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Ok, so, as much as I love my handmade Coptic-bound journal (oh, she of the 400 pages)…using her every single day as my hybrid bujo…well, I wanted a little break–even though I have a MARCH page sitting there…I just wanted to try something a little bit different. And I have.

Decomposition Notebooks have been a thing in my world lately, due to a series of videos I have been watching for various classes and some I have found (more like, they found me, but I digress…) on YouTube…and so I decided I wanted to buy one or two to get the feel of them, see if spending $10 per journal (roughly) was worth it since I can grab the cheaper composition journals anywhere from fifty cents to a dollar usually.

First of all, I actually had no clue they had their own website. They do–and it is awesome. I am still in awe at how many products they have. And they have more than one size. I don’t do spiral-bound anything if I can avoid it (and I try to avoid it at all costs)…but the hand-sewn journals…they have more than enough to keep me happy for quite a while. I bought a blank one, a dot-grid one, some college-ruled ones, and some that are pocket-sized (college-ruled) that fit into one of my A6 TN journal covers perfectly…and leave me with enough room to put in at least four more (I have two in there now), if not more…it’s a nice cover. The journals are awesome as well.

I am using the dot-grid journal as this month’s hybrid bujo/memory keeper. I did not do this because I needed bigger pages. Oddly enough, I think that I am paring back on what goes on a page as I am moving some things into other journals and inserts for other reasons.

Things I am moving: health-related things are going into their own insert so I can keep a closer eye on things. This includes food, exercise, O2 levels, blood pressure, things of that nature. I am thinking of having a single menu planner insert set up as well to keep a bunch of ideas at the ready so I can just flip through and grab an idea real quick when we need one. We’ll see on that one. My Tarot journaling–well, this isn’t going into an insert. I have the Writual Society yearly bound planner and I am going to keep track of things in that…however, I am also instigating a new exploration of my Tarot cards since I have a new set of Tarot cards that I am in love with and now deeply attached to: the Santa Muerte Tarot..

I just received my copy of Journaling The Tarot: A Little Book of Big Questions written by Andy Matzner. I am impressed with this little book. Each card has two pages of questions, journaling prompts, to help you dig deeper into the message of the card. My plan is to pull a card and pick a question and journal the answer to that question in a separate Tarot journal — every day (knock on wood).

I am also setting up tracker planners specifically for my classes that I am taking, the books I am working through (non-fiction), my writing and publishing schedule (non-blog related) — so a lot of stuff removed to a different space, kept in the same TN journal cover (except for the tarot journals as they are different sizes) so I can keep up with everything.

The dot-grid decomp (as I call it) so far has been great. Having all that extra room is actually helpful for my brain (an unexpected bonus). Yes, there is some ghosting on the pages when I use my markers, but it isn’t so bad I am like, nope, never again. For some reason when I am writing down ideas and goals in this journal (as opposed to my A5 journals), my hand moves, the ink flows and I get more ideas and I get them written down. Maybe this dot-grid decomp is what I need.

If this is a successful test, I will be using a regular college-ruled decomp notebook for the next hybrid bujo set-up, as I have a few of those around.

Be warned, I bought some of the notebooks that were on sale that were made in collaboration with another company. The Jalapeno recycled notebooks. These are made from 50% post-consumer waste, not 100% as the original ones are. Now, I am in NO WAY bad-mouthing the Jalapeno notebooks. The paper is a bit different than the decomp paper, a bit thinner (to me) and a bit kinda slicker? shinier? Better than a regular dollar composition notebook, but for me not as good as the decomp notebooks–if that makes sense. They are still nice and I am absolutely still going to use them. I just wanted to let you know in case you needed that information.

Yes, at some point I will do a flip-through video for this…I’ve been really happy with the set-up thus far, so we’ll see how it goes the rest of the month.

How about you? Any changes to your set-up? New pens? New stickers? Anything?

Any questions or comments you have, please leave them below and I will respond as soon as I can.