Monthly Planning MTN: November 2016 update

The colors I used for this month are in purple/ lavender tones. I started off with mixing some tombow markers and hand lettering the days of the week on the vertical side to give the page a starting color. Then I wrote the dates and events with my Pelikan M205 Taupe with Caran'dache storm. My fave pen and ink combination that month. I added stamp prints from Sakuralala and some fun stickers in a matching color tone so fill in some gaps. As the month went on, it became busier and it was harder for me to write down events that took place in my weekly planner. SAD really zapped my energy the last half of the month but we did end up doing some fum things esp. in the beginning.

My wedding anniversary is on the 5th of november and we always do a little get away, but this year we've decided to go for a longer (and warmer) trip to Seville, Cadiz and Gibraltar aria. It was so wonderful and I really loved documenting that bit. Read about my adventures and shopping finds in Seville HERE. It's definitely a city I highly recommend to visit as it was our second time there and certainly not the last!

Just wanted to show you a detail in the overview. I thought it was fun to pair the "fly me to the moon" postoid sticker from MTN with S-Jane Mills artwork of Astrogirl below it. I bought to stickers last july and thought this one would be fitting to end the month with. It's also the end of the undated planner book, so my last update in this form. I will do an overview update later this week and share my thoughts using the undated monthly planner this way for a year. And if I will continue it... so look out for that post later this week. 

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

namasté

Monthly Planning MTN: October 2016 update

Finally had the chance to work on my October update in my Midori traveler's notebook. It sorta looks like nothing happened, but this month was busy with work commitments and my cyanotype course I participated in at the LAK. I had an idea in mind with some Blue Ghost Ink and experimented with it.

First I started off very simple, just writing down the days and dates with my trusty faber castell pitt pens. Seeing they are filled with india ink, it is water proof and also resilient against other inks.

I had my Pilot MR inked with Noodler's Blue Ghost ink and with that I wrote down the events which happened that month. Combined with stamps from Sakuralala fall collection 2015 line and memento stamp inks, they gave really fun effects!

I also wanted to use this gorgeous tree stencil from the Crafter's Workshop designed by Joanne Fink (zenspirations) to convey the change in season. I began to dab some mossy green versamark chalk inks with a foam sponge and topped it off with orange distress ink to create some ombre in the tree.

Then stamped some autumn leaves stamps on the page and colored them in with the blue ghost ink.

And this is the finished spread. What's super fun is that well there is nothing to read like in the picture on top, but when you turn off the lights and shine a black light on it, it gives some really fun effects!

It's kind of hard to photograph but I hope you get the idea :)

Now to mull over a layout for this month and then my undated monthly planner is full!! How time flies!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

namasté

Monthly Planning MTN: June 2016 overview

The year is now officially halfway through and like always I am thinking "how the hell did that happen?!" Also it's supposed to be summer, but it really didn't seem like it for the most part of June. I spent days longing for sunshine, but grateful for the days that were actually sunny and I had time to enjoy it. This time I didn't forget to take pictures of the process and I found a fun attribute to help me with numbering the days in the planner :)

Recently I have cleaned up some drawers in my room and found a lovely date stamp you can see on the right. I must have found it at a thrift market/yard sale at some point and forgotten I had it. But it's getting some great use now!

A closer look of the dates. It's a bit finicky to get a good clean print, as it's a pretty old and very used date stamp, but I suppose it's part of the charm. I chose memento Cottage Ivy stamp ink for the dates and I wrote the days of the week with my Pelikan M250 with Akkerman Bezuidenwoud Groen, And I was so pleasantly surprised the ink held up pretty well on the midori page, as it's a pretty wet writer! No feathering, just a bit longer drying time and that I forgot to take in account when I wrote the month and year on the side of the sections.

So yeah I smeared the date a bit on the right and tried to "salvage it" by using a water brush to take away the smear, but well, it got a watercolor-y effect and I just left it like that. Shit happens, right? Anyhow, I took out my fun planner stamps from Sakuralala again (it's a gift that keeps on giving really!) and yay, I had an excuse to use that cute little tooth from the Daily set because of my dentist appointment! I never been so happy to mark a dentist appointment before, ever! But still glad it's not "daily", heh! As you can see, I kept the green theme going and chose a few more Memento inks that fit that theme.

I also used my new TWSBI ECO with Akkerman Zuiderpark Blauw-Groen (which I decided I kinda do want a bottle of... sigh) to note events. This ink dries a lot faster on the page and is less prone to smearing. It's a better combo for this paper. I also added bits and pieces here and there that I felt fit the "theme". At pipoos I found Eline's Handlettering sets Bold and Light on sale and used that to note the CZC challenge and the KAVAN conference (=work related but was a lot of fun!) in the planner. 

