Plan With Me | DECEMBER

Hello again! Today I'm sharing my December Plan With Me video! I'm SO proud of how my December came out, and my video actually ended up being slightly longer than I intended, but it has all good content, I think!

Plan With Me | DECEMBER

December is a major transition month for me. I'm adding and experimenting with a lot of things, so that way when I get to my Leuchtturm 1917 A5 Dot Grid Journal, I'll be totally prepared and know my style. December is the last month in my Moleskine ruled journal (A5 as well) and it's pretty sentimental to me. I found a calling I didn't know I had, and I've tried countless things to try and find my own style. Would I like it to be the really artsy and color style? Heck yes! Is it how I pictured? Heck no! And that's okay! The beauty of bullet journaling is that it's tailored to the user and for me little pops of color and fairly minimalistic is, surprisingly, what works best for me!

@haleyjournals

My first experiment was doing a monthly review and planning page for the first time, and I LOVED it! I always just went by the seat of my pants every month and experimented with every weekly and daily because I didn't know what worked for me, for sure, and I was trying out a lot of different things. But, after October I figured out what kinds of dailies worked for me, so I sort of planned around that for December. I am still trying to use weekly dashboards, but now that I've moved my habit tracker to a full page spread, it's not really useful besides it leaves a space for washi tape!

Washi tape is one of many things I'm incorporating into my December pages to bring a little interest and color into my planner. Being an artist and having a bullet journal is kind of a battle between being artsy and being practical/useful, but I'll talk more about that in my BuJo flipthrough post coming in January ;)

I was sort of sad with some of my spreads because they were all black and white and it just wasn't "me." So I've been slowly finding ways to incorporate color into my spreads more and more! Washi tape is a HUGE intro in December, as you guys saw in my washi video and blog post, and I'm keeping the blues/grays/silver/white/black theme for this month. I'm also introducing more doodles and hand lettering into my spreads. I usually have little doodles for the weather and hand lettering for certain days, headers, and I can't wait to do a Christmas/December lettering challenge! I LOVED the #lettertheoffice challenge by @thelittlestbujo on Instagram, it was SO much fun and it really got me into lettering. Sadly, I can't use my copics in my journal because they bleed way too much. So I'll have to settle with using my Microns, stabilos, and colored pencils. We'll see what happens!

So far I'm very pleased with how December came out in my bullet journal, and I explain a lot more in my video about how I planned it out, why I did certain things, etc. So please watch the video if you haven't already! (: Thanks for watching and reading!

New Schedule!

Hello again! I've finally figured out a good schedule that I think will work out for me and still give you guys the variety of content you want!

I'm really going to try and get into the habit of uploading to YouTube on Mondays again. Every Monday upload means a blog post! But, sometimes a series will pop up in my videos (travel vlogs, tutorials, etc.) and I won't want to post about every part, I'd rather do one BIG post about all the parts. So, sadly, that means all of you who only follow my blog would have to wait until the next few weeks for me to post anything.

Well no longer!

I've decided on a schedule that works for me, in my head anyway, and I can't wait to start uploading AND blogging regularly with this schedule. I can only hope I can find enough things to talk about that you all will enjoy! Again, it'll mostly be art-related stuff, but I plan on changing it up every now and then. Whether that would be a book review or a random discussion, maybe a tutorial? Who knows! The blog is my oyster! (Is that how that saying goes?) I also plan on never having the same topic for blog posts every week (I'll explain that a little later) so hopefully it'll keep things fresh!

SO my new uploading and blogging schedule will be:

MONDAY

YouTube Upload + Blog Post

THURSDAY

Blog Post + Occasional Extra Video

So let me explain a little bit. Monday is my usual day, and I've done it for almost a year now (crazy!!) and it works for me. So I'll obviously be keeping that, since I think once I get into a groove I'll be able to keep it, even during next semester. I'll be taking all art classes, except Children's Literature English class, next semester, so I think I'll have some time to make videos, even if they're bullet journaling ones. Thursdays were the best candidate for the second blog post day because if I have a smaller/extra video to upload to my YouTube, I usually blog about it on that day! So I figured, why not have a set day to do more blog posts?

The deal with Thursdays is it helps me keep things fresh and it will help me bring variety and more things to my blog rather than JUST posting about my YouTube videos. Now, I DO put extra content in these posts than I share in my YouTube videos (or else what would be the point of the blog posts) but I want more than just extra behind-the-scenes content.

So my plan is, if I upload an ART video on Monday and make a blog post about it, Thursday's blog post will be about something OTHER THAN ART. For example, bullet journaling, books, healing crystals, tutorial, discussion, anything really. I'll try to keep it art-related or creative-related, but I'm hoping with this new schedule set up I'll be able to share more than just my videos and make my blog a little more interesting, overall improving what I'm putting out for you all! I have a lot of interests and stories, so I feel this will make it a little more personal and give more of a variety for more than just artsy people who read my blog.

If that still didn't make sense, here's an example of what my schedule may look like:

• Monday - December Plan With Me (bullet journaling)
• Thursday - Healing Crystals Journey (hobby)
• Monday - YouTube video, no blog post (series)
• Thursday - Liquitex Basics Product Review (art / product review)
• and so on...

