(upbeat music)
- Hey everyone, it's Amanda, welcome back to my channel.
Who's ready to start planning
and doodling and lettering? (laughs)
I'm running out of verbs here, but you guys know the deal.
May is just around the corner
which means it's time to setup
my bullet journal for this month.
I'm really excited to get started, but before we do
I'd like to thank this week's sponsor, Storyblocks.
You guys probably know by now how much I love Storyblocks
and use them in a lot of my work.
And I'm actually going to be showing you guys
how I incorporate Storyblocks
into this bullet journal spread a bit later into the video.
But for those of you who don't know what Storyblocks is,
it's an online stock image website
where you can download all of the high quality stock images
that your heart desires.
As I mentioned I'm gonna tell you more about it
later in the video, but if you wanna try it out
you can click the link in my description box
and save $50 off an annual membership, which is amazing.
Moving onto my personal favorite part of these videos,
the part where I get to showcase
some of your recreations of my last bullet journal spread
which was for April, that was one of my favorite ones.
So I was so happy to see you guys
enjoying recreating all of the spreads.
Actually an update on that,
some of you may know, if you follow me on my Instagram,
but I had a recent scare with my external hard drive.
I plugged it in and nothing showed up
so I basically lost all of my files
and all of my videos and Final Cut Pro libraries and photos.
And the thing that I was most sad about
was that that external hard drive had a folder
filled with basically every single screenshot ever
of your recreations, but we will see,
hopefully it gets fixed, fingers crossed.
Luckily I still have the more recent screenshots,
which is what you're seeing above me right now.
If you do decide to recreate this month's
bullet journal spread, please send me a picture,
you can tag me in the photo
and the caption, @amandarachdoodles.
I have to refill up my folder
now that it's basically completely empty.
So send me those recreations
so I can fill the void in my heart. (sobbing, giggling)
Okay, no more being sad about it.
Deep breaths, we are doing positivity for May.
I think this intro has gone on long enough,
I'm going to hand you off to the voiceover now.
So for my theme this month I decided to link it
back to my April bullet journal setup
because April showers brings May flowers of course.
So I did this lavender field
with all these lavender flowers swaying in the wind.
And I feel like it ended up looking very calmy
and relaxing which is what I was going for,
because the scent of lavender
is actually meant to be really relaxing,
which I think I need in my life right now.
And the pastel lavender color really worked well,
so I'm gonna link the exact number code
of the Tombow dual brush pen that I used
in the description box below in case you're curious.
For the page next to the cover page,
I decided to do another collage
because I enjoyed the one that I did in April so much.
So of course the first place I went to
to find my images was Storyblocks.
They have over 400 000 vectors, illustrations,
photos, icons, whatever you need they have it covered
in their library.
All the content is royalty free,
so you have nothing to worry about
you can use it in both personal and commercial projects
and they are also always adding fresh new images
to the library so there's always something new to download.
To top things off you're also able to save
on millions of additional market place content
where artists take home 100% of the profits.
Artists supporting artists, that's always awesome.
So if you wanna try out Storyblocks for yourself,
be sure to click that link in the description box
to save $50 off an annual membership.
Anyways, as you can see I printed out
a bunch of the images that I chose from Storyblocks.
They're just a lot of pictures of lavender
from different angles and all different shades and whatnot.
And rather than just winging it
and cutting and gluing random pieces of paper,
I decided to sketch out my collage a little
by penciling in some geometric shapes
and that way I kind of had an idea
as to what I wanted to cut out from each image.
So here you'll see me cutting each of those out.
It took me a little bit of trial and error
to figure out which images I wanted where
and where I wanted them to all be placed.
I ended up changing it completely from my initial sketch.
But once I found a layout that I was happy with,
I marked it with a pencil and then used
my adhesive tape roller to stick the images onto the paper.
After that I erased any pencil marks
that were still showing, and then you guys know
I love to doodle on my images,
I feel like it brings everything together.
