Bullet Journal: Next 4 Pages

My Bullet Journal journey continues...

I'm a complete numpty at saying "oh yeah, sometime" or letting things and opportunities constantly pass me by.  This page is dedicated to me stopping that and starting to say yes. It could be simple little things as going for coffee with a friend, to new events to push myself to get out there more.  Everything that pops up lately I'm going to add to this page and use it as encouragement to tick off.

Another day, another bucket list.

This one is dedicated to our new area, after moving. Donegal is famous for lots of things, one of those being the scenic views which I tried to tie in with the design for the bubble in the middle of the page. 

We're in a totally new area and that means lots of things to tick off while we're here from little things like trying the local drink (what even is Football Special) to climbing the biggest mountain in the area.

This page, I absolutely love after spotting similar posts on Pinterest. My old school dodgy tvs are where I keep track of the series I'm currently watching and what episodes I'm on. Simple yet very effective. 

One of my favorite pages is my read tracker. I've set a goal for the year to read a minimum 20 books to get back into my passion and I love the idea of keeping the name and author of the book to look back on and even re-read. I added in little book quotes on the open book page such as the classic Dr.Seus 'you can find magic wherever you look, sit back and relax all you need is a book'.

I'll be honest I haven't had a lot of time to be creative and add new pages lately, starting new classes and lots of assignments on day one its been very hectic but hopefully, when I settle down I'll get back to my perfectly organized colored pens. 

Bullet Journal: Next 5 Pages

I recently started my own Bullet Journal and shared some of my creative pages and want to continue sharing as I expand the book. 

Every journal I've seen so far have a monthly layout and I had planned on not doing one as I do have a separate diary but as I said I am a list girl and there are extra bits and bobs each month that I like to keep organized and this is the perfect place for them. I kept this page really simple black and white with lots of different fonts to have it more organized and not too much color distracting me from tasks to do. I also added in a little monthly inspiration quote. 

My positive year is continuing with my Happy page filled with things that make me happy in simple everyday life such as cuddles with my dog or soup when I'm sick. It's a very simple page to add but writing a little piece of positivity in your life really makes a difference.

And again continuing on my positive pages are a list of all my favorite things. We all have that embarrassing diary we made when we were 10 and High School Musical and Hannah Montana were our favorites and I picture looking back on this one to see what some of my favorites were. I kept it simple again with blue and blank font for the little quote and then writing my favorites in red.

A really cute idea I saw to keep track of birthdays are this year diagram where you can clearly see who is in each month and when you have to prepare that gift.

A lunar calendar was something incredibly beautiful I came across and thought it was a lovely page to add as I believe in the phases of the moon cycle and having a page dedicated to it and the meaning of the moon stages is interesting for me and looks beautiful (although my drawings are terrible).  

Can't wait to create more pages soon and update you here. 

Biting the Bullet and Bullet Journaling

Like us all, I've seen the countless beautifully written Bullet Journal pages all over Pinterest and thought in awe how skilled people are. I never imagined starting one myself because I can just about draw a stickman and thought I wouldn't be able to make mine look as amazing as they are 'suppose' to be.
Then I received an amazing journal.

 I got inspiration for making this book my little escape in my spare time with my colors and just be creative and be me. I'm a list girl and schedule everything I possibly can, so keeping all my thoughts, lists, goals and notes together in one book in a creative way is my idea of a day well spent.
I've scoured Pinterest and Instagram for inspiration and ideas for pages and have planned out some of my favorites, all in three days back to back I drew, colored and wrote for hours on end and had the most inspirational and motivating start to the year. Here are my pages so far...

I had to start the book with a celebration of the new year, my plan was for a black background with lots of colored fireworks. It somewhat worked and then I decided I would write some of my little hopes and goals for the year, things I want to accomplish that I have been talking about for years and things I want to continue doing that makes me happy. 

On the inside cover page, I've been writing down ideas for pages to keep track. 

We have been talking about traveling and trying to save the bit we can for over a year but after Rich got me the travel fund money box seen in my birthday post we have finally set in stone this is it we are putting away money to live our lives exploring instead of wasting pennies on silly possessions. So our goal is to put away €2 every day each which will be €728 each, not a bad headstart at an adventure. I found this little money jar drawing to keep track of our total and think its so fun to watch the color filling up.

Anyone who knows me knows I'm a total book nerd but lately, I've been in a totally reading rut (after reading a not so great series which consisted of three books that took me six months to read, normally it would take me two weeks it was so antagonizing to read each day) but I am determined to get back into reading some amazing pieces that I have seen recommend a lot and have on my TBR list for a year.
Being a book nerd, I loved this little bookshelf drawing to keep track of the books I want to read.

 As I've said about 100 times so far, we want to travel and I saw a great idea of a color in map of places you've been and I decided to do our home country of Ireland and fill in all the places we've been so far, lots to explore yet.

