Hi WashiGang Crew!
With this wintery weather, there's a special feeling in the air! It's the perfect time for snuggling on the couch, journaling, binging Netflix, baking, drinking cosy beverages and Christmas in JULY!!!
Have you ever noticed how some of our favourite sticker books from America and the UK have a different season to us? And when it's Christmas time, there are lots of snowy themed Christmas stickers to be found! Well that's why we love Christmas in JULY! It's a great time to use all of your winter and snow themed stickers and washi tapes in our journals and planners (while it's actually cold)!
1. Live Love Posh Winter Wonderland Stickerbook
Shop the Winter Wonderland sticker book here!
2. Mossery A5 Dot Grid Notebook - Winter Hares
Shop the Winter Hares Notebook Here!
3. Appree Poljjak Frame Stickers - Ice
Shop Ice Stickers here!
4. Furukawa Paper Works Co Stickers - Winter Animals
Shop Winter Animals Stickers here!
5. Miki Tamura - My Favourite Stickers - Winter
Shop Winter stickers here!
6. Pipsticks Polar Bear Stickers
Shop the Fuzzy Polar Bear Stickers by Pipsticks here!
7. Peter Pauper Press Christmas Clear Stamps
Shop Christmas Clear Stamps here!
8. Mo.Card Forest Mist Flake Stickers
Shop Forest Mist flake stickers here! 
9. Archer and Olive Acrylograph Pens - Cool Fall
Shop Cool Fall pens here!
10. Christmas Washi Tapes!
Shop Christmas washi tapes here!
WashiGang staff member, Emily, created a few Bullet Journal ideas for you in her Dingbats A5 Bullet Journal! Emily mostly focused on using brush pens to create all of these spreads! I also sketched out all of my ideas using a pencil first! Don't be shy to use a pencil & rubber in your bullet journal as a rough draft! I used a combination of the Dingbats Atopens, Fudenosuke soft tip and hard tip brush pens and Tombow Dual Brush Pens to create these spreads.
1. Create a July title page with a winter foliage border.
Add brown acorns, dark green sprigs of pine needles, red bows and berries. This title page was quite easy to create! The main focus was on finding a font for July, which I hand lettered using the Fudenosuke soft tip brush pen. We have lots of great lettering books in the shop to help inspire your lettering! Then I added simple leaf and berry patterns using my Tombow and Atopen brush pens and used the Fudenosuke hard tip brush pen over the top to add detail. 
2. Let it snow!
With Australia being in the Southern Hemisphere, we often miss out on the magical snowy holidays that we see in American and British movies!
This is our time to shine, it's winter, it's Christmas in July - use all of your snow washi tapes and stickers and make your dream Christmas bujo spread.
Don't forget to add some snow themed doodles too!
(If you're based in the Northern Hemisphere - try your hand at a summery Christmas in July themed spread!).
3. Cosy Movie Watch List!
What's on your cosy movie watch list? We are thinking rom-coms and wintery movies, a cosy blanket and a hot chocolate WITH marshmallows!
To create this spread, I added a title at the top of the page and then using a ruler, drew out a table. I highlighted every 2nd line with a Tombow Dual Brush Pen. On one side of the table, I added my movie list. On the other side of the table I added 5 acorns for each row, so that I can give each movie an acorn rating once I've watched it.
Cosy movie watch list for your bullet journal:
1. The Chronicles of Narnia
2. I, Tonya
3. Happy Feet
4. Little Women
5. The Holiday
6. The Grand Budapest Hotel
7. Cool Runnings
8. Bridge Jones Diary (1-3)
9. Edward Scissorhands
10. Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind
11. Hot Tub Time Machine
12. Home Alone
13. Into the Wild
14. The Nightmare Before Christmas
15. Just Friends
Find your most wintery brush pens and make a swatch page of your favourite winter themed/Christmas in July colour palette. 
5. Practice your Cosy X-mas themed doodles
Here is my doodling challenge for your Bullet Journals: Draw an ugly jumper, a mug of hot chocolate, a melting snowman, an ugg boot, a gingerbread man and last year's Christmas tree.
Because Christmas is not actually in July, and it doesn't really snow much in Australia, I wanted to draw some funny doodles to represent that! 
6. A snowflake habit/mood tracker
I love this simple mood tracker idea by @lilbrownjournal on Instagram!
First you'll need to draw 31 snow flakes!! (How fun)
Simply highlight over each snowflake the colour that represents your mood. 
7. A Cosy Bucket List!
What's on your cosy bucket list? Don't forget to let us know in the comments!
Here's what's on my cosy Christmas in July bucket list. I wanted to base the title around a cosy candle light! In retrospect it would have looked really good if I'd done the circles yellow like the candle light as well.
10 Cosy Bucket List Ideas:
1. Have a cosy movie marathon
2. Bake gingerbread cookies
3. Draw cosy themed illustrations in your journal
4. Create a cosy playlist
5. Do a puzzle
6. Have a relaxing bath with bath salts
7. Find your creative side with a guided art book
8. Drink a hot chocolate with marshmallows
9. Learn to knit
10. Start a reading journal
8. Add a spiced hot chocolate recipe to your journal
Use a mug drawing as the background for your recipe!
Here is my spiced hot chocolate recipe! I made it up myself, so I hope it's good. Maybe you can try it and let me know.
Spiced Hot Chocolate (for 2):
2 x cups of oat milk
1 x heaped spoon of cacao powder
2 x teaspoons of coconut sugar
1 x teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 a teaspoon of each, of ground ginger, star anise & nutmeg
Method:
Stir in a pot on the stove until hot. Pour through a strainer. Serve with marshmallows! 
9. Gratitude Christmas in July Log
I love this Christmas baking gratitude log by @annasphere on Instagram!
Here are 7 prompts for a week of gratitude:
1. What are you grateful for today?
2. Who are the people in your life that you are grateful for?
3. What is something that cheers you up when you feel down?
4. Write 3 things that you like about yourself and why?
5. What is something that you're looking forward to?
6. Write about a happy memory!
7. What are 3 things you're grateful for from this past week?
Or you could just add one thing that you're grateful for each day, for the month of July. 
10. Find a Merry or Wintery quote to add to your journal.
I love the Billie Holiday version of this song - "I've got my love to keep me warm." Even though the song is about love and burning desire, I think the quote itself has a cute wholesome double meaning about the love inside you keeping you warm. It makes me think of being snuggly on the couch with family, pets and a belly full of hot chocolate.
To do this design, I just sketched different versions of this quote on spare paper, until it all formed together. By playing on spare paper, I also noticed that I could link up the end of my and the start of love together. I tried to emphasise the main parts of the quote as bigger/more fancy lettered words. And I also thought about the meaning of those words in my lettering design, by adding hearts and the red colour for the words "my love" and a scarf tail for the word "warm". I finished the artwork by wrapping it all up in a cosy wreath, to make it more Christmassy!
If you need some help with your lettering, we have lots of great lettering books in the shop! I used my Fudenosuke soft tip brush pen for the lettering on an angle to create the dry brush effect (because I like this look!).
Don't forget we also have a COMPETITION going during July to win a WASHIGANG Gift Voucher! All you need to do is share you planner or journal spread during the month of July, on either Instagram or in our Facebook Group, using the hashtag #WashiGangWinterSpread
We'd love to see your winter themed and Xmas in July spreads! Don't be shy, all entries have a chance to win!
Thanks so much for tuning in! We hope you liked our Christmas in July prompts and that they inspire you to do some of your own. Don't forget to show us what you create!!!
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