So you'll see me adding accent lines
and drawing right on the image.
And I'm just having fun with it
and seeing where my mind takes me with the collage.
These have been some of my favorite pages,
so I highly recommend trying it out,
collaging is kind of fun.
I just had to go back in with the cover page
and add a few more details
because it was looking a little bare to me,
but overall I really loved the way
that this spread turned out.
(calming music)
For my monthly log I am creating a standard calendar layout.
Usually I would put the title at the top,
but I had this idea of making the lavender fields
at the bottom so I wanted the title of May
to be at the bottom as well.
So I just pushed the whole calendar upwards.
In case you were wondering,
each box is about six by six, I believe.
I went with rounded edges on the calendar
just to switch things up a little
and used that accent color at the top
to highlight the days of the month.
I also used that exact same Tombow dual brush pen,
expect I used the smaller end to create the numbers.
And since this was a lighter color, it worked,
because it kind of got pushed into the background
rather than taking up a lot of space in the box.
And of course you guys know me,
I have to add a drop shadow to everything.
This one I decided to do a crosshatched drop shadow,
so you'll see instead of doing it solid
with the color or black, I added a bunch of diagonal lines.
And I also did that same style of drop shadow
to my YouTube growth tracker
to keep everything looking cohesive.
Now it's time to move onto the insane amount
of lavender flowers you're about to see me draw.
I think I was just really, really lusting after
doodling some flowers, because I realized that the last time
I did a floral theme was July 2017 so almost a year ago.
Which is crazy to me, because florals are always
my go-to to doodle, so I had a lot of fun doodling
these lavender flowers and they're also really
quick and easy to draw.
Which, again, I will be doing a mini doodle tutorial
coming out hopefully this weekend.
So that you guys can implement them all
into your bullet journal spread.
Something to note as well is that I'm actually switching
between two shades of Tombow dual brush pens.
You might not be able to tell the difference,
but in real life you can definitely tell
one's a little bit darker.
And that's just because I knew I was going to be
doodling a lot of lavender,
so I think the difference in color added some more depth
and interest to the overall look.
But in the end I just filled up that whole bottom portion
of the calendar with these lavender,
just to make it look like an actual lavender field.
And I don't think I have a clip of me actually doing this,
but later on I went back in and added some dots
floating all around it.
This kind of makes it look like pollen or like fairy dust
floating in the wind and it just goes really well with it.
(calming music)
So moving onto my mood tracker,
this is gonna be really interesting
because I'm gonna have to explain it really well.
(giggles) First of all I messed up the numbers
so I had to color over it with the purple
and just do it with the black fineliner.
Sorry this is out of focus, wow this is just a mess.
But anyways, you can see I'm drawing dotted lines
from every single number.
And that's because for every single day
I'm going to be drawing a different lavender sprout
and the length of the lavender sprout depends on my mood.
So if I'm in a really good mood
I'll draw a taller lavender sprout.
I'm not sure if that's a good technical term for it,
but on the flip side if I'm in a not so good mood,
I'll draw a shorter one.
So at the end of the month it'll look like
a bunch of different heights and lengths
of lavender sprouts.
Hopefully more taller than shorter.
For my habit tracker this month,
I have been testing out doing individual trackers
in a couple of the previous months
and they have been working really well for me.
But you guys know I always say that
when things are getting boring just switch things up,
it keeps you self-motivated to actually
keep up with your bullet journal
and to enjoy it and have fun doing it.
So I went back to this grid layout
where I have the days going down
and I have every single habit
that I wanna track across the top.
Each symbol represents a different habit I wanna track.
So I have a broccoli for eating health,
I have a dumbbell for working out,
and then I'll just put a dot there
whenever I do that specific habit.
Next is my expense tracker
which is another thing that I decided to switch up.
I do like splitting up my expenses between weeks
as well as splitting them up between categories,
because it's really interesting for me to see
where I'm spending my money and where I'm spending
too much money. (laughs)
So I have various categories across the top,
like house, groceries, restaurant, social, extra.