This way, even if I don't post anything on Monday because of a video series or I miss a week, you all are still getting a blog post every week, even if I miss a day! Hopefully you will enjoy this extra content, I can't wait to start sharing my interests and passions with you all a little bit more (:

Washi Tape | Haul + Collection

Hi again everyone! I'm happy to announce that I'm going to try REALLY hard in the next few weeks to get back into the habit of creating videos and blog posts regularly! Now, I probably won't be super regular for the last few weeks of the semester, because...you know...FINALS. All that fun stuff. I do have at least 3 or 4 videos edited / planned for uploading and filming that are sort of time sensitive, so they have to be done fairly soon!

WASHI TAPE | Collection + Haul

This week's video, kicking off my hopefully regular schedule, is all about my washi tape haul which is now my whole collection! After seeing beautiful bullet journal spreads using different washi tapes, I just HAD to take the plunge and try it out! This set from Michael's was the best bang for my buck, and the smaller trio set I got with it was 50% off because all washi products were buy one get one 50% off! So I got 48 rolls of washi tape for just over $30. Not. That. Bad. AT ALL!

I was originally looking for washi on Etsy, and although some prices were really good per roll, the shipping was outrageous! For one roll it was $2.50 and it would go up $0.50 everytime I added an additional roll. After doing the math, I would have only been able to get half as many rolls as I did with this haul. I don't think anyone realizes exactly how much planning went into this order. I searched everywhere and did so much math...I shiver just thinking about it, haha!

Overall, I'm really very happy with my big haul of washi tape. I have to say, my craving for washi has definitely been filled! I think I'll be good for a while! <3

A Surreal Experience - Meeting Jordan!

A few weeks ago I finally got the chance to meet one of my best friends, Jordan, face-to-face! We met on deviantART a looong time ago, and became friends very fast. We have our own series on each other's YouTube channels opening each other's Pen Pal packages, even. But we never got to meet each other in person until years later.

Within those years, we argued a lot. I mean, all friends argue right? After a while we sort of drifted apart and did our own thing for almost 2 years. And I don't think either of us realized how much we appreciated each other until we didn't have each other.

So after almost 2 years of not speaking, texting, etc. I got a text from Jordan while in my 3D Design class. I have to say, it was really odd and overwhelming at first. But she and her boyfriend were actually in my state for the first time, and mentioned that one of the only reasons she would even come to Illinois was to see me, and thought she'd take the leap to try and get ahold of me. After some conversation back and forth, I was so surprised that she had felt the same way I did during those two years: Like I was missing something in my life, but every time I had the urge to fix things I was too afraid to send anything. It was crazy to know she felt the same way. (Kind of sounds like a Hallmark movie, actually).

During the 5 days of catching up via Facebook Messenger, we caught up a little bit and I think both of us grew up a lot in the 2 years we didn't communicate with each other. We met up at a Popeye's  that was sort of a halfway mark for both of us (so neither of us were really driving a ridiculous amount of time compared to the other) and the feeling of seeing her car pull up and know she wasn't just this other person on the other side of my computer/phone screen was so surreal. (I was apparently taller than she expected because that was the first thing she said to me, haha!) We went inside and ate at a table all to ourselves and caught up for what seemed like minutes, even though it was an hour and a half before we had to part ways.

Between all the adulting and other stuff coming up between the both of us, it's hard to say when we'll be able to have this chance again, so I'm glad she got ahold of me when she did. It was truly surreal to meet her in person, after so many years of being best friends and then not hearing from her for a while.

It's nice to know time and distance hasn't really changed a thing between us. We're back to being best friends and I hope this time there's no end in sight.

Miss you already, Jordan!

:) <3

3 PAINT CHALLENGE | Cactus Family, Long Time No See!

3 PAINT CHALLENGE | Cactus Family

Long time no see, everybody!!

So sorry I've been away so long! My homework/studying load is CRAZY this semester, and I'm honestly more stressed with 3 classes than I was with 5. ANYWAYS, I saved this video from the end of the summer so that I could post it right after midterm, just to keep you guys entertained about halfway through the college semester grind! I'm really hoping to get videos up more often either toward the end or after the semester ends because I'm swamped from bell to bell right now. I'm still doing art, but it's mainly for my 3D Design class. Next semester I'll be taking 3 art classes and an English class, so hopefully I'll have more time and inspiration next semester to do videos!

I've also been MAJORLY into bullet journaling, and I actually feel like it might be part of my calling in life. I have a successful Instagram account (@haleyjournals) that I post to daily, so follow me there to learn about bujo!

Okay, back to the video!

I REALLY love how this video turned out, even though the lighting was messing with my camera a little bit. I hadn't watched it or listened to the narration since I edited it months ago, but I was surprised to hear it today and realize how well I had actually done this! I'm really proud of this video, and I can't wait to make more acrylic art videos in the future. I've been really inspired by succulents and cacti lately, since I'm now a succulent mom, and the last three pieces I've started are all succulent-themed. So you can tell where my brain was, haha! I'm really tempted to try this sort of piece out with other colors and sizes, and I'm hoping to be able to sell them since they don't take much time to make at all! This video only took an hour of my time to create, not including editing anyway, and I really enjoyed the layering and freeness of it all.

I'm also hoping to make blog posts a regular thing now. Most will probably be about 3D pieces or Bullet Journaling, but hey it's my blog I can post what I like to do, eh? ;D