, stamps, vellum, is more than enough to keep me happy with quick notes or quotes or affirmations.
What's it like to decorate like this? It's uhhhhh.... A LOT of trial and error. And not like "put down and rip back off" but dead-ass, one week feels like a success, the nest week might be a bit of a failure. It's just like painting, I guess. I assume there's an overall upward trend, but it can still be very disappointing to see a page I'm not as happy with, knowing that I can't really do anything about it - I tried a new idea and it simply didn't pan out. When I make mistakes, or something looks worse on the page than it did in my imagination, the only real option is to just keep going and hope it works out. 10% of the time, the final result of that page or area is just very disappointing, 40% of the time it's okay but looks wayyyyy overworked, 40% I fix the mistake convincingly and the whole page looks nice, 10% of the time THE WHOLE PAGE IS INCREDIBLE because fixing the mistake did something really cool I wouldn't have though of otherwise. (Completely made-up, non-scientific statistics.)
A lot of the struggle with this stuff is finding a balance between "barren/not enough/kinda blah/missing something but don't know what" and "whoa whoa whoa, I wish I'd stopped sooner because it looked better before and now it's just too much."
Vaguely, understanding that it likely would not have stopped me, I wish I had known three months ago that there would never come a time in accumulating supplies when I would feel "done." I wish I'd known I'd never feel like I had everything I needed to just keep peacefully chugging along, peacefully creating pages without wanting for anything. Because "trial and error" is not just "Argh! I wish I'd done things differently!" it's also "Oh, but if I had used something different!" Differently colored washi, larger junk papers, whatever. There is always the stamp or sticker set that I believe will fix my current issue. There's a bottomless drain in the sink of possibilities and if you're not making your own supplies, that's a pretty big financial burden. Maybe not as much as some other hobbies, but some of this stuff gets sold at a premium. Especially if you're looking for something less generic, fitting a certain aesthetic, etc.
God, I'm so lucky writing and digital painting are basically free once you've got the basic hardware/software you need. Saved myself a lot of money over the years being primarily into those two things. Not anymore, I guess, haha.
So that's my review of junk journaling. It's like meth. Not even once. And I'm not even doing a full-on junk journal, I'm just decorating every other page in a planner. Without further ado, spreads.
The first week I got my stamps in/got serious and still probably tied for my favorite. It's just... so simple. But complete.
On the one hand love it because of all the pretty stuff on it, on the other, it feels overworked. Too busy.
Kinda just... okay? It's missing some pizazz but I was hesitant to overwork it after the busy spread from the week before.
I love this one! Tied for first place! The night sky was a complete accident because I fucked up doing some swirl designs that looked way cooler in my head than on paper and had to frantically cover them up, but by the time I was done I was just blown awayyyy and did the same thing in some earlier pages. It doesn't show up on a photo, but all those "stars" glitter like crazy which makes it a joy to flip past this page.
This is one of those that started off being my new favorite page but then quickly became overworked before I could stop myself. Oh well. It was worth trying.
Eh. I tried something new, it didn't work out, and I saved it the best I could with the resources at my disposal, but I'm still meh about it. Definitely one of those pages where I was walking uphill both ways trying to make the ideas I had in my head work with the kraft paper reality of my journal.
This is one that went from simple, elegant, not too crowded to suddenly overworked. Mostly because I put those colored bars in the tracker and they overwhelmed everything, and while trying to balance it out... you know. Wish there'd een some way to undo the bars instead, but with kraft paper, I can't even use white-out without big negative consequences, haha.
This is from last week. As you can see, it's not fully filled out yet. But I think it's be a nice, okay, middle-of-the-road spread when I'm done. I tried something new that didn't work out, but I didn't get in over my head either.
The last three are all still blank, but while setting up the boxes and date stamps, I usually start to get carried away and put down some idea of what might go where and paired with what, so this is basically an idea of what the pages I haven't had a chance to overwork yet look like. So full of promise!
This one I fucked up on and didn't like how the white/grey gel pens looked for the planner boxes so I MOVED the planner to the other page and attempted to... cover up the initial boxes by making it look part of the design with a lot of washi and white "netting" sort of. Idk I was expecting a complete disaster, but I actually think it looks pretty cool!
The checkered wachi on this one is bordering on "too much" but I have a strict policy of only adding and not taking things off except to reposition. I feel like it's a better way to learn because you remember the mistakes you made better. And I might yet make it work.
I made no conscious decision to transition to one, but transition I did. Just in general, whereas my planner always put functionality first, these days, functionality is a far second to design. I used to have to need "catch up" days because I'd fill out weeks/days but forget months, or some other combination, but now I need "set up" days to decorate things at least partially ahead of time because I deadass won't use a page that hasn't been decorated yet and it's a pain to catch up after not recording anything anywhere for even just a few days.
