bullet journalling – sophie counts clouds

Hello!

Christmas is a time full of love, thankfulness and gifts. I wasn’t sure about writing this post but looking at the gifts I got this year and the ones I have chosen to include, this isn’t a list of me showing off how much money my family spent on me and I think the controversy around these posts are kind of centred around that. Assuming people that write these posts are in the same mindset as me, these posts aren’t boasting about anything – I just want to share some of the wonderful, thoughtful gifts I got, take some pretty pictures and show thanks to those who went to the trouble of buying me a gift.

So with that in mind, let’s get into what I got for Christmas this year!

Long story short, I have a collection of cactuses and plants (some real, some felt) and I’ve named them all David – David I is a felt plant from Tiger, David II is a real succulent that I always forget to water, David III is a DIY cushion that I never made, David IV is an Ikea toy, David V, VI and VII are a set of three plants from Ikea and this, is David VIII. I love my little collection and I love that these coasters can be arranged in whatever fashion I like, I think it’s so fun. My mum has a way of finding the weirdest and most amazing little gifts.

It’s only within the last six months of the year that I’ve really got in to any kind of gaming. I’m still completely head over heels obsessed with Overwatch and the depth to which the creators go with the characters and their story arcs. The basic story about this character, Bastion, is that he’s a kind of robot built to fight in a war – the one in the game gets lost and finds a bird in the woods who becomes his friends. Ganymede, the bird, teaches him about love and friendship and the robot essentially becomes sentient. So this is a Ganymede toy and the box is shaped like Bastion’s head and it’s really cute.

I don’t know if I’ve done the game any justice in my description but if you want to add me on X-Box my handle is ‘sophieislame’.

To be honest, I was really awful whenever my mum asked me what I wanted for Christmas because there really wasn’t anything I wanted this year. But she did offer to take me to Long Tall Sally so I picked up this gorgeous loose turtle neck jumper in grey and my new favourite yellow jumper. I’m really into yellow right now and the fact that the sleeves are long enough that I can actually wear it properly make me unreasonably happy. Also it’s like wearing a hug it’s the softest thing I have worn in a very long time.

I don’t know if there’s much to be said but wow I’ve got a lot of food this year, like a lot. I’ve eaten so badly.

Also shout out to the honey roast ham my mum made because oh my god I’m salivating thinking about it.

It could be said that I’m somewhat of a stationery nerd – I have a rather large collection of pens and, my oh my, did my family build on this – my mum bought me two different sets of pens and a cute little elephant pencil case with stencils for my bullet journal (I’m actually dead excited to start putting these to use!) and my sister bought me a book on fancy lettering and brush pens to go with it! I’m so excited to learn about writing all fancy and making my bullet journal just that little bit more beautiful. It’s going to be stunning.

Now I don’t think it would be a ‘what I got for Christmas post’ if I didn’t include what my gorgeous boyfriend got for me this year – he’s truly spoiled me, pre-ordering the new Fall Out Boy album, a ‘merch voucher’ for when we see them in January, a Hufflepuff scarf (that I’ve wanted for so long) and amongst other things, this frame – that makes absolutely no sense out of context. Here’s the context – two of my favourite albums of all time are ‘Save Rock and Roll’, Fall Out Boy, and ‘This Is War’, Thirty Seconds to Mars, (let’s leave all opinions to one side please and thank you) and I’ve been saying for ages that when we have a permanent space I want to get them properly framed and hang them in an office space. So Lucas bought me new copies of both albums so I could cut them up or whatever if I needed to and then drew this wonderful interpretation and stuck fairy lights on the frame. I actually adore it, I think it’s really cute and I’m excited to have it in years to come.

This post ended up being way longer than I thought it would, but tell me all about what you got for Christmas in the comments! I feel like the memories that come with the presents are the best bit and that’s what I want to savour.

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

Hello!

I spent so long at the beginning of the year looking for the perfect diary – having a weekly to do list is really important to me and I couldn’t find a diary where I could make the use of daily planning and having a notes page for a weekly to do list. I was willing to pay a bit more money for a personally designed diary but I just couldn’t find what I wanted.

But I knew about bullet journalling and I knew it was a very adaptable option, but I also know that it takes a lot of effort to start one up. Then I actually looked into it – it really isn’t that much work at all and you can take the aspects that work for you to basically design your own diary as you go along, so this is what I did.

Just a quick disclaimer: I’m not any good at calligraphy or typography so my bullet journal isn’t as pretty as a lot of people who are very good at drawing pretty letters. I’m working on it.

I use a future log, which isn’t massively full yet because I haven’t gone back to uni for this semester so I don’t know what I have planned for the rest of the year, but when I get all my assignments for the next four months I think it’ll full up because I can make actual plans.

I then wrote all of my monthly logs in one place so I can see all my deadlines and when they’re due so again, then last few logs are completely blank but I’ll definitely fill these in a lot when I go back to uni. For sure.

Then I get on to the ‘diary’ side of the bullet journal – I basically have the date, a to do list for the day including work or any appointments I have, then random lists that I reference back to my index at the beginning.

I’ve included my New Years Resolutions, a weekly to do list amongst the daily lists and I have a ‘wish list’ of things I want to buy but can’t afford right now.

I also have a spread for my four weeks of fitness that I’m currently planning and I accidentally skipped a double page spread before I wrote that out so I’m doing a little doodle on that page and sticking in a cute postcard I picked up before the summer. I love that a bullet journal is so free and I can do that spread if I want to.

Already I’m learning about little things that I’d do differently when I move on to a new journal – I wouldn’t put all my monthly logs in one section, I’d use them as a marker at the beginning of the month and use the future log to look at my life as a whole, in a way.

Instagram is a really good place to find inspiration for how to design a journal, so if you’re thinking about starting a bullet journal, I thoroughly recommend having a browse of the various tags – I just had a browse of the ‘future log‘ tag to see if I could link to a picture to show how I’d do my future log in a new journal and I saw loads of awesome spreads there.

I also thought using a journal I already had would be a good idea because I have loads of empty notebooks and it would save me spending money on a new one, but now I totally get why people buy dotted journals that lie out completely flat – I like the journal I’ve got but it’s definitely not the best for bullet journalling. I’ve already picked a dotted journal on Amazon and put it onto my Amazon Wishlist for when I finish this journal.

But that’s the point, I’m learning and figuring out what I want to do with my journal and how to do it!

I’m going to keep watching videos and scrolling through Instagram to learn about more aspects of bullet journalling.

Let me know if you have any questions about starting out, tips for a beginner and whether you’d like a review/flip through when I’ve finished my journal in the comments!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx