hey friends elizabeth here from plant based bride back again with another video and today
is day five of plant mess i can't believe we're almost halfway through the videos and today i
am super excited to be doing my very first monthly setup in my new bullet journal for 2022 this is my
january setup and i've gone with a polar bear inspired theme as always all of the supplies
i'm using in this video will be linked in the description box down below so check that out
if you're looking for any supplies in particular and of course i will be sharing many facts about
polar bears in this video stay tuned till the end of the video for yet another plant miss giveaway
starting with the cover page as always and today i decided to do a full page cover page and a
full page quote as i mentioned this is a polar bear inspired theme and i really wanted it to
be polar bears out on a snowy night i've decided to create two polar bears a mama bear and her cub
and do a couple paintings of them in the snow on a clear night so i'm starting by painting
the background a nice dark blue i actually pulled out every blue paint that i own before i started
doing this because i thought i was gonna mix so many different blues together and i ended
up basically only using one blue and my white for all of the paintings which is awesome for
anyone who wants to recreate these you don't have to buy a bunch of supplies but i surprised myself
that i didn't end up dipping into all of my other shades of blue paint so the blue paint that i used
was from windsor and newton's cotman watercolor line and it's the prussian blue last time i used
it i apparently mispronounced prussian and i got a lot of comments telling me that i said it wrong
so hopefully this time i said it right you can let me know in the comments i'm sure you will
so using prussian blue with a little bit of water i'm creating a nice dark background and i'm not
too worried about it being super consistent or uniform i kind of like the variation
in color i think it's more interesting once that first layer is dry i'm going in to add
a little bit more variation to the sky on this first painting so i'm mixing some zinc white
into the prussian blue to get a lighter shade and creating a round area that is going to gradually
fade out into the darkness of the sky that gradual gradient effect that i'm getting just by mixing
different amounts of white and blue together the center of this light area will have the moon in it
i just wanted it to look like the moon was so bright that it was lighting up the sky around it
letting that area dry and i'm starting to work on the bottom section of the painting this is
going to be a mound of snow that the polar bears are sitting on so again i'm working with a bit of
a gradient effect from dark to light dark at the bottom that's furthest away from the light of the
moon and then it gets lighter near the top where the polar bears and the snow they're sitting on
are lit more directly by that bright moonlight i'm working in pretty thick layers here so i needed to
leave that to dry for a little while and i decided to switch over to the other side which is going to
be the first of two quote pages for this setup and i decided to quote aristotle for this setup
so the quote i'm using is to appreciate the beauty of a snowflake it is necessary to stand out in the
cold i thought that was a beautiful sentiment i thought it really fit with this theme the
idea of a really frigid arctic night with lots of snowfall but it's also a great metaphor for life
just the idea that sometimes the most difficult trials in life can lead to the most wonderful
rewards and i feel like this quote is just so representative of that phenomenon and also just
a reminder that sometimes if you're going through something hard there is going to be something
so worthwhile on the other end i'm using a white acrylograph with the 0.7 millimeter
nib to write out this quote and once i'm done with that switching back over to the cover page
where i'm starting to add some trees i'm using my very basic messy tree painting technique which is
draw a vertical line for the trunk and then a bunch of horizontal messy lines for branches
very straightforward and yet effective i kind of liked how the wet brush with my white
paint started to activate the blue underneath so that the trees had a bit of a blue tinge to them
i feel like this is pretty accurate to how everything white looks in a very snowy landscape
everything has that little bit of a cool blue tinge to it so i didn't worry about that too much
and then i grabbed my circle template and my white acrylic graph to create the crescent
moon while polar bears likely evolved between 300 to 500 000 years ago the polar bear didn't
receive its latin name until 1774. ursus maritimas refers to the animal's close association with the
arctic's chilly waters and sea ice now it's time to fill in my bears that i sketched in pencil so
i'm doing quite a few layers just to build them up to be as white as possible again painting on
this dark background is activating it and turning the white paint blue which you could avoid if you
wanted to by leaving those shapes clear of any paint but i didn't mind doing several layers to
make sure that they were nice and bright home to two-thirds of the world's polar bears arctic and
sub-arctic canada has many indigenous cultures and peoples that have co-existed with polar bears for
thousands of years these indigenous groups include inuit danae cree and metis among others of course
indigenous people in the north have had their own names for polar bears in many languages and
dialects for thousands of years the inuit name for polar bears is nanook adult polar bears can
weigh as much as 590 kilograms or 1300 pounds and stand over 3 meters or 10 feet tall when standing
on their hind legs researchers in canada estimated one male bear at 800 kilograms or 1700 pounds i
also wrote january across the bottom again with my white acrylograph and went in with a small
flat brush with white with a tiniest bit of blue mixed in to create shadows on the bears so this is
just the slightest tinge of blue to add a little bit more dimension to the bears to make them look
more three-dimensional and i'm also using a secure micron to add in the little details of their noses
their eyes and the little hole in their ear using some craft paper to protect my desk i'm
flicking white paint all over these paintings to create a snow effect and i decided to cover my
lettering and my bears for the first splattering just to make sure i didn't get too much snow that
would cover up any details of the words or of my bears and then went in more carefully to add snow
in that area i left those paintings to dry overnight and then removed the washi tape
for those super crisp lines and flipping the page over to get started on my calendar spread
female polar bears typically have a litter every three years starting at age five newborns weigh
little more than half a kilogram or one pound and are around 30 centimeters long or 12 inches
when born they're blind toothless and covered with soft short fur polar bears live in 19 populations
across the arctic region of the circumpolar north about 60 percent of the polar bear population
in the world live within or are shared by canada polar bears are also found in alaska russia
greenland and norway in the arctic temperatures can plunge colder than negative 40 degrees celsius
or negative 50 degrees fahrenheit and stay that way for days or weeks at a time but luckily polar
bears are built for these conditions polar bears have two layers of fur that prevent almost all
heat loss in addition to their fur they have a thick layer of fat which keeps them warm in the
waters since wet fur is a poor insulator their fat and fur keeps them so warm that adults can quickly
overheat when they run that's why they typically walk at a slow pace this month i decided to go
back to my round habit trackers and i love that i can divide these circles in different amounts
depending on the habit and how often i want to do it each day that i complete one of these habits
i fill in a little piece of that ring in the hopes that i can fill the ring in completely
by the end of the month this month i decided to track filling my rings on my apple watch
doing my morning routine and my evening routine taking a day off every week and also finding joy
every day making sure that i take a moment every day to stop and find joy in something or someone
even though polar bears move slowly they can travel more than 1 000 kilometers in
a single season polar bears have huge paws as big as dinner plates which allow them to
spread out their weight over a larger area which means that they won't break through thin ice their
four paws act like large paddles when they're swimming and their hind paws serve as rudders
they also have black foot pads on the bottom of each paw that are covered by small
soft bumps known as papillae the papillae grip the ice and keep the bear from slipping
they also have cuffs of fur between their toes and foot pads to help with warmth
today i learned that my cat chewie is a polar bear because he also has tufts of fur between his toes
i'm cutting tabs for my weeklies yet again for anyone who might want to cut tabs in their own
bullet journal i cut the edge of these pages two spaces in from the edge or along the third
column of dots from the edge and for the tabs themselves the diagonal sections are two by two
spaces and the long edge is four spaces tall polar bears claws are thick curved sharp and strong
measuring more than five centimeters or about two inches long polar bears use their claws to hunt
and to gain traction on the ice polar bears have small and round ears and short compact tails to
prevent heat loss polar bears sleep around seven to eight hours at a time and they also take naps
in winter polar bears sleep in shallow pits they dig in the snow putting their sides or backs to
the wind they can sleep right through blizzards letting the snow pile up on top of them like an
insulating blanket in the summer polar bears curl up on the sea ice sometimes using a block of ice
or a paw as a pillow polar bears communicate with each other through body language vocalizations and
scent markings polar bears wag their heads side to side when they want to play and greet each other
by touching their noses together polar bears also make a few sounds like chuffing which is
a vocal response to stress hissing and snorting when they're feeling aggressive loud roars or
growls when they're angry and deep low growls as a warning i'm painting my tabs using a nice
gradient of blues again mixing different amounts of zinc white with my prussian blue and using
my scrap paper from cutting my tabs as a backdrop to make sure i don't get any paint on other pages
and using washi tape for a clean edge as you can see i also cut the top of the pages here
to create a little bit of a window i wanted to be able to see little slivers of a snowy night sky
along the top of my weeklies no matter which page i was on this is something i tried for the first
time in my november setup and i really enjoyed it so i've been playing with this idea ever since
there are an estimated 26 000 polar bears left worldwide and without action on climate change
we could lose all but a few polar bear populations by the end of this century polar bears rely on sea
ice to hunt breed rome and sometimes to den but the arctic is warming and ice is melting
due to human-caused climate change already in parts of the arctic longer ice-free seasons and
longer fasting periods have led to a decline in some polar bear populations including the
western hudson bay population in canada where the polar bear population has dropped by 30 percent
since the 1980s research shows that without action to greatly reduce carbon emissions and
stabilize our climate we could lose all but a few polar bear populations by the end of this century
now it's time for the final spread in this setup and i'm starting by creating a nice dark blue
background yet again for my second quote page i decided to go with something super simple
and to the point snow is magic maybe it's just me but growing up in canada i have always adored
the snow and it always has such a magical feel to it the first day that you wake up and there's a
blanket of snow over everything it's like you woke up in a brand new world like you've been
transported to narnia or something and i've always loved the cold crisp air of a winter morning and
the feeling of a snowflake falling onto your nose and melting there i'm just a canadian through and
through i guess is what i'm saying for my final painting of the bear mama and her cub
i'm painting them walking away across the ice with the baby riding on her mom's back i always think
it's so adorable when i see videos or pictures of cubs riding their mom's backs they just look
so cozy and adorable and i love it i'm creating the ice by using zinc white to streak the paint
across horizontally and letting those darker areas where the paint is being reactivated underneath
shine through to give an indication of that deep blue ice where you can kind of see that there is
water underneath and a little bit of snow on top that sort of slightly transparent icy look as for
the bears i'm starting off by trying to get them as white as possible on this first layer and i'm
going to let that completely dry and go back in to finish off making them completely white i'm also
flicking my white paint all over the page to get my snow effect including my tabs because i thought
it would be really fun if the tabs themselves also had snowflakes if you enjoyed today's polar bear
facts leave a bear or snow related emoji in the comments down below before i finish off that final
painting i want to set up my weekly spreads and of course i'm using my rolling weekly yet again
who is surprised not me if you don't know anything about the rolling weekly and you would like to
i'll link my video that explains it in detail in the cards and in the description box down below
setting up each day of my weekly as well as the weekly task list keeping my weekly super simple as
always and that's why i really like this cutaway effect where i can see some sort of color some
sort of design element along the sides from the tabs and also from the cutaway so that even though
my weeklies are super simple and really fast to set up they still have some aspect of the theme
shining through now it's time to finish off this final painting by going over the polar bear
and her cub to get as even of a white effect as possible for their fur this reminds me of another
fun fact which is that polar bear fur actually isn't white it just looks white each hair shaft
is pigment free and transparent with a hollow core that scatters and reflects visible light
super cool once i have my bears completely white i'm going in with white mixed with a tiny tiny bit
of dried black paint that was on my palette just to make a bit of a gray shade to create shadows
and that's it for this setup so i'll do a flip through of all of the spreads here i love
how looking at these paintings really makes me feel cold like i'm out on a cold winter
night and i just love the polar bears so much i think i'm biased because i grew up with a mom who
loves polar bears and we had so much polar bear art in our house growing up and feeling
some sort of an affinity for polar bears since the majority of the polar bear population in the world
live in northern canada i'm so excited to move into my new bullet journal in a couple weeks
even though i'll be sad to move out of my last one which reminds me tomorrow's plantless video
is a full flip through of my bullet journal i've used for the last six months so check that out
if you want to see what all my spreads look like when they're fully filled in and messy
for today's plant miss giveaway i am giving one lucky winner my b5 sunrise cloth notebook from my
collaboration with archer and olive this is the notebook i used for the last six months
and it is my favorite of my whole collaboration was also all of your favorites selling out the
fastest of any notebook and i know a lot of people didn't manage to get one so i'm very excited to be
able to send one of my personal extra notebooks out to one of you to enjoy the rules are very
simple so check out the description box to see all of those make sure you follow them carefully
because i hate having to disqualify someone from winning because they didn't follow the rules
thank you as always to my patrons for your support if you want to join us feel free there's a link in
the card and in the description box down below and with that i'm gonna get going thank you so
much for watching this video i hope you enjoyed it thank you for joining me through the first
five days of plantmas and i'll see you very soon tomorrow for plantmas day six bye friends
you