As I jotted down the events, I noticed I had a lot of "blank space" left... due to the fact I didn't jot down all my appointments and events in my pocket midori and I could not remember them at the time I made the update... Ehm, yeah, well at least the most important and fun events are on there and more space for some fun images/stamps. I found the dragonfly stickers in my stash somewhere and found the combination of green and orange pretty fun, so went further with that.

And this is the result of the full spread. I added more dragonfly elements and splashes of orange through out the page. I like the balance between the green and orange, it looks really fun this way. The square stickers I used, which I ordered through moo years ago, show my own work. I should make a sticker pack with my recent work as well :) And I also made the "YOLO" Faux postage stamps on vintage postage labels with rubber stamps from Chronicle books. I will do a tutorial and perhaps a giveaway on those in a future post, so be on the look out. "Oh, how I wish it was SUMMER time" resonates my feelings for this month. Hopefully July will be filled with more days spent at the beach :)

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Namasté 

Monthly Planning MTN: May 2016 overview (and some hand lettering)

The quote "A fearless heart is a brave heart" is from Thupten Jinpa and was uttered at his book reading in the Amstelkerk in Amsterdam last month.  And that actually set the theme, for the month of May was filled with compassion, a few sunny days at the beach and I attempted to see things in another way. With this months' lay out I kept things simple but I actually forgot to take pictures of the process of this month, though I do have a shot of all the materials I used.

The color scheme of the layout is blue, pink and purple., the colors I used most this month. I used the 365 stamps from sakuralala, memento dew drops, tombow markers, faux postage stamp rubber stamps and a few fountain pens: parker 45 blue with Private Reserve Daphne blue, Franklin Christoph Pocket 66 with Sailir Kingdom Note Pasanius Versicolor (I wrote most of the page with that pen) and the delta dolce vita undersize with a custom orange mix.

Looking at the layout and my activities in My, I see that I forgot to blog about my hand lettering workshop I did at Lola Luid.

A fun fact: the location is situated at my old high school, the Mondriaan Lyceum. The old school building is now being housed by various artistic people selling their wares, or just using the space (class room) as their work space. So fun! A lot more fun then when I went to school there for sure! Some more fun pictures of that day:

The entrance of the old school building. So much green, I like it!

Entrance hall with a lunch/open work space location.

Map of all the classrooms and people/small companies in them.

Some fun drawings on a wall in a class room.

There was a flea market going on in the hallways when I was there. This saturday the 18th there is going to be another edition.

The workshop was given by Handletters.nl and it was held in my old physics class room :)

Results of the grocery list hand lettering of the workshop attendees. Mine is the third one from the top, seen from left to right.

And while it was a tad bit weird being in class in my old high school again, it definitely was a super fun day :)

I've done some more hand lettering this month (June) and I will write about that in another post (before the month is over, hopefully). 

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

namasté

Monthly Planning MTN: April 2016 overview

Before May is nearly over, I should share the overview on April. I honestly did not have much inspiration for this month. To give myself a little push, I decided that I should use limited colors and tools to see what I can create. When I saw this 'handlettering script alphabet' rubber stamp set from Eline's stamp line at pipoos, I knew I had to use it for this month's lay out (yes so I also bought a new supply for this month's lay out to give that "extra" nudge, sometimes you just have to bribe yourself :p).

The stamp set includes number and extra vowels in different shapes, which is not only handy but fun in use. The color scheme I used is yellow to orange (and blood orange/red), due to the Kingsday celebration that took place in this month (orange being the national color). I used the memento drops stamp pad colors you see on the top right. I stamped "april 2016" with a combination of these colors. I really like the look of the numbers on this page and I will definitely use them more in my MTN planning.

Seeing that I do keep track of my weekly activities in my pocket midori, I started with the most memorable moments of the month: the Art Specially weekend, meeting up with Rachel, Travis and their little baby Kenneth from swapbot, the Indiana Jones movie marathon and the kingsday celebration. noted the few birthday's this month, all falling in one week (= a lot of pie in one week!), my mindfulness monthly group meditation and of course PAY DAY( = got myself the case of tombows! I so love that little money bag stamp from Sakuralala's Daily stamp set!)  

So you know I like to hoard boxes with stuff. And so I have a box with random memories paper cut slices and other received cut out items which I decided to break open to add some to this page. I wanted to keep it color coded and spring themed and played with composition a bit here.

So after deciding what items to use, I started filling up the rest of the month adding more tidbits here and there. The movie strip was an excellent find for the movie marathon! Then I totally forgot I didn't add Meesha's 2nd birthday to my overview the first time!! Bad cat mom, tsk, tsk! So that was fixed (even got out my dymo labler for that one and then promptly gave Meesha a treat because I forgot her... shows how new I am with this whole cat mom thing!)

