MY JOURNAL SET UP 2021 - Healing writing and creative pages suitable for beginners too!

[Music] [Music] so i'm in a different room in the um red brick building where my studio is today um just for a little bit of a change of scene and um i brought my journals in to show you um i found a few more bits and bobs that i wanted to um glue in and work with so i'll show you that and i've also had a couple of questions about which certain journals um which ones they were so i think it was this one and also the big black one so i'll share that with you um and a couple of other little snippets of news and wendy waffle i suppose i've woken up this morning and i am really grumpy so i don't know how this video is going to go um hopefully i won't be too grumpy in the video but i've never actually recorded a vlog before feeling quite this grumpy so you're probably wondering why i'm grumpy and i just think it's a whole the whole situation that's just got very tiresome shall we say um and i feel really bad saying that because i'm really really lucky in my situation i've got everything i need um so i feel really really bad moaning about it but at the same time i'm really fed up with it and i think that a lot of people are feeling the same um so yeah that's pretty much why i'm grumpy um so yeah we'll see how we get on anyway hopefully the process of working in my journal is going to help sort me out um and i've pulled out a few things from an old journal to help me and one of the things i pulled out was um a gratitude page so we've talked about this a lot where we do gratitude journaling and i thought i might actually stick that in my book and finish it because obviously i never actually finished the sheet so i think that might help me out this morning it's going to be a big test isn't it wendy's always going on about how brilliant journaling journaling is so let's see if i can shift my mindset and shift my mood into a into a better place this morning uh what else to say yes so the going back to the journals then this journal uh quite a few people asked me what it was um and i believe my sister bought me this so i didn't actually buy it but it says ryman on the little silver thing here so it's made by ryman so that's r-y-m-a-n and i'll try and find a link and link it in the description box um as you can see this is quite a large a4 size and it's nice and bendy and so it was a nice journal to work in while i was traveling really because it gave me a bit more space to play with and then this one is a bit smaller so just bigger than a5 i would say so it's lined and it's kind of creamy paper so it's off-white which i really like so it's a bit kind of vintagey which is um really up my street and i got it from a shop in the uk called w h smith so a really uh common popular stationery shop and it's made by moderno moderno i think it's moderno so i'll try and link this below i don't know if it's available internationally or not i'll look that up later and hopefully find a link to put down there for you what else to report so i've found a few bits and bobs that i want to use in my journal um and i've torn pages out of old of old journals so that i can use things again and i'm going to stick some pages in i really like this page as well and with some more quotes um i like this one you don't have to feel okay all the time it's a message for me in that you don't have to be free from all resistance all of the time you are bigger than that unlimited in fact there is no all the time for you you are the space for the okay and the not okay the acceptance and the resistance you don't need any fixed and unchangeable image of yourself you don't need to be the enlightened guru or the spiritual warrior you don't need to be the peaceful one the awakened one the strong one the highly evolved one the one immune to suffering all are false limitations on your limitless nature simply be what you are not this or that but the one the space for all all of it and that's from 360 mantras for today the book of human angels a loving guide for your everyday life so that's really lovely and then this little quote here you see i said i was going to be sticking more quotes in accept yourself flaws quirks talents secret thoughts all of it and experience true liberation create your best life with your consciously chosen thoughts words and actions and that's a quote by amy lee mccree so i've got some good quotes here i've even found a quote that i'm not sure i believe in anymore um this one it's a banksy quote if you get tired learn to rest not quit but sometimes i think it's good to know when to quit and uh i've experienced um that when i've needed to quit and change course on something so i believe that to be true 50 of the time but i also believe that we sometimes do need to quit but i definitely believe in the rest part and i'll do one more quote because it's a really good one and it's definitely going in my journal maybe you'll want it for yours as well it's a brene brown and it says if we own the story then we can write the ending so that's what we're doing in our journals we're writing our story rewriting it if necessary and writing our own endings next chapters next adventures etc so yeah this is lovely this is going in my book and i've also done myself i've talked about this quite a few times where i do a declaration and i stick it in the front so i'm going to be sticking this in you'll see i'll show you my desk in a minute and we'll get journaling this is my journal i give myself absolute permission to express my own unique heart and soul in whatever way i choose to no judgement lives here just complete love and acceptance unconditionally for myself a safe place just for me so and feel free to write that as your declaration at your in your book as well or write your own obviously um but yeah i love doing that um it just reminds me that i can write what i like and i've had a few comments from people saying i'm scared to write in my journal because somebody might read it somebody might find it somebody might you know see it and sometimes you want to write things down that you don't want anyone else to ever read so i appreciate that however i think it's really important to get those things out for myself anyway so i like to put it all in there and then i can paint over it or tear the pages out and burn them or something like that or collage over it so there are ways of getting it out and allowing the emotions to move through you um with pen on the page but at the same