hey friends elizabeth here from plant based bride back again with another video and today i'm super
excited to share with you my october plan with me in my bullet journal this month i decided
to go with a snake theme and i had a lot of fun pulling all these spreads together so hopefully
you enjoy watching the process as well today's video is kindly sponsored by
skillshare i'll talk about them more at the end of the video but for now
let's hop right into the setup so i'm starting by adding tea stained paper
to all of the spreads where i want it and i'm using a couple sheets of tea stained paper from
my previous video where i showed the process i used to create this old vintage paper look
so check out the link in the card or in the description box if you want to see that video
and see how easy it is to make tea stained paper that you can use in your own bullet journal and
i'm using a combination of glue tape and glue sticks to get those down and then just cutting
away the excess so that i have a nice clean finish as always all of the supplies i'm using
are linked in the description box so check that out if you're looking for any specific supplies
i'm also working on cutting all of my tabs for my weeklies as i've been doing for about
a year now i'm cutting my weekly pages three dots in from the edge alternating between
tabbed pages and just straight up pages those straight pages are going to end up being folded
to be the center page in my faux dutch door weeklies and the tabbed pages are the pages
that are left flat that allow me to quickly flip between different weeks and my monthly calendar
if you're new to my channel and this seems confusing to you just hang on a little bit
when i get to setting up that first weekly it should be a lot more clear
i'm also gluing down the tea stained paper on this final spread here which is going to be
another quote page and just a final art piece i already glued down the t-stained circle on that
last page just because i wanted to have it down so i could do my sketch flipping back all the way
to that first spread which is my first quote page and my cover page and i'm starting with
a sakura micron fineliner to draw this flower here so for this theme in general it's a snake
theme but it has a bit of a whimsical quirky modern feeling to it i didn't want to do anything
too dark or creepy and i didn't really want to do something too focused on realism this month so i
decided to do more of a poppy modern style and as i'm sure a lot of you know i really like to keep
themes to a pretty limited color palette just to keep everything feeling really cohesive and for
this one i decided to focus on a lot of black with accents of gold and a nice bright coral pink i
also decided to use fineliners my gold watercolor and acrylographs to do all of the art so that
everything would have a really flat matte opaque finish i think that really adds to that poppy sort
of modern aesthetic that i was going for here and i liked the idea of combining that really poppy
bold modern feel with something a little more dainty and realistic and gentle which is where
those botanical elements come in because i'm drawing them in a more realistic style and
adding a lot of fine details i feel like they add a nice background or contrast to the really
simple almost abstract bold snakes i'm using the gold acrylograph that came in my acrylograph set
for my collaboration with archer and olive as a base for the moon here and then once that's
dry i'm going in with my gold watercolor to make it extra super shiny i'm also using my stamp set
to add the quote and the first quote i chose was may old stories end and retellings begin
tonight i'm crawling out of my old skin mildly creepy but also kind of hopeful this accent
color that i'm using is the coral acrylograph from the archer and olive warm fall collection
just adding a simple border here and then moving over to the cover page so here i wanted
a background of many flowers and leaves behind the super bold snake lettering and when i tell
you that this was the longest part of the planning process for this theme trying to figure out how
to make a snake spell october in a way that was legible but also looked kind of like a snake and
looked cool took me many days i think this is one of the longest planning processes i've had for a
theme mostly because of this cover page because it just took me so darn long to figure out how
to make this work but i really like how it turned out so hopefully that time was worth it i've never
done a snake theme specifically and i thought it would be fun to do one for october since so many
people have at least a mild fear of or discomfort around snakes an intense fear or phobia of snakes
is called ophidiophobia i wouldn't say that i have this specific phobia but i will say that i am
certainly very cautious around snakes as i think it is logical to be especially if you come across
one in the wild and i do find them mildly creepy or scary in certain contexts although i think a
lot of that is just the result of how many stories include snakes as a villain or source of fear how
many movies have creepy snakes because i do feel like snakes i've seen in real life seem quite cute
so i was trying to make my snakes more on the cute and beautiful elegant side and less on the creepy
scary side rather than focusing on facts about real life snakes in this video i thought it might
be more interesting to focus on the mythology or symbolism surrounding snakes in so many different
cultures in many cultures snakes have been symbols of healing and transformation and in others snakes
have been symbols of fertility there has also been this connection between snakes and immortality as
some cultures have regarded snakes as a mortal because they appeared to be reincarnated when
they slothed their skins as though their old self had died and a new refreshed version of
themselves was moving forward in life snakes have also been observed biting their own tails to form
an infinite circle a symbol of eternity the most recognized version of this image is the
classical symbol of the oroborus this symbol has many interpretations across cultures but is often
seen to represent the cyclical nature of life and death life feeding on itself in the act of
creation snakes have also been featured in many different creation myths around the world and
throughout time in one such myth with an origin in ancient india the drought serpent ahi or vritra
swallowed the primordial ocean and did not release all created beings until indra split the serpent's
stomach with a thunderbolt in chinese mythology the woman-headed snake nua made the first humans
one at a time with clay greek cosmological myths tell of how ophion the snake incubated the
primordial egg from which all created things were born snakes have also often been associated with
the underworld throughout a variety of cultures for example in nordic myth evil was symbolized
by a serpentine dragon nidhogg the dread biter who coiled around one of the three roots of yggdrasil
the tree of life and tried to choke or gnaw the life from it snakes have also been associated with
water wisdom as in the adam and eve story from the bible and healing but why is this fear of snakes
so universal the anthropologist lynn isbell has argued that as primates the serpent as a symbol
of death has been built into our unconscious minds because of our evolutionary history
for millions of years snakes were the only significant predators of primates and early humans
and that explains why this fear of snakes is one of the most common phobias worldwide and why the
symbol of the serpent is so prevalent in world mythology the psychoanalyst joseph lewis henderson
and the ethnologist maud oaks have argued that the serpent is a symbol of initiation and rebirth
precisely because it is also a symbol of death chewie was very interested in this theme and
wanted very much to lie down on my bullet journal i wasn't sure if the acrylic graphs
were fully dry so i couldn't let him do that but i did give him many cuddles and scritches
as he deserves because he's a very good floofy boy i added curved lines on top of all the coral bits
to indicate the ribbed texture of the underbelly of the snake then i used my gold watercolor to add
some gold highlights to these snakes so for the two snakes on the quote page i just added dots
along the length for a very simple gold highlight but for my main big snake on the cover page
i wanted the back of the snake to appear to be covered in stars as if this was the
mythical snake that created the universe and is itself made out of galaxies and stardust
moving on to my next spread which is going to be my calendar page on the left
and a little habit tracker page on the right and i'm starting here with a drawing of an adorable
little snake curled up in a bottle with the moon and some stars and the stars
are starting to escape out the top i don't really know what this is based
on i just had the idea of a really adorable looking little baby snake curled up in a jar
and it went from there so that's what this is here i've also always loved the image of a jar that
is holding the moon or the stars there's just something so magical and whimsical about that
moving over to the other spread which is going to have a couple habits on it and i wanted to create
a nice big snake in the center with sunbeams radiating from its head almost like a crown
maybe this is the grown-up version of our baby snake in a jar
if you know of any interesting myths that include snakes that i didn't mention in this video i would
love to hear about them in the comments down below also if you have any recommendations
for books or articles really any media that explores snake mythology i would love to read
more about it it's incredibly fascinating i'm using these round habit trackers again
where i fill in this circle slowly each day that i do the habit and see if i can complete the circle
by the end of the month or how far i can get essentially i split the circle into however many
pieces i'm hoping to do that thing so if i want to do yoga 10 times in a month then i'm going to
split that circle into 10 even sections and each time i do yoga i can fill in a tenth of the circle
so that i have a chance of completing it because the last time i did these circle habit trackers i
just split each circle into the number of days in the month and then i felt kind of sad when
some of my trackers like taking a day off didn't completely finish the circle even though my plan
was never to take every day off in that month so i think this method is a little bit more rewarding
moving on to working on my weeklies so as always i am doing my faux dutch door rolling weekly i'll
link my video explaining how the rolling weekly works why use it how to set it up
in the cards and in the description box down below if you're unfamiliar i'm also using my
black acrylograph to make all of my tabs black as you can see you have half a page vertically
for each day of the week to add day specific tasks you can write out a timeline of your day
to-do list just notes throughout your day whatever you want daily space for and then the final half
page is your weekly task list where you can write out everything that has to be done in the week but
doesn't necessarily have to happen on a specific day and you can track the days that you work on
these various tasks moving to the final spread of the setup which is going to be another quote page
on the left and our final art piece on the right for my second quote i decided to use as i slowly
unraveled each imperfection in front of you like a scar i thought this evoked the feeling of a snake
slowly shedding its skin that idea of unraveling all of your imperfections all of your pretenses
around someone revealing your scars to someone just that ultimate vulnerability of allowing
someone to see that fresh new skin underneath that maybe already has some scars moving to this final
art piece here i really love the image of a hand holding a snake i just think it is so beautiful
i think hands can have so much expression in them i think that comes from my experience as a dancer
hands can be just so incredibly beautiful and expressive and i think the image of a snake
which can also be so fluid and expressive wrapped around a hand is just a really beautiful image
and there's so many variations in how you can draw that in how the snake can curve around the hand in
the position that the hand is in so i thought this would be a beautiful final image and incorporating
some of those botanical floral elements as well again i tried to make the snake look a little more
on the cute side and less on the creepy side and once the layers of acrylic grass were dry i went
in with my gold watercolor to add a whole bunch of stars on the back of the snake now before i show
you the final flip through of this setup i want to take a moment to talk to you about today's video's
sponsor skillshare skillshare as i'm sure you know is an online learning community with thousands of
inspiring classes for creators like you and me explore your passions expand your skills and get
absolutely lost in creativity there are skillshare classes in almost every creative area imaginable
illustration fine art photography graphic design wherever your creative interests lie
skillshare has a class for you skillshare is curated specifically for learning meaning there
are no ads helping to keep you focused they're also constantly launching new premium classes
meaning you can follow your creative journey wherever it may take you i just started taking
this class by emma gannon author and creative called finding fulfillment using pivots to power
your creative career i was really intrigued by this class because as someone who's always had a
creative career i am so deeply familiar with this concept of pivoting no matter how many times i
pivot it is still a terrifying anxiety-inducing process and i'm really excited to absorb
all of this information and reassurance that it's going to be okay from several other creatives who
know how scary it can be to pivot your direction in your career so if you are interested in this
specific class or any of their thousands of other classes i hope you'll check out skillshare
the first 1000 of my subscribers to click the link in the description we'll get a one month
free trial of skillshare so you can start exploring your creativity today thank you so
much to skillshare for sponsoring this video and now let's look at this final flip through of all
of my spreads for october i'm really pleasantly surprised by how much i like this color scheme
i wasn't really sure if it was gonna work it was a little out of my comfort zone but i really like
the incorporation of the natural texture that warm brown tea stained paper along with the graphic
black and coral and that shiny gold accent as you all know gold accents forever i will always love
them i also like that this theme has that tiny tinge of creepiness that snakes seem to always
leave in their slithered wake but the overall feeling is sort of that light quirky mythological
vibe and i'm into that i hope you're into it too if you enjoyed this video please give it a like
and subscribe if you haven't already leave a comment down below with a theme you'd like to see
me tackle or what theme you're doing for october i want to take a moment to thank my patrons for
their support extra special thanks to our newest patrons katarina nicole erica joanna morgan
chell lydia sophie amanda and joanie welcome all of you to the squad we are so excited to have you
if you at home want to join the squad and get some printables from this setup then 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 and i'll see you really soon in my next one bye friends huh