March Bookish Bujo: The Burning God

Happy March May everybody! To be honest with you all, March and April were really rough. I was going through a lot of loss and instability and I started shutting myself down from everything. I know this is two month’s late, and I missed love yourself saturday and the guilt piled up. But all to say I missed you and I’m doing my best, and I send you whatever you may need; love, warmth, strength, courage, or faith.

One of the things I love most about The Burning God is Kuang’s ability to reach into my chest and play my heart like a drum. March was heavy for me and I know dissociation and escapism (especially when it’s also heavy) isn’t the best coping mechanism, but in some weird way, there was a comfort.

In case you couldn’t tell from my past bullet journal posts, I love burning paper. I didn’t do a TDR journal theme, but if I did…I know for a fact I would’ve used burned paper there too.

In addition to burned paper, these watercolor crayons are nothing new. I love finding different ways to experiment with them, and back in March I used a sponge to smudge the paint in. At first, I wasn’t sure about it, but I ended up loving the splotchy unevenness the more I did it.

Okay so also, this was the first time I’ve ever actually burned the pages of my journal. And I loved it! (Yes, I say that to everything, I’m sorry). I normally burn separate paper and glue it in, but I did Dutch doors last year, and I had this idea about a little peek-a-boo behind the burned edges.

However, the difficulty with the burned edges is what to put behind them. I end up settling for just some painted things, but it definitely forced me to plan way ahead (and currently doing that with my current journal theme).

I think the tones of this theme in general are comforting to me; it kind of reminds me of smoke and ashes, which coincides with what’s left at the end of this trilogy 🙂

And since it was only right to use the book cover as my cover page, our trio on the back had to close. I’ll be honest, though: drawing anatomy is hard, so tracing was my bff.

I hope you all still enjoy seeing these. If you’d like to see more of my non-book related journal spreads, you can follow my bujo instagram @joijournals. Also!! I’m super excited to show y’all June’s theme, based on my current read and a book recommended by one of our dear friends, to be revealed soon.