time i do appreciate that it does feel vulnerable and scary not only if someone else read it but also just putting it down there as in physical form so i do get it um try to be brave and you can always write in code so you can have like a mental code for something um change a few words and and if if somebody picked it up then they wouldn't know what you were talking about so sometimes that helps as well writing in code i remember as a little girl i used to play a lot of um i spy kind of games with my sister and yeah the code thing was fantastic so yeah going back to some of the things we did as children can really help us get things out and let go of things so and if you've got any ideas as well of how to get over that kind of fear of writing things down scary things down on the page um then put them in the comments below let's share ideas on that one because it does come up a lot when journaling i had an email from a lady from a dutch magazine the other day and she was doing an article on journaling and she'd stumbled across some of my youtube videos on art journaling and journaling so she wanted to use some of the things i'd said in my video in the journal which is a huge compliment and i'm very honored that she wanted to so um at the bottom of the email she said to me what's your top tip to get the most healing out of journaling um and i had two tips the first tip was to be as honest as you can and tell the truth in your journal and the second tip was to try and do it on a regular basis so honesty is a really key part of the healing process in relation to journaling so if we can't write down things in an honest way we're not going to get as much out of it as if we did in my opinion so but again you know you journal how you're comfortable and whatever works for you um i'm not trying to dictate any rules on anybody i'm just sharing how i do it and what my own personal opinions after doing it for a long time um are this is actually the room i used to run art class in so it's really really nice being in here for a little while i've just sneaked in here because nobody's about so and it's really early it's raining and we've got fairy lights and the lovely umbrella tree so lucky me just going through some of the things i dug out and oh yeah i found this card as well which i've had for ages which i really really love and it says make your life come true so we've all heard the phrase i hope your dreams come true but make your life come true um yeah i love that she's got a magic wand with a key on the end i don't know if you can see that but yeah love that so i did do some writing in my journal um and then that page as well so started writing the love letter to myself and i've got a few more loose items um to use up as well so i might be using those today and also i'm really excited because my um stock came yesterday so i ordered a load of stock for my shop some cards restocking cards and also two new cards which i'll show in a minute um but i also have been designing some stickers and there's one in my shop at the moment which was my sample i sent off one of the designs just to see what it would look like and i've done four other ones as well so i've done this little one it's the soul sisters and then i've got delphine the mermaid i did her as an oval rather than a round because for obvious reasons she's very oval and then i've got the wedding of the fairy king and rosa magdalena so i really like how they've come out um and i will be doing a photo shoot um and putting them in the shop really soon um but yeah really excited so i thought oh i can use those in my journal my longer term plan is to actually design my own journals and whether i have um a journal with my artwork on it i think that would be the next stage um but i really in the longer longer term would like to be designing the ones with the nice paper different types of paper and torn edges and a really yummy journal that's just you know you could use it for anything so that's sort of a plan of mine but i thought for now i could have um journals where i can just put a sticker on um and then yeah stickers are great you can put them anywhere i can't use but i thought it'd be quite nice to have them on the front um anyway that's my exciting news and a couple of my new cards so i've done done that one soul sisters as a card as well and i really like how she's turned out too um and then on the back then my little design on the back james does a little um design for me because he's really good at design and photoshop and things like that and he always puts a little picture of what's on the front and then the title and obviously my name and then a bit of blue blub at the bottom i didn't just want to have writing on the back um just wanted to make it a little bit more special and then it's completely blank inside yeah and then i also did delphine as well so i've got delphine as a sticker as well and yeah they've done a really nice job nothing's in the shop yet today is wednesday so it may not be in the shop when this video goes up i'm not sure but it will be coming soon and i will let you know when it's in the shop obviously especially if you are following me on my instagram especially the instagram stories i always keep that really up to date so have i got anything else to tell you then i'm just going to have a look here i made a little list going back to the whole grumpy thing as well i have been awake since 4 24 this morning and i did try to get back to sleep and i did a meditation and breathing and things like that so i did try and relax and try to get off to sleep um but i couldn't get back to sleep and that's really now affecting my mood and also um the burnout thing so i'm really feeling the burnout thing brewing so i'm thinking i might go home earlier today and have a bit of a rest i've got to drop my car off because it's having its mot and then i think james will probably take me home yeah i might do that also i must say that the comments i've had in the past couple of weeks and messages um have literally made me cry some of them they're just so beautiful and i just wanted to say thank you so so much people reaching out and really sharing their heart and supporting each other as well um it's it's absolutely wonderful i'm i'm so touched and so moved and yeah literally brought me to tears a couple of times last week so thank you so much for that and i know many of us are feeling quite up and down and the downs are quite low um and some people are feeling really on