Thank you so much Alison, and I'm so happy to hear that you're loving the membership! I try to be honest about my experience as 1) I find it cathartic to talk about it and 2) I think it helps other artists to know what they might expect from this career choice.

Glad you enjoyed the review! I didn't know that they'd brought out journals with thicker paper. I think I've converted to other brands now though as I like journals with detailed covers. I'm also a sucker for a foiled edge! haha

Glad you enjoyed it!

You can do it! 😁

Thank you Caroline 😊

Another commenter mentioned that they now have thicker paper so could be worth a revisit if that was your only issue. :) Saying that, there are so many journal brands now with a cover style for everyone that I think Leuchtturm might be a bit uncompetitive in that regard.

It was a lot of fun!

They're genuinely all so pretty. I tried a different brand this year and didn't end up liking it so picked up another Compoco one. It's actually on my to-do list to create a video about why Compoco is my go-to each year

@@CalligraphyGems Glad to hear you're still using them! That would be a great video; looking forward!

Yes, these are the covers of cards. If you check out my channel I have a top tip of how I write the inside of the cards too. I use pre-folded cards that are 250gsm

Do you think that they became easier to use because you got used to them or because they'd "broken in" - not sure whether that's a thing with brush pens or not so I'm curious!

Thanks Dina, glad you found them helpful. Have fun bullet journaling! 📓

Thank you so much! I have a video about keeping up a journal all year long that may be of interest to you. I also have a learn calligraphy playlist :)

Thank you. I definitely connected with the quote and loved that it was by David Bowie

Thank you. I always enjoy coming up with ideas each year!

For watercolour painting? If so, I'll have to give them a go

@@CalligraphyGems Absolutely! Just use the marker on the darkest parts of your drawing and then use water and a brush and spread out like normal watercolor. They blend even nicer that way.

Thank you! I normally have a tricky time choosing quotes for my journal but loved this David Bowie one

Yeah I've sped up over the last couple of years. It's still consumes a lot of time though if I do a video with a lot of b-roll. My fave videos to do atm are this sort of video where I chat to the camera about my experiences. I'd like to incorporate more of this style of video in the future. The bonus is that they're also the easiest to edit! Also thanks for engaging in the comments, sometimes it feels like no-one's watching otherwise haha

I'm still in my Compoco journal atm, but will be moving to the square journal in Jan. I expect my annual plan with me video to come out in the next week or so, so keep an eye out :)

@@CalligraphyGems ah okay I'll keep an eye out! Thanks

I was on furlough for a while during the pandemic meaning I wasn't working but still employed (similar to maternity leave). I was out for nine months so it was a huge readjustment returning to work. My colleagues were happy to see me return but I knew after returning that running a business was definitely what I wanted to do. Glad you enjoyed the video!

Yeah I think that's my favourite spread too, both looks and function wise

I'm glad to hear it's not just me. I think feeling confident to chat about my business will come more with time. Thanks for the support ❤️

It's definitely challenging to overcome. I think making friends in the creative community has been the key to my confidence in my business. And thank you, hope you have a lovely festive season too!

Thanks Dina. I'll definitely look at sharing more insights on Instagram from now on :)

Great question! I don't practice that often solely for the purpose of improving as I'm currently content with my style. However, having a business focused on teaching has helped me to improve. I now think more critically about calligraphy to analyse how it works so that my teaching to others improves. I post to social media more often which I think helps me to hone in on my style more. I also use it daily when journaling. Because I create with it daily it's also solidly built into muscle memory now. :)

Thank you Rachel, I'm glad you found it helpful. 😊 I expect I'll do more videos about Trello in the future so stay tuned

Have fun creating!

I will

Good question! I wanted a journal that could take watercolour for 2022 as I've been enjoying watercolour more and actually bought one for this purpose (a different journal). But because I know I need more room next year I gave up the watercolour aspect in exchange for space, assuming this wouldn't work for watercolour. I don't know why I didn't think to try it out for this video. I'll have to give it a go! Also, buying a new journal is genuinely my favourite xmas present to myself. I bought my journal in April this year though so super early haha.

@@CalligraphyGems from the researching I’ve been doing, I can’t see how this journal won’t take watercolour, especially after seeing your pen test, that ecoline looked nice and shiny 🤞 I got a beautiful b5 ottergami journal for my birthday, but whilst the pages are lovely the journal itself only has around 120 pages, and I didn’t want to run out of room, so have been using it as a reading journal, the paper is 170gms but has a nice almost shiny coating on the paper, and that has taken watercolour 😍 without a wrinkle. So I’m hoping the square journal will do the same. Why shouldn’t you have both, space to create and the paper to handle the water 😂😂😂😍

It'll be amazing if it works for both!

Ahh, that's genius! I think it's quite easy to fill up a journal in 6 months, particularly when you're new to journaling as it's so exciting trying out a bunch of ideas. I'm at a point where I almost hit the exact number of pages in a journal with my current layout but it means I don't have much room to try new things!

@@CalligraphyGems for the most part I have the attention span of a flea, and struggled to carry a theme through the month, until this journal which I started in august, I cheated by doing a Dutch door weekly spread so managed the theme lol this month I did cakes and desserts 🧁 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️ and managed to carry it through the month. Had to use gouache instead of watercolour but it worked.

It's great you found a theme that you liked. If you find that you struggle to keep up monthly themes generally though I recommend not using them as you don't want your journaling to become a chore. I don't know if you've seen it yet but I have a video about how to keep up a bullet journal all year long with my top tips

@@CalligraphyGems ah ha!!! I’ll go have a look, thanks, I like the look of the month overall when I stick to the theme. Do you do your journal spreads on Instagram?

Thanks Deja! 😊

I looked recently in Asda and noticed they'd updated them. How did you get on with them?

They were kinda hard to do thick strokes but it was good

I wish I had a calligraphy teacher I'm nee to it

And I'll subscribe

On Tuesday I'm have a handwriting/calligraphy competition at school so I'm watching ur videos to help me learn