The functionality of my planner has been reduced to three (rarely four bc it doesn't look as good) bullet points per day plus a few habit trackers. I started off with three check boxes, but recently I don't even plan ahead that I need to do A, B, and C, I just record what I have definitely 100% done because there's just no room to cross things out and replace them lol.
(Not planning ahead anymore will definitely come back to bite me in the ass at some point.)
I still leave blank pages occasionally in case I want to actually journal again, but so far, it's been like pulling teeth. I just don't want to journal anymore! The like brief scraps of paper showing through between stickers, washi, stamps, vellum, is more than enough to keep me happy with quick notes or quotes or affirmations.
What's it like to decorate like this? It's uhhhhh.... A LOT of trial and error. And not like "put down and rip back off" but dead-ass, one week feels like a success, the nest week might be a bit of a failure. It's just like painting, I guess. I assume there's an overall upward trend, but it can still be very disappointing to see a page I'm not as happy with, knowing that I can't really do anything about it - I tried a new idea and it simply didn't pan out. When I make mistakes, or something looks worse on the page than it did in my imagination, the only real option is to just keep going and hope it works out. 10% of the time, the final result of that page or area is just very disappointing, 40% of the time it's okay but looks wayyyyy overworked, 40% I fix the mistake convincingly and the whole page looks nice, 10% of the time THE WHOLE PAGE IS INCREDIBLE because fixing the mistake did something really cool I wouldn't have though of otherwise. (Completely made-up, non-scientific statistics.)
A lot of the struggle with this stuff is finding a balance between "barren/not enough/kinda blah/missing something but don't know what" and "whoa whoa whoa, I wish I'd stopped sooner because it looked better before and now it's just too much."
Vaguely, understanding that it likely would not have stopped me, I wish I had known three months ago that there would never come a time in accumulating supplies when I would feel "done." I wish I'd known I'd never feel like I had everything I needed to just keep peacefully chugging along, peacefully creating pages without wanting for anything. Because "trial and error" is not just "Argh! I wish I'd done things differently!" it's also "Oh, but if I had used something different!" Differently colored washi, larger junk papers, whatever. There is always the stamp or sticker set that I believe will fix my current issue. There's a bottomless drain in the sink of possibilities and if you're not making your own supplies, that's a pretty big financial burden. Maybe not as much as some other hobbies, but some of this stuff gets sold at a premium. Especially if you're looking for something less generic, fitting a certain aesthetic, etc.
God, I'm so lucky writing and digital painting are basically free once you've got the basic hardware/software you need. Saved myself a lot of money over the years being primarily into those two things. Not anymore, I guess, haha.
So that's my review of junk journaling. It's like meth. Not even once. And I'm not even doing a full-on junk journal, I'm just decorating every other page in a planner. Without further ado, spreads.
The first week I got my stamps in/got serious and still probably tied for my favorite. It's just... so simple. But complete.
On the one hand love it because of all the pretty stuff on it, on the other, it feels overworked. Too busy.
Kinda just... okay? It's missing some pizazz but I was hesitant to overwork it after the busy spread from the week before.
I love this one! Tied for first place! The night sky was a complete accident because I fucked up doing some swirl designs that looked way cooler in my head than on paper and had to frantically cover them up, but by the time I was done I was just blown awayyyy and did the same thing in some earlier pages. It doesn't show up on a photo, but all those "stars" glitter like crazy which makes it a joy to flip past this page.
This is one of those that started off being my new favorite page but then quickly became overworked before I could stop myself. Oh well. It was worth trying.
Eh. I tried something new, it didn't work out, and I saved it the best I could with the resources at my disposal, but I'm still meh about it. Definitely one of those pages where I was walking uphill both ways trying to make the ideas I had in my head work with the kraft paper reality of my journal.
This is one that went from simple, elegant, not too crowded to suddenly overworked. Mostly because I put those colored bars in the tracker and they overwhelmed everything, and while trying to balance it out... you know. Wish there'd een some way to undo the bars instead, but with kraft paper, I can't even use white-out without big negative consequences, haha.
This is from last week. As you can see, it's not fully filled out yet. But I think it's be a nice, okay, middle-of-the-road spread when I'm done. I tried something new that didn't work out, but I didn't get in over my head either.
The last three are all still blank, but while setting up the boxes and date stamps, I usually start to get carried away and put down some idea of what might go where and paired with what, so this is basically an idea of what the pages I haven't had a chance to overwork yet look like. So full of promise!
This one I fucked up on and didn't like how the white/grey gel pens looked for the planner boxes so I MOVED the planner to the other page and attempted to... cover up the initial boxes by making it look part of the design with a lot of washi and white "netting" sort of. Idk I was expecting a complete disaster, but I actually think it looks pretty cool!
The checkered wachi on this one is bordering on "too much" but I have a strict policy of only adding and not taking things off except to reposition. I feel like it's a better way to learn because you remember the mistakes you made better. And I might yet make it work.
no subject
Date: 2022-06-01 13:21 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-06-17 19:33 (UTC)("Fast" meaning... weeks and months, lol.)