A "spell-binding" theme with bubbles.
For October, I thought it'd be fun to do a spell casting type theme in my journal. Really, I wanted an excuse to incorporate bubbles in my design theme, and I decided to include other items that remind me of fictional spell casting and witchcraft.
The Design Theme
Last year before I started my blog or YouTube channel, I created a bubbly potions theme for October. I thought about re-creating it again this year, but decided I wanted to try drawing additional items that reminded me of spell casting and witchcraft.
Title
For the title page, I drew inspiration from a coloring page The Cthulhu Coloring Book: Startling Images from the Imagination of H.P. Lovecraft by Nigel Dobbyn. With Halloween coming soon, I've enjoyed coloring the pages within this book.
Based on the artwork of the coloring page, I decided to draw a spell book. Instead of including ornate decorations on the book's cover, I opted for more simple shapes I felt comfortable drawing.
The crescent moon, stars, and eyeball are a few things that come to mind when I think of witchcraft, thanks to the Hocus Pocus movie featuring the Sanderson sisters. I also added bubbles partially as an homage to last year's journal design, but mainly because I wanted bubbles throughout the pages.
I wanted to use watercolors this month, along with the usual pens and markers I use each month. I was curious to see how well watercolors worked on the pages. The higher GSM of this journal accepted the watercolors well. The pages didn't really warp much.
Even though the pages accepted the watercolors well, I still worried about accidentally using too much paint and water on the pages. To make the images "pop" a little, I outlined the images with a fine tip Sharpie marker. It created enough contrast between the white page color and the light watercolors of the images.
I used purple, red, green, gold or yellow, and blue on this and other pages. I intended to use fewer colors, but I struggle not to use all the colors of the rainbow in my journal designs for some reason. It doesn't bother me since it's for my eyes only long after this post is released.
Calendar Overview
The calendar overview is where I note important dates and tasks I want to remember to do.
The larger October calendar fills much of both pages. I note events such as birthdays, appointments, and holidays within the appropriate block that represents a day in October. During the month, I'll make a short note of something that happened, such as when my automatic garage door broke again one day this September.
In a box towards the top-left, I note things I want or need to do in October. Below that box, I have a mini-November calendar and another box I note events coming soon in November. I like being able to visually see ahead to things I may need to be aware of before those days come.
Highlights and Trackers
Every night, I write a line of text highlighting one good thing about that day on my highlights page. Usually I write about a simple thing that made me happy. Even on the worst days, I try to find a highlight to write for that day.
I originally intended to paint an open spell book at the bottom of the page. Unfortunately, some of the paint color from the bottom third of my calendar overview bled through onto my highlights page.
I eventually decided to mask the bleed through with a sheet of paper from a Spooky Vines Hot Buy paper pack. I conveniently happened to have the pack out to create some Halloween greeting cards, so the pack was within reach when I decided to use paper to mask my mistake.
In retrospect, I probably should've chosen a lighter sheet of paper, or at least not a gray-to-black gradient design. It may be hard to read anything I write with black or white ink. Then again, maybe a metallic pen would show nicely on the gradient, but I won't know until I begin writing a line a day.
On the trackers page, I note when I complete my favorite hobbies. While many journal enthusiasts track multiple habits, tracking my favorite hobbies reminds me to not forget to dedicate time for myself and happiness. The hobbies I track are:
arts + crafts,
writing, and
gaming.
My dogs' care and happiness are equally important. I track the following for my dogs:
when they go for a joy ride,
when they received teeth care with brush chews or tooth brushing,
when I've cared for their coat with a brush, leave-in shampoo, or bath, and
when they participated in extended or extra playtime.
I kept the design of the page simple with a candle, potion bottle, and bubbles.
Mood and Websites & Stuff
As always, the mood tracker page serves as a simple coloring page for me. I thought a cauldron forming bubbles was a great idea! Each night, I'll color-in a bubble that represents my overall mood for that day: good, meh, bad, or sick.
I kept my websites & stuff page simple with a few bubbles. I'll note changes and updates made to this website, my professional resume and folio website, my YouTube channel, and my Instagram account.
Next month, I may move my edu resume & folio section into its own journal or notebook. It only makes sense to do so since this journal serves as my diary and memory keeper. I should keep professional changes, updates, and notes elsewhere.
Time Well Spent?
October will be my second month keeping a time tracker. As I feared last month, there were days I didn't pay attention to or remembered how much time I spent on certain tasks. There were also a few days I forgot about my time well spent? page.
However, I thought I'd give it a try again this next month. It's nice to visually see, based on a color code I created for myself, approximately how much time I've spent on writing my blog posts, editing videos, crafting, and updating my professional resume and folio website.
Not surprising to me, I've spent a lot of time crafting every day. However, I was surprised to see how much time I've spent on editing videos and writing blog posts. I didn't think I'd spend hours doing so. Yet, I seem to spend a couple hours editing videos and twice as long writing blog posts.
At the time of recording and editing the video linked above, I forgot to create a legend of the tasks I wanted to track on this page. I'll wait until October 1st to create, since I'm not sure I want to track as many tasks as I did for September.
I kept the design simple with more bubbles, but this time I added a witch's broom. I figured a broom was best for the narrow space left on the left of the time tracker.
My Thoughts
Overall, I enjoyed drawing and painting this design theme in my journal. Like last month's design, this took hours to finish.
The biggest challenge I faced was painting the bubbles and potion bottles. I don't yet know how to color transparent items. I know other colors are often reflected on such surfaces, so I incorporated a mix of colors when painting the bubbles and potion bottles.
What's Next?
I'm in the Halloween mood, so I've been working on some fun crafts. I'll share a few of those with you over the next few weeks, including some greeting cards and charms I'm making.
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Thanks, and have a great day!
Simply Jelly Jam
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