I thought the page needed the word "spring" and I found some metallic red letters I had hoarded in another box and thought that would make a great addition. By the way the fountain pen and ink I used, was only one this time, my Delta Dolcevita undersize with a custom orange mix. It's too pretty not so show that combination, so here it is:

It's a bit Diamine autumn oak-y, but not quite. It's a custom mix because I had little bit of Diamine blaze orange in there, then added a few drops of Pelikan brown, then a drop of Diamine Sunshine yellow and it came out looking like this! I quite love it and hope I can recreate it again!

And this is what the finished page looks like. I'm amazed how it turned out esp. since I had like zero inspiration when I started off. I kept true to the color scheme I set out to use and it gave the page a nice balance. It's really fun to see the months round up in colorful and illustrative form. Sometimes you just have to give yourself a little push to get that creative energy flowing and doing these pages remind me of that. Now I'm actually looking forward to do May's round up :)

Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend!

namasté

Monthly Planning MTN: March 2016 overview

It's halfway through April, so high time for March Monthly update in my Midori Travellers Notebook. A lot of fun stuff happened last month, but also some tragedy's.

It's very cathartic to take the time and process it all. 

 On the creative side: I've used some more illustrative rubber stamps and color combinations this time. The sakuralala 365 stamps being the base as usual. The large hot air balloon and cracked egg are hand carved stamps. The Bird stamp is from Oxford Impressions and The city stamp from Stampothique. Fountain pens and inks used: Sailor Sapporo LE seasons Sky with Montblanc Turquoise. Lamy Vista 1.1 nib Eyedroppered with Sailor Tokiwa Matsu. Pilot Parallel with Pilot Red. Franklin Christoph 66 with 1.1 nib and Faber Castell Deep Sea Green for the numbers and days. See them on my currently inked page op March 27th.

On the fun stuff: I had my 36th birthday on the 14th and this year we took a trip to Turkey visiting Kapadokya (Cappadocia) for a week. We went on a Hot Air Balloon ride, saw some beautiful sights and well... pictures tell more than a thousand words...

It was amazing. So beautiful and serene.
If you ever have the chance to go there, you definitely should!



And there were some tragic days as well. In the time I spent in Turkey there were three bombings: two in Ankara and one in Istanbul. They did not have a lot of media coverage, but that doesn't make them any less tragic. There were more bombings occurring in Turkey and before we left my father in law asked us if it was a good idea to visit a country that is in such turmoil and can be really unsafe to be. I told him that "being safe" is a relative concept these days, seeing with what happened in Paris and Brussels last year. But of course we would not visit the capital and the borders as those were marked as "unsafe to travel" zones. On 22 March the bombings in Brussels showed us again that "being safe" is a relative concept. That sadly in these times, there is no place that is really safe from psychopaths with bombs.
 I share the grief and loss. 
They are attacks on humanity which transcends borders, race and religious beliefs. 
I do not want to end this post on such a tragic note.  
However I hope that by sharing with you what I do when these feelings of powerlessness arise and overwhelm me, could provide a positive outlet for you as well.
 I pray for peace and well being for all of us living on this earth every time I write down my Mindfulness Metta Meditations in my journals. 
This month in my Mindfulness Compassion in Connectivity training's I learned the practice of Tonglen which I find healing to do in these strange and unsettling times. 

In tonglen practice, when we see or feel suffering, we breathe in with the notion of completely feeling it, accepting it, and owning it. Then we breathe out, radiating compassion, lovingkindness, freshness; anything that encourages relaxation and openness.- Quote from Pema Chodron from When Things Fall Apart:Heart Advice for Difficult Times (more here) 

 We can change the karma of this world. 
With one heartfelt, compassionate breath at a time.  

Thank you for stopping by.

namasté

Monthly planning MTN: February 2016 overview

Another month just flew by! 
Time for another update in my Monthly Planner in my Midori Traveler's Notebook.

An overview shot with my used tools: on the top are pentel and kuratake water/ink brushes. On the right fountain pens: Sailor Sapporo blue sky (season series) inked with montblanc turquoise, Faber Castell basic carbon inked with AM turquoise, Franklin Christoph Intrinsic inked with Sailor Kingdom Note saskia charona, Namiki Falcon SEF inked with De Atramentis Atlantic and Franklin Christoph Pocket 66 antique glass finish inked with Sailor Kingdom Note Phasanius Versicolor.

A lot has happened this past month and the highlights were the Bowie IS exhibition in Groningen and of course getting our cat Meesha from the shelter to come and live with us.

I took pictures with my instax mini and used paper punches to cut out the images I wanted in my midori overview. The cat stamp is from Lost Coast Designs (which you can also order through Inkadinkadutchies if you are in the EU) The stamp has a bird on it too, but I only inked the cat part for this print.

Meesha has been keeping us quite busy, she is cuddly and playful and sometimes a bit naughty, so yeah exactly cat like! We are so lucky to have her in our home. The best part is when she wants to cuddle when we have our breakfast together. She is such a sweetheart!

