Towards the end of my last bullet journal, I started to realize that I had a ton of empty spreads. I had made trackers and not used them, and now I just had a bunch of wasted real estate in my journal with less than a dozen new pages left.
Around this time, my love for fashion and my obsessive desire to hoard magazines finally paid off. I may not have any skill at sketching, but I have an eye for color and shape. All you need are magazines, or even the use of a printer if that's your thing, plus scissors and a glue stick. Then you'll go wild like you're in first grade again. I love how so many of these turned out. Plus, it kept me from having to flip past trackers for habits I had abandoned.
This page had originally been intended for the placement of personal photos, sort of a highlight for each month. But after September I had stopped caring about printing out images. I lived in a sorority house at the time, and not only was the house printer a pain in the ass, it also ran the risk of feeling super awkward while printing out photos on printer paper. This image matched with the color scheme and allowed me to use this large advertorial. The words I selected don't super mean anything. After a while of searching through my cutouts for something suitable, I eventually surrendered and chose text that matched with the theme instead.
The story of this collage is a nicer story than just me being too lazy to fill in a tracker or to fill in the blank space next to a cover page. I had made a massive job searching spread that extended over six pages. Each page had a quote with that circle motif, and on the righthand side I would input the jobs I had applied for. Luckily I found a job after only filling in two pages (that was still more than fifty job applications, so don't feel like I lucked out too much). I filled in what would have been a search spread with this collage instead. I have a lot of wedding magazines, but I don't like to fixate on weddings when I'm decidedly single, so this spread let me focus on the glamour of that sweeping train.
(A note on the quote that likely only I will find important: while it reads "opportunities don't happen, you create them," I don't always 100% agree. I had chosen it to motivate myself and apply for as many jobs as possible. However, I think that sometimes that perspective can be incredibly privileged. It ignores the fact that sometimes less talented individuals receive opportunities due to connections or situations. At times it seems like that position is used to shame those with less means for not "trying hard enough," but that's not always the case. I saw this firsthand as I spent my summers working two jobs to make rent, while many of my peers were able to accent unpaid internships in their field because they could afford not to work. At times it is not as simple as "making opportunities." I think it's partially true, but I was almost entirely done with the spread before the time I thought the phrase through. You can only dig through Pinterest for career quotes for so long before you start to go a little nuts.)
Fitting with the green theme from July, this spread subbed in for abandoned trackers. I chose the quote to make me feel better and I got to use all the random images of plants I had found.
This spread was a way to close out a yellow themed section where I discussed my goals. One of the perks of using collages is that they can cover a multitude of sins. This let me cover up bleed through from the previous page. I love to color with markers, but I don't have the patience for delicate strokes. Collages are what save the day.
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