I added in a nice little travel quote at the end for that extra inspiration. 

I'm constantly wanting to learn new things ( I may lose interest after a day though) and there are so many things that I have been dreaming about for years, nows the time to stop dreaming and actually learn.

I have a lot of blank space here to fill up with more and more of my crazy ideas of things to learn.

This 'year in pixels' was a really interesting one for me after seeing peoples 2017 being shared on New Years Day I thought it was amazing to look back and see how you felt on each day of the year. I am to try and make this a positive year and not have many of the same days, unless they're all amazing.

After two months off college (due to being out on placement) I am actually so excited to get back into study and lucky for me (much sarcasm) I have my exams coming up in January (they really know how to let you have a nice Christmas) and I've been waiting to make a study plan for weeks, until now. I like to add this kind of thing into my journal to look back on in a few years and see the subjects I did. 

The blank page beside is where I will write in my timetable for the next two semesters. As I will be going back into first year to do modules I missed (long story, I got direct entry into 2nd year) and then back into continuing on my second-year modules I need some form of organization to know where I'm at. 

This is by far my favorite page, mainly because it actually turned out quite well and they actually look like polaroids which is a shock (refer to my stickman statement). I like the idea of writing memories down in short word sentences instead of just pictures. 

I, of course, have a sampling page at the back of the book to write out some of my favorite fonts to use throughout the book.

I am so excited to continue on my bullet journal adventure and be more creative each day for the next year and onwards.

Do you bullet journal? what are some of your must-have pieces in your journal? 

Notebook Hoarding and What I use them for

Notebook Hoarding is a thing, right? I'm not the only crazy person that has a selection of notebooks each for their own occasion.

I've been giving quite a few lovely notebooks over the years (pretty much all HP) and have always put them aside because I wanted to use them for something special and specific to each notebook, as I'm a reoccurring giver upper and have lots of started stories, diaries, poems, etc and then not knowing what to do with the rest of the book.
After my birthday and Christmas and another seven books to the collection I knew it was time to get my creative cap on and use these beauties. So after lots of researching of many ideas to use notebooks, these are some of what I use mine for...

Since meeting my boyfriend who is Latvian I have wanted to learn his language and culture and soon as we moved in I started planning how he would teach me some of the basics. My goal is to be able to speak to his grandmother when I meet her in Latvia sometime soon. I selected one of my little Gryffindor notebooks so its handy to carry around in a pocket if I ever need to refer to it.

 

Next up the cutest little idea for a notebook, is a Mutual Love Note Book. In this day and age (god I'm old) there aren't many love letters or even spreading love and I think is an amazing idea to have a mutual book between you and your partner where you leave little notes for each other at random times. And it's a great thing to look back at after many years. I again used one of the little Gryffindor books, this time I'll save you reading the soppy message though. 

When I received this amazing Quibbler notebook I knew I wanted to keep it for travel adventures. I've said countless times I want to travel to many countries and I think its amazing idea to keep a journal of the adventures together, filled with stories, tickets, and photos. Although traveling to other countries isn't financially  possible for us right now, we are seeing as much as we can off our own country and I wanted to keep a list of all the places we have been, so I've split it up into counties and listed all the museums, towns scenic places, and everything else we've seen in each place. I'm keeping this book specifically for lists of places we've been, I will make another book for them travel adventure stories.

I received this incredibly beautiful diary for Christmas and fell in love. Any Harry Potter fans will agree with me here that it looks like a magical spell book and I just love the whole bohemian dark vibrant colors. Obviously, I will use this as a diary, but I plan for it to be a daily positive diary. The spaces for each day are huge so there's lots of room to write about whats been good, fun, and amazing that day and I plan to make my day count and have lots to write about.

Lastly, is my favorite, this incredible Hogwarts Journal. Like many of us, I have seen Bullet Journals all over Instagram and Pinterest and I plan for this book to be my creative space for lists, notes, and drawing. Lots more to follow with updated Bullet Journal pages. 

I know there will be lots of more notebooks to come, and lots more ideas.

Do you use notebooks for specific things and if so what are some of the things you use them for?

Mini Exploding Photo Box

I think everyone knows about exploding photo boxes at this stage, right? 

If not their pretty self-explanatory, super easy to make and really make thoughtful little gifts.

Instead of giving a typical photo frame of some photos of us for a birthday gift I wanted to make something and when I first saw the idea I knew I had to do it. The thing with these is there is no right or wrong way, it's totally up to you and you can add in as many photos, quotes, tokens, etc. 

The main basis is to start with a cross shaped piece of card and then layer and layer all types of different colored cards or papers on each side of the cross to build up the flaps. 

I wanted to make each side a different kind of topic but in the end, some were mixed up as I had too many photos I wanted to include, but that's whats good about this project is going with the flow and making it however you want. 

