(upbeat music)
- Hey, everyone, it's Amanda.
Welcome back to my channel.
Today I doing my July Plan With Me
and bullet journal setup.
It feels very weird that I'm doing this video right now
because literally if you look at my channel videos,
the June Plan With Me was one video away.
I took some time off in between.
So yeah, that's why I guess it feels
like July Plan With Me was back to back with June,
but we're here,
we're doing it.
If you've been following me on Instagram and social media,
you'll know that this month I had
a very interesting creative process,
but I'll talk to you guys more about how I ended up
with the setup that I ended up with.
But I'm excited to chat with you guys,
get into some planning.
Hopefully it'll get me back into sort of a routine.
This is actually the last month
that's going to be in my current notebook.
A lot of your guys have been asking
about whether my notebook's running out of pages.
Coincidentally, July is the last month
that I'll be able to fit in it,
so next month we're starting a brand new one,
which feels like the right moment in time.
But anyway, I'm rambling on too much.
Before I get started with my July bullet journal setup,
I want to give a quick thank you
to today's sponsor Squarespace.
If you guys have been looking
to create an online store or website,
Squarespace has all of the tools
on their all-in-one platform to help you do so,
but I'll talk a little bit
more about them later in the video.
Without further ado,
let's get started,
so grab your hand dandy bullet journal and stationery,
or if you're just chilling,
hanging out,
then grab a snack and let's do this.
All right, so July.
As I hinted to in the intro of this video,
this month I had a little bit of difficulties,
and if you do follow me on Instagram,
you will have seen the struggles.
I kind of went through an art block,
creative block type of thing,
so it was a struggle to get this one done,
not gonna lie.
And I wanted to talk a little bit
about that throughout this video.
I know usually I talk about the actual spreads
and what I did and everything,
but I figured this month we could just chat
a little bit because the art block
and the mental block was very real,
and I know that's something
that a lot of you guys go through as well.
So there was a lot of ideas given to me.
I asked for ideas on my Community tab page,
and all of that,
and people gave me so many ideas,
but for some reason,
nothing was really motivating me or inspiring me.
Usually, I'll just see if any idea sparks
an interest in my mind for a setup,
and this month,
there was really nothing.
(laughs)
But I think that's natural
for pretty much anything creative.
You're not always gonna have the best ideas,
and things aren't always gonna come easy to you,
which is okay.
I think that's the lesson I took away
from this month's creative struggle
is that I definitely need to be nicer
to myself in terms of coming up with ideas.
I was a little bit,
I was forcing myself
and getting down on myself for not thinking of an idea
or not being able to film,
but that's part of the creative process,
and I've kind of learned to lean into that
and let myself go through
that instead of getting upset about it,
if that makes sense,
'cause all in all,
that is a part of the creative process as a whole
and my creative journey.
You know what,
I ended up here
and that's okay.
What did get me out of the creative slump
and what gave me inspiration was actually
these two images here by these amazing artists.
Usually, I stay away from Pinterest
because I try not to get my setups
inspired from there 'cause then I find
that they end up looking too similar,
but for this month,
since I was going through such a creative slump,
I scrolled through there.
A lot of people were suggesting
that I do sort of like a summery picnic theme,
and I happened upon these two images.
So they really inspired me.
I liked the art style
and how it was quite simple
and the outlines of the drawings were left blank
with just sort of an accent color.
So I kinda of integrate that into my cover page
and put my own spin on things.
I always say whenever
you're struggling to come up with ideas
or if you wanna try something new,
kind of dial it back,
bring it back to the basics.
So this month's theme was very simple,
especially for me.
You know usually I go for multiple colors
or a lot of doodles.
And for this month,
I went for one colored marker,
which was my Mildliner,
and just one fineliner,
or actually, there's two fineliners,
but it's pretty much just black and red.
And I didn't do anything crazy
with brush lettering or shading
or multiple colors or papers or all of that.
Just the two markers
and I think it turned out pretty well.
I think the theme is very fitting.
It's getting warmer here in Toronto,
and all I wanna do is have a nice picnic,
obviously, social distancing picnic, of course.
But I also like the little grass
that I added around the gingham picnic blanket,
and I like that the pop of color is only the gingham.