 

And with this cute picture I'm wishing you a great week.

Thanks for stopping by!

Namasté

Monthly planning MTN: January 2016 overview

So I started this overview in the 3rd weekend of January but I actually managed to complete it this past monday! It seems like I'm getting the hang of it, finally! I have been using different things for this month so it looks "bolder" than the previous months pages do. Also a lot has happened this month. I've taken a few "work in process" pictures as it's fun to see how the pages change as I add more stuff to it. FYI I did not use a primer like I did in the december month. Bleed though is still an issue, sadly...

A print of my hand carved David Bowie stamp (printed with versamark chalk ink olive tone) could not be missed in this month's overview for obvious reasons.

Lots of orange, red and blue tones. And I keep busting those adorable 365 planner stamps from sakuralala. I recently found THIS cute little matchbox box again with those adorable hand made stickers. It was sent to me in a swap with my friend Arkaya years ago and they are so perfect to use in the planner!

And this is what the finished month looks like. I have written 'January 2016' with a Pilot Parallel Fountain pen 6mm width. Other fountain pens I used on here; pilot kaküno with black ink (the fune print), Edison Nouvau premier LE Caribbean sea with Pilot Iroshizuku Ama Iro and Franklin Christoph Intrinsic 02 with Kingdom Note Saskia Charona. 

A close up of the kitty sticker and I still really love that gorgeous Moon charm.

The last weekend of January turned out pretty Epic for the following reason: we adopted a cat from the local animal shelter! My heart is so full with love for our little pretty kitty... and she will start living with us 1/2 through February! I suspect the month of February will have a lot of cat mentions in them :) Also a reason to finally use my Instax mini 8 camera maybe? 

Thanks for stopping by. 

namasté

Monthly planning MTN : overview november & december 2015

Last year I bought the blue midori and an open monthly planner to give the 'monthly planning thing' a go and make good use of my sakuralala 365 stamps. So I have finished november and also did december 2015 and wanted to share my pages and also some issues I have with the paper of the planner here.

This is what the finished month of november looks like. I use this planner to track the fun things happening in the month and it was definitely a month with some great memorable moments. I love how the little planner stamps can give it such a visual overview. I decorated the lower open space with some fun stickers and other stamps, using the memento dew drop color scheme you see above.

When I was ready to start on december I encountered a problem with the paper.

I found that I had significant bleed through on both sides of the paper as you can see here. I used the memento stamp inks and fountain pen inks and they both seem to bleed through. I've heard from some other people that this paper is indeed bleed/show through sensitive, but I have not found a solution yet. I have tried something for the december page, but I'm not satisfied with that result. I used artist Gel medium, mixed with a bit of water, to prime a few pages, but it resisted some inks and I could not work with it properly. Still I did the best I could with those prepped pages.

An overview of december. The right page I put on a thicker coating and the left page a medium coating. The thicker coating completely resisted all water soluble inks, so for that side I had to use Staz on stamp ink and sharpies. The left side could be worked on but still showed some resisting. I had to use my heat tool to set the ink I used (Diamine shimmertastic blue pearl which I had in my Pilot Retro Pop) I do like the overview, nice and visual again, but due to the resist it has a bit of a blurry look and less clean and sharp as november was.

A close up so you can see the 'shiny sheen' of the gel medium I used. And I had to write over it several times sometimes to get the ink to stick. So it was an interesting experiment, but I won't be using gel medium to prep my pages again. At least not such a thick coating. By the way, that cute little moon charm I received from my penpal Ambra, I just love it :)

Since it's really fun doing these monthly overviews, I'm gonna give it another try for January and not prep the pages, but use different stamp ink. The crafty peeps at Sakuralala said they use versamark inks and  have minimal bleed through. I have a few of those chalk inks I can try to use. Also will use drier writing inks that are less absorbent on paper.  I am curious to see how this will work out in the next overview. 

If you have encountered this bleed though issue yourself and have found a remedy for it, please let me know. 
Thanks for stopping by.

Namasté

Monthly planning with sakuralala's 365 stamps in Traveler's Notebook

A while back I entered a giveaway on instagram for the cute Fall 365 stamp sets by sakuralala and I could not believe my luck that I was actually one of the winners!! These babies arrived in the last week of october and they are just fantastic in real life!

The Fall Collection consist of clear stamps sets: alphabet Fukuro, Frame, School, Aki and Daily. The little stampers are just perfect sized for planners! I decided to give the monthly planner thing a go to properly use these stamps. I already have a dated weekly planner for work stuff in my Passport Traveler's Notebook so I decided to try the open monthly planner refill 017 for fun stuff in my new Blue Edition Traveler's Notebook which my husband gifted to me (he knows me so well!)  

NB: they are sold out every where but Misc Store still has a few of them left!