For this project, I wanted to show you through videos as it is an interactive one and can be seen better through the videos, please don't mind the background music, I mean who doesn't love Little Mix.

I'll start off with my favourite one, one I dedicated to our adventures and exploring things together..

The next two are both mixed selection of photos but just to show some recycled birthday/Christmas cards I used as tabs aswell. 

Lastly is the interaction page with little pull out tabs and notes.. 

Our Adventure Book: The Cork Page's

As seen from my recent post, Cork was a big adventure for us and we took the time we had there and used it to the max, so that leaves us with more memories to add to Our Adventure Book. 

The first thing on this page is a list of all the towns we passed through on the way home as it was something I did as a kid on holiday's, just a great little memory and fun to collect and say you've been in a lot of places. 

I also made a little pouch for some odd receipts we collected along the way, such as dinner receipts and even petrol. I thought of the idea of the pouch as a way to keep them neater looking and can also pull them out and have a look at. 

 

The Jail page as I like to call it is one of my favorites as the map reminds me of the Maurders Map in HP. I used the map from the tour as the background for this page and kept it simple by just adding in our tickets. I may possibly add in some of the photos we took there at a later date, I don't want it looking too cluttered though.

I take it back, THIS is my favorite. I've had this little wooden frames for ages and been waiting for the perfect moment to use them. I thought with the fancy castle we visited its the perfect occasion to be fancy and use some cute little portraits from our day there and added some strips of floral paper for an added decoration.

Make sure to read my blog post on this adventure for all the stories behind these photos.
https://misstblogs.blogspot.ie/2017/08/cork-adventure.html

Flower Braid Hair

I'm all about being unique and unusual if that's what is you and when I got my side shave I finally felt like 'yup this is the real me'. I just love the BoHo look to the side shave and its uniqueness and after starting to grow it out I decided I would let it continue growing for awhile and see what my next hair adventure would be. Now anyone who has had a side shave or undercut knows how crazily annoying and difficult it is to grow out (picture puffy short hair in all directions on just one side of your head).

It has taken months to even be able to have some control over the hair that is growing out and I'm at the stage where I can start to sort it out into something a little less, well, "shit what happened to your head?".

Now I am no hair expert, that is more than safe to say, and have no skill with doing hair at all. But I have always wanted to be able to do little daily styles that are cute and just less, hair-sitting-on-head-looking-like-nothing, ya know? So I sat down and was determined to make my short growing back hair into little plaits kinda like cornrows (but nowhere near as good). I'll be honest, I don't even know how many times I tried this and how long it took me but I am somewhat happy with the result.

Not at all how I was imagining it to look, but hey not to bad right? 

So seeing the result let me start to see it as a Bohemian look and thought "hey haven't I got little hair flower things somewhere?" and behold another step to the amazing hair tutorial... 

Quite alright don't ya think? I was pretty chuffed with how it turned out and thought it was a cute little hairstyle showing my personality (and also hiding the dodgy side shave). 

Now I can tell you this, I am not able to recreate this look, this was a once off on the day I was actually able to make a hairstyle seem a bit more than like a 5 year old did it, but perhaps it might inspire some of the greats out there (let me know if it does because man I gotta see that).

BoHo Bedroom Look

With the change of finding myself again I've gone back to my roots and made my bedroom have that earthy, BoHo look which is how I feel most at home with the smell of intense in the air and the dark earthy colors.





What started off the whole BoHo look was finding this gorgeous necklace a friend of mine brought from Kurdistan for me. Now the photo doesn't do justice to the deep dark ruby and colorful jewels but believe me it is stunning and I had the idea to place it over my lampshade to give a statement look to the dark purple of it. I also placed a flower crown I made over it because why not more colors.

Next is my desk which is mainly candles and little sentiments of pictures and quotes I've been given. I added a dark blue shawl with gold stars under neath which really brings it all together. Including dark candles and odd candle holders really gives off the BoHo vibe. 

My favorite part of my room is my little corner shelf that is dedicated to relaxation and calmness. It's where I keep my incense, tarot cards, candles and beautiful mandala pictures my mum made. I got these amazingly cute BoHo candle holders in Penny's a few years ago but they can't actually withstand heat so i don't use them, but they still look so rustic and adding some old flowers that have dried up really makes it all fit together. 

Old School Mix Tapes

My good friend Pinterest yet again has come to my aid and given me a fantastic gift idea. A brown paper bag tied up with string, filled with a few of their favorite things (that song will be in your head for the rest of the day now, your welcome).

It was recently our first anniversary together and I decided this gift was the best to give himself to show I pay attention to his favorite things. Although most of the items were his favorite foods, I went a bit extra going old school with some mix tapes (okay technically mix cds).

Such an easy gift to make and personally I think its special as its unique to the specific person.