Hi, everyone! Today, I wanted to start something new on my blog: a series on my reading journal for the year. I started my first reading journal last year and had a blast with it. After a year of experimenting to figure out what I liked and didn’t, I figured I would try my hand at making blog posts to show them off and maybe give others ideas! I will say that this is the first time I’ve photographed anything, and since my phone doesn’t have the best camera and I haven’t edited anything majorly before, the pictures might be a bit…not good, lol. I also don’t have a good place to take pictures that don’t have shadows visible. But I’ll be describing everything, so hopefully that’ll help!
For this post, I’m going to be focusing on the general spreads I have, spreads that span throughout the year or are just cute ones that I did in the beginning of the year that I liked. I hope y’all enjoy!
This is the spread when you first open the journal! The postcard is from RedBubble (you can snag it here!) from when I had my Patreon — it was going to be a tier gift thing. Didn’t pan out, so I figured I’d use it here! I felt like the lil fox stickers and the washi tape added a lil color to it, too. I have no idea where those came from. They were gifts, I think, from my parents. Probably from Michael’s!
The Pikachu and Louise stickers were both gifts from my brother and sister-in-law. They gave me a bunch of stickers for Christmas. Aren’t they cute? As for the two gay stickers, I decided I needed to add a lil queer to my reading journal, lol. They were also from Michael’s, when they had a bunch of pride stuff last June or the June before.
The year page! I love how this turned out. I first did the year in black ink (with a Micron pen, I believe) and left it at that. But then I felt like it was a little drab, so I decided to try something I found on Pinterest. I grabbed blue and purple Tombow brush pens and used them on a plastic sandwich baggie. Once that was done, I sprinkled a bit of water onto it and stirred it around to mix the two paints/inks. Afterwards, I then smeared it across the each of the pages, having to do the process again for the right page. I really love how it turned out! The colors didn’t blend as much as I wanted, but it’s still very pretty to me, and I’m glad I tried it out.
Finally got on the bandwagon and doing a “[blank} books to read in 20[blank]” spread. I normally don’t like to do these types of lists, but I figured it’d be a good way to get my owned TBR down! I just wrote the title out in cursive across the two pages. The two stickers are, again, from a sticker pack that was a gift from my parents. I thought they looked cute, and they fit the space perfectly! Below, I wrote out twenty-one of the books I own that I want to make sure I get to throughout the year. Most of them are random books I’ve had on my shelves, but others are also ARCs that I’ve had for an embarrassing amount of time.
I’m at it again with the pretty watercolor-esque designs! This time I used red, yellow, and orange for my reading goal spread, and I think I liked how this turned out more than the year page. It just looks very pretty to me. The number is a bit arbitrary — my official goal is 80 — but I wanted to push myself to read between 80 and 100, and 96 made it look even, lol. Also, I’m changing the colors every three rows: the first three will be red (as shown), the next three will be orange, and the final three (and more, if I need another row) will be yellow.
I wanted to do a spread of my bookish goals for this year, but I didn’t really like how this turned out. I love the purple, the stars, and the stickers, but I don’t like how the title looks, and I hate the layout of it. (also? there may be a lot of spelling errors) But once I fulfill a goal, I’ll color in the corresponding planet/moon/asteroid, which I think will turn out really cute. I’m not sure what I’ll use to color them yet, though.
I love having my TBRs separated by general, owned, and ARCs, and so I thought it’d be nice to have the whole list in my journal. I love the simplicity of it, and once I finish a book off this list (or DNF it!), I’ll color it in to match the key. If you can’t read it very well, from left to right, it’s: purple circle = physical copy from the library; blue circle = audio copy from the library; green circle = digital copy from the library; red square = owned physical copy; orange square = owned digital copy; X = DNF. This particular spread lasts for five and a quarter pages in total, with another two and three quarter pages left blank in case I need them.
Basically the same format from my owned TBR, but it’s simple enough, which is why I chose not to change it up too much. As you can see, it’s…very blurry, but hopefully you still get the gist! The key is pretty much the same as well: purple circle is for physical books, blue circle is for digital books, “X” is for anything I DNF, and a green triangle is for any re-reads. I have two and a half pages in all of books I’m trying to read or re-read and about a page and a half left for any that I plan to buy this year. Since I’m on a buying ban through June, I don’t think I’ll be snagging a ton, which is why I don’t have a ton of space allocated.
Here I have a spread for my ARCs/any review copies I receive! Again with the simple layout and the rainbow washi tape (which, by the way…I think was a gift? Most of the washi tape I have now is, lol). It has the same key as my owned TBR, minus the re-reads. I only have these two pages for the spread — I don’t see myself needing anymore space, especially since I deleted my NetGalley account.
I like to keep track of the books I want to buy — nowadays, unless I have a gift card or it’s super cheap, most of the books I buy are ones I’ve already read and see myself in re-reading in the future. Basically any favorites, new or old. Now that I have a PS4 and Switch (and hopefully time to play them), I’m hoping to play them more often, and I’ve set up a list of ones I want to try out, too. It’s just the one page each for these, too. I don’t find myself buying a ton of books, or wanting to buy a ton of them, and I’m pretty picky about what games to buy.
So this spread is based on a Google doc from someone on Twitter. It’s basically a master document of all sorts of leftist texts, books, online resources, documentaries, and more. I skimmed through and copied down all the books, and I’ll pull from it throughout the year to read from because leftist theory is something that I’m personally super interested in. I have about six and a half pages worth of titles, and two more blank pages. Problem is, the books I have so far aren’t even half of what’s in the Google doc. But, I guess that’s not a bad thing — it’s not like I’ll be able to read through all of these this year, lol. The key is basically the same as the one for my general TBR, except there is an added yellow triangle that stands for any online resources I read.
And this is another spread I did after I became overwhelmed with all the games I have, not only for my Switch, but also all the games my boyfriend left on his PS4 when he gave it to me. I…may have also bought a few more, lol. To try and keep track of them, I made this spread so I’m more cognizant of what I have yet to play and to help me keep track of how long it’s taking me to play something. I tend to play something for two days straight and then not touch it for two months. For the yellow, I used a Zebra Mildliner!
And that’s it for today! Comment below if you’re doing your own reading journal or if you have any specific books you plan on reading this year!
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