I think that adds a nice style to the cover page.
I also wanted to add that you can definitely
change out what is laying on top of the picnic blanket.
I think that would be fun to customize.
And of course, if you do want to color things in more,
feel free to do so.
Next to it,
I did do a calendar
and sort of playing off of that minimal, simple vibe.
I only did the horizontal lines
on the calendar to make more negative space
and to match the minimal vibes of this month.
Threw on some washi tape
and some falling leaves and there we go.
All right, next up are my trackers.
This month I actually did something different again.
Like I always say,
when you are feeling tired of your bullet journal,
try something new,
so I wanted to practice what I preach
and I did a little bit of a different setup.
Oh, for the brush lettering,
oh, sorry, not brush lettering.
For the calligraphy,
I just used a thick fineliner,
and I do like how that looks.
And then I actually did a all-in-one habit tracker,
which I haven't done in a really, really long time.
You guys know I usually do individual habit trackers,
and I've done that for months
and months and months now,
but I thought since I was going for the horizontal lines,
a lot of negative space,
this type of tracker would really fit that well.
So as you can see,
I have all of the days of the month
going across horizontally,
and then I had each individually habit
that I wanna track going vertically,
and I'll just put a dot whenever I do that specific habit.
For my mood tracker,
I also did something a little bit different this month,
especially in light of my little negative slump.
I thought it might not be the best
for me to track straight up happy
and sad days like I normally do
because sometimes feelings ar a bit more nuanced.
So this month,
I went for more of like a weekly
mood reflections type of thing.
Honestly, don't know how this is gonna work out,
but I'm experimenting.
We'll see.
So as you can see at the bottom,
I have different picnic items,
which sorta fit within the theme,
and I tried to make sure they have enough space within them.
So there's one for each week of the month.
And I'll kind of write like a sentence
of how I'm feeling week to week.
So it's not,
not just coloring something in,
I'm actually writing down a sentence,
which might be interesting for me to look back on.
I also forgot to mention that when I'm doing
this gingham picnic blanket pattern,
I'm not really being super accurate with it,
I'm actually just using the highlighter
side of the Mildliner,
since it does give thicker lines,
and doing random hand-drawn lines.
You guys know I rarely ever use a ruler.
I do think that I still like the hand-drawn look.
And then I just cross over with it like a checkerboard.
And since it is sort of like a watery
formula in terms of the ink,
where it overlaps it actually gets darker,
so that's what gives it the gingham checkerboard pattern
on the picnic blanket without much effort.
Something else that I did was actually go over
some of the outlines of the doodles with my fineliner again,
and actually, for all of the picnic doodles,
I used a thicker fineliner than I normally would.
I used 08 thickness,
and normally I would use like 03 or 05.
And for the lettering that you guys see,
all the cursive lettering,
I actually used 01,
the 01 thickness fineliner.
So a lot thicker than I would normally go,
but I do think that adds to the drawing style
and makes it pop a little bit more.
This next spread is my monthly playlist,
of course, as usual.
I'm going to leave a link
to my monthly Spotify playlist down below.
I always have fun making these,
and for this spread to make it match the theme,
I put a little picnic blanket at the bottom
with a phone playing some music laying down on the blanket.
I thought it was fun to play around
with different things that are laying on the picnic blanket.
And then, of course,
for the actual songs,
I did those same horizontal lines,
and I wrote out my songs
and cut out the little album covers.
Again, if you're curious
as to what I've been listening to recently,
check out that Spotify playlist.
I always actually include more songs
than what I write down on my spread,
and music has been a great comfort to me
during this creative slump.
I don't know what I'm calling it.
Creative block, mental block.
Anyway, yeah,
music is always something
that has been really important to me,
especially it goes hand in hand with art, obviously,
so yeah.
If you guys have any music recommendations,
be sure to leave them down below.
I'm always curious as to what you guys
are listening to and jamming out to.
Next to it,
I decided to do a little quote page with my mantra,
my motto for the month,
which is be kind to yourself.
Very fitting.
(laughs)
By this time in the setup
as I was getting into the groove of the things,
I was definitely being a lot kinder to myself,
but not so much at the beginning.
Again, I decided to keep it pretty simple.
I actually just extended that picnic blanket
at the bottom into the quote page
and did a thick black border with my thicker fineliner,
and I used the think side of the Mildliner
to do this same kind of big cursive style.
I actually really like this lettering style that I did.
Super simple,
really easy to do,
but I liked that negative space around it.
I think it definitely fits with the setup.
All right, finally for my weekly spread,
I did something a little bit funky.
So as you guys know,
this is the final pages of my bullet journal.
I actually only had four pages to go at this point,
which is exactly the amount of weeks in July.
So what I ended up doing was cutting
a bunch of flaps at the bottom,
almost like a Dutch door,
but I did them at,
what is it called,
stacked lengths,
so they look like tabs almost.
I don't know,
I was experimenting and trying new things,
and I don't know how this will turn out,
but we'll see,
and I'm kind of stuck with it for the whole month.
I'll explain a little bit of how I'm envisioning it working.
So at the bottom,
I have different categories of month long tasks
that I can flip to no matter what weekly spread I'm on.
I've been really liking categorizing my tasks,
so for my monthly tasks,
I have things like General,
things I wanna watch,
my work stuff,
and then my shopping list for groceries and all of that.
And I did color in the tabs
and outline them so that they pop
and that they're easy to access.
On the other side,
I have miscellaneous things,
so any notes, doodles, quotes.
These are sort of just fun stuff.
I honestly didn't know
what to put on the other side of the tabs.
And then at the top is where I'll do my weekly spread,
and this is sort of,
it's pretty normal.
I can do my normal setups
that I would normally do with the days of the week,
but I just have less space
because of obviously those bottom flaps.
I don't know if I'm explaining this well,
but hopefully you guys kind of see
what I'm trying to do here.
I'll let you guys now whether it works out
and whether this layout is efficient,
but I thought I would try something new for July,
especially since I have been in that slump.
How many times can I mention that in this video?
I don't know,
but yes, as you can see at the top,
I have the days of the week super simple,
divided out into sections,
and then the bottom is where I'll flip through.
So no matter where I am during the weeks of July,
I can always flip through those bottom categories.
I don't know,
thought it was interesting.
It might be fun.
Obviously, you guys can change out the categories
at the bottom to whatever works for your lifestyle.
This one might be good for students
if you have like different subjects,
that could be fun,
or if you don't wanna do those flaps,
you can stick to just a regular one page spread.
Whatever works for you.
I'm just experimenting here,
but yeah,
I will see how it turns out.
Before I show you guys the final flip through
of my July bullet journal setup,
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Okay, onto the flip through.
All right, so here is the final flip through
of my July 2020 bullet journal setup.
I know it's not the most complex setup
or the most artistic one,
but I'm honestly just really proud
of myself for finishing it
and getting through my creative block.
So if you guys are in one as well,
I believe in you,
you can do it.
All right, my friends,
so that was my July bullet journal setup.
I hope you guys enjoyed yet
another month in my bullet journal.
Thank you for watching
and for listening to my concerns and my vents.
I always think of these videos kind of like a time capsule,
so it means a lot that you guys
are there with me month to month.
But that being said,
it is time for me to showcase
some of your recreations over here.
As usual, if you do recreate any of my spreads,
whether it'd be this month's or a previous month's,
be sure to tag me on Instagram,
@amandarachlee, so I can lurk through them
and see all of your lovely creations.
I also do my weekly spread live streams
every single Saturday on Twitch.
Anyway, if you have been wanting
to see more of my bullet journal spreads,
I highly recommend you come check out my Twitch channel.
I've been live streaming my bullet journal
weekly spreads every single Saturday,
and it's been really fun to hang out with you guys there,
but other than that,
it is time for your recreations over here next to me.
Look at them.
They're so beautiful.
Of course, if you do recreate
any of my bullet journal spreads,
whether it'd be this month's or a previous month's,
be sure to tag me on Instagram
so I can lurk through them and scroll
and see all of your lovely creations.
I am always curious to see
how you guys put your own spin on things,
so go do that.
But anyway, yeah,
I think that's it for me.
Just wanted to say again
thank you for being so supportive of me and my videos,
and I will talk to you in the next video.
Keep doodling.
Bye!
(mellow music)