And then I have the different weeks.
And I left a good amount of space for each week,
I think it's about six or seven dots per week.
That way I would have enough space
if I do, let's say, multiple restaurants in one week,
if that makes sense.
Expense trackers have always been the thing
that has been the hardest for me
to keep up with in my bullet journal,
but I know that they're the most beneficial
so I have been switching things up recently
and trying to find a layout that really works for me.
Next to it, I know this is a little contradictory,
but I have a shopping list,
which is probably something I should not have
if I'm trying to manage my expenses.
But I do find that sometimes I need a list of groceries
that I wanna buy or household items that I need to get,
and having a separate page for that has been really helpful.
For decoration and for fun I added this
little bouquet of lavender in the corner.
You know, just to spice things up a little,
because it was looking a little blank.
(calming music)
Turning to the next spread,
I'm going to be making my video planner next.
Last month I actually just had one page for video planner
and I was really, really tight on space.
So I just decided to bite the bullet
and make it a two page spread.
It's completely empty, because that's what I find
works for me, I like having a place where I can just
spew all information and ideas that I have
about my videos on here.
And it really works for me,
so I just of course had to add the lavender flowers
in for decoration and I added a little border
all the way around with some lavender on the ends.
I feel like as this video goes on,
you can see me getting lazier and lazier
with drawing the lavender.
But I actually ended up liking the way
that the rougher, looser illustrations looked,
because they kind of look like a sketchbook almost,
or like a field drawing.
So I'm probably gonna end up implementing
the more looser drawings later in my future spreads,
but on purpose this time. (laughs)
All right, so the final spread is of course
the first weekly spread.
And for the layout I went back to an oldie but a goodie,
the layout with the weekly side bar.
Again, there was nothing really wrong with
any of the other weekly layouts that I was doing,
but I always like to switch things up
and it makes things fun for me.
I wanted to make sure that the whole setup
throughout all of the pages looked consistent,
so you'll see that I'm implementing
a lot of the same motifs throughout it.
Like the crosshatched.
I don't know if that's the right term.
The drop shadow with all the diagonal
lines in it, basically.
I did that for all of the circles,
as well as the weekly side bar.
And I also used the same style of lettering
throughout the whole month.
And then of course I had to add the lavender,
but I just added random sprigs of it throughout the spread.
In the little corner on the top right,
I added a tiny monthly overview.
'Cause there's a perfect space for it right there.
And then in the autumn section
I decided to add in a little quote that says:
a calm mind is the ultimate weapon against your challenges.
And I feel like that really goes well with this theme
because lavender does have relaxing properties,
as I mentioned, I just need some stress reduction right now.
Funnily enough I have my diffuser going on right now,
and I'm diffusing some lavender essential oils into the air.
I specifically chose lavender because I knew
I was making this video and it was just perfect, I had to.
(calming music)
But anyways, bringing things back here
is the final flip-through of my May 2018
bullet journal setup.
I actually really like the way that this one turned out,
and I know I say that a lot, but this one especially.
I like how minimal it looks and how calming it is.
So let me know what you guys think in the comments below
and if you have any other suggestions
for next month's theme.
All right everyone, thank you so much for planning with me,
or if you weren't actually planning alongside me,
thank you for chilling, hanging out.
Hope to see you back here for the next video.
Which, by the way, something new that I did last month
was do a mini doodle tutorial video,
so one will be coming out for this month's theme.
Keep on the lookout for that.
If you're craving some more bullet journal inspiration,
go follow me over on my Instagram, @amandarachdoodles.
We do a lot of fun stuff over there,
we do Sunday live streams where I do
my weekly bullet journal spread,
I post a lot of pictures and of course
that's how I can see your recreations.
So if you do make a recreation,
be sure to tag me in the photo and the caption.
I'd love to see them.
But I think we pretty much covered everything.
Keep doodling and I'll talk to you in my next video.
Bye everyone.
(calming music)