their own um but you're not alone you're not alone and um yeah even if we're having sleepless nights one of the things that never sleeps is the internet and i think um in a lot of ways the internet can really help support us so that we don't feel so alone and one of the ways that i'm doing that is obviously with this youtube channel so i'm so grateful to have a youtube channel and i'm so grateful to have all of you um community to communicate with as well so yeah feeling back into gratitude already and less grumpy just to actually just have this little chat with you so thank you so the other thing that might lift our spirits is i'm going to do another giveaway so i've decided when we get to 25 000 subscribers i'll do another giveaway and again i'm not going to tell you what it is yet and that's because i haven't decided so i'll be honest i haven't decided what it is yet but i'll give away something um and yeah i'm not going to draw the names out of a literal hat this time i've had a few messages of people commenting with ideas of how you could actually do it without printing all the names cutting them off out and putting them in an actual hat because that took hours and i don't think i could do that again um and there might be even more this time because there's more of us so but i just thought i'd let you know we'll have another giveaway at 25 000. um and the other thing that i have been doing some research on this week is more eco-friendly packaging so i've bought some cardboard flat pack things so obviously cardboard is good because that composts down and it's obviously plastic free i also acquired some plastic free tape so i do still have my plastic tape so i'm going to use what i've got um and then i'm moving 100 to plastic free tape i really like it it works really well the other thing is my cello bags for my cards so what i've been doing with that is i'm using old stock um and i couldn't find the compostable ones with the right size for my cards so i i'm still looking around for the right thing for that and i do want them to be waterproof especially when i'm sending the cards you know to australia new zealand america japan um i want them to arrive in you know tip-top condition so for my uk orders i might be using something else i've been looking into so i'll i'll share that with you more when i've worked out what i'm going to do about that um but the other thing i've been doing is instead of putting um one card in one cello bag if somebody orders three or four cards for example and some stickers i've been putting it all in one cello bag so that's working quite well so then it's just less plastic and the other thing that i could actually ask you guys about if you've got any ideas on is a more eco-friendly bubble wrap situation so when i send off the little canvas squares that i make um i box them up and i wrap them really carefully and lots and lots of bubble wrap um obviously that's not plastic free so i need an alternative a more greener alternative for that as well but i'm a work in progress like we all are and i'm not 100 perfect yet so if you do get an order from me um and it's not 100 plastic free and eco and recycled then please bear with me i am working on that so even though the weather is gray i'm pouring with rain um i'm feeling a lot brighter and a lot better than i was before so thank you for that thank you for listening keeping me company as usual i'll show you around this room as well because it's a really really nice room hang on a sec so this room is so lovely again it's got the lovely beams and skylights they do yoga in here and we used to have art class i'd set all the tables up and we'd have lovely big table right in the middle like a big dining table with all our art stuff everywhere it was absolutely brilliant i loved it and then you can see the little corner i've just been sat on the floor chatting to you and it's the same view out the window as my studio that's the building of building c and then my studio is literally just behind that wall so that's the other side yeah right let's get journaling then otherwise i'm going to start waffling [Music] she stands on the sideline the [Music] i know i tried to make her mine but at the same time i know love is hard to find [Music] [Music] [Music] i know i tried lots and lots of times but maybe it's fine that you are so hard to find [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] cheers is [Music] [Music] [Music] my heart [Music] together [Music] my pushing and pulling on me bringing me back to you i'll wait for you until [Music] goodbye you'll carry me [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] comes in [Music] is [Music] little flick through my book to see what it looks like so far my pages aren't finished i will be adding other things and sticking other things in later on i like to work like that so i can add things to a page and then flick back and forwards and add something to another page and in that way i don't feel under pressure to get the page finished and all done i knew a wise woman and she said to me that the river would mold me and the wild wind would call me and that the trickster the coyote would fool me and that father son would warm me mother earth would clothe me grandmother moon would greet me and of the old ways she would teach me wise woman she told me to always walk lightly tread the earth ever gently lovingly so preciously and take from her sparingly she said to share with others what you have learned from me be still and breathe ever patiently for the web of life has woven what is to be but you must still choose your own path and you will see and lastly the wise woman said to me to listen to the wise one that dwells within me to walk my path in balance is to be free more than just words so mote it be author unknown [Music] [Music] oh [Music] silence

Channel: The Unexpected Gypsy

Views: 68,430

Rating: 4.9667807 out of 5

Keywords: mixed media art, art for mental health, art for self care, how to art journal, art journaling, mixed media art journaling, sketchbook journals, art journal ideas, art journaling for beginners, art journaling mixed media, art rituals, self care, artist vlogs, journaling, how to set up a journal, grey hair, grey hair transition, art journal setup, 2021 art journal set up, writing journal, writing journal ideas, writing journaling for beginners, writing journal flip through

Id: T6W1m5E6JQg

Length: 30min 31sec (1831 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 18 2020