Today I’m sharing my August 2020 Reading Journal setup! This is the third month I’m working with my Archer & Olive Neapolitan journal, and I’m really enjoying working with different color paper.

This August I haven’t changed the way I set up my spreads, but I do want to continue sharing how I style my journal. This month I wanted to keep going with the whole “simple things that make are quick but also make the journal nice” thing, and my process for that is scrapbook paper, washi tape, post-its, and the occasional quick drawing. And once again, I wasn’t much of a fan until I started adding more stuff to the spreads. Apparently I like cluttered spreads, so I think I’ll try to make my journal look a little more complex each month – but I’d still love to use my “simple” strategy!

Title Page and TBR

I’m really loving this kraft paper. Just the different color paper changes the whole vibe of the journal! I didn’t really know what color scheme I wanted for this month, so I just started with my black and white scrapbook paper and went from there. I added some purple as well, which I’m not crazy about, but it’s alright.

I also decided to give my stamps a go again, and realized how light my ink looks on a page. I ended up having to go over this with my Micron pen, but I still think it has a nice look to it.

I felt like the title spread was looking a bit bare, so I added in some floral doodles. I liked being able to use black and white pens for this. And while these drawings look a little complicated, they were thankfully simple to draw!

I anticipate I’ll have a lot on my TBR, so I made sure I had plenty of room on this page. I might need to do nothing but read for days straight to pull it off, but what can I say? There’s a lot of books I want to read this summer.

Read and Pages Read

Again, I found myself needing more space on my “read” page from last month! So for this month, I made sure to decorate but also give myself as much space as possible. It looks blank now, but I feel like it looks too cluttered once I fill it in – so I’m keeping things minimal here.

My pages read spread is minimal as well, considering that the chart takes up the whole page! This is probably the only tracker I ever manage to fill out daily. I also love looking back on this, so it’s a must-have for me each month.

Blog and Instagram Posts

These are new-ish spreads that I’m definitely keeping! Although my Bookstagram is getting to be semi-improv now, I definitely want to have a plan and pre-planned pictures set and ready to go. My pictures take a long time to set up, so I want to be able to both have a plan and plan captions in advance. And if I go against the plan, that’s okay – as long as I’m ready otherwise.

Same thing for my blog posts – I actually don’t really go by the schedule at all (other than weekly tag posts). This just gives me a worst-case scenario for non-review posts if I don’t have lots of reviews ready to post. I also really enjoy writing non-review posts and like to have ideas ready in case I’m in the mood to write, so I’ll put that here and have a plan ready.

That’s all for my reading journal this month! Let me know how you track your reading below. 

-Julie Anna

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