make it right

8/21/19

8 / 21 / 19

Hi everyone! School is about two weeks away from starting, and I’m beginning to buy some cute supplies, as it’s one of my favorite parts of the back to school season. I’m going to be a junior in high school this year, which I almost can’t believe. I’m kind of nervous since I’ll be taking a lot of AP/IB classes, playing a fall sport, and studying for my SAT at the same time.

If anyone has any advice for studying for the SAT, please let me know!

In case you would like to know where all of the items in this picture are from, here is the list:

2020 planner from Eccolo

Notebooks (unfortunately these do not have a brand label on them, but you can find similar ones on Amazon from the brand Studio Oh!)

Scrunchies from Amazon (I bought a huge pack; it’s cheaper than buying individual ones for around $3-4 each!)

Prism In Eyes eyeshadows from Etude House (shades: Melting Sunset and Midnight Fever

geography notes on a dreary day

things I wish I had known when starting a studyblr - study-like-you-mean-it

 It’s been a looong time since I made this studyblr; I started it in Easter 2016, which means it’s over 3 years old now (which doesn’t seem like a lot but going from GCSEs to having finished the first year of university is a long journey). I thought I’d share a couple of things I’ve learned along the way, through trial and error (mostly error), and hopefully this will help some of you out! :)

Experiment with your look: It’s great if you settle into an aesthetic straight away and want to stick with it for the whole time you have your blog, and if that works for you, that’s great! If like me you want to keep trying out different styles, go with that (I still haven’t settled on an aesthetic and that’s chill)- most of the time, people will see your posts in isolation anyway so don’t put too much pressure on finding aesthetic cohesiveness

Don’t think you have to buy all the stationery: You’ll see a bunch of brand names popping up over and over again in people’s posts, and whilst brands like MUJI and mildliners may work for some, you absolutely do not need to buy all of these things in order to keep up a certain ideal aesthetic. I, for one, have strayed from mildliners and use stabilo pastel highlighters now, as they are cheaper and last longer. My go-to writing pen when I work is a BIC biro, which I bought in bulk so it costs 24p per pen. I do have MUJI pens for working on my bullet journal and the B4 notebooks for taking to lectures, but it’s really not necessary to cash out on all the kit in order to be a “legit” studyblr. All you need is a phone camera, a pen, and a piece of paper.

You don’t need the “studyblr” handwriting: Scrolling through the myriad of studyblr posts, it’s easy to become convinced that you need this stereotypical ultra-neat “studyblr” handwriting, and whilst it does look nice, it’s not the only handwriting that looks nice. I used to take ages to try and write my study notes out so that they conformed to this aesthetic, and it ended up slowing down my studying to the point that I never finished the notes or the material I wanted to cover in a given day. I also ended up making notes for the sake of studyblr posts that ended up not being an effective way for me to study (I learned this the hard way). I’m quite lucky in that my regular handwriting is quite consistent, but to be honest, the overall aesthetic of a post is more important, and sometimes this studyblr handwriting fits into the aesthetic, but I can guarantee it’s not a necessity and you don’t need to spend your time on it if your handwriting doesn’t look like that.

Composition and lighting are most important: Long story short, you can’t take a good photo of your notes if the composition and lighting aren’t there. Take a look through the most popular photo posts and you’ll see what I mean: it doesn’t matter what the actual content of the photo is, just that it looks nice overall. Again, this is a case of what kind of a look you’re going for: some posts will have this super clean, neat look with no shadows, and other will tactfully play with the shadows for a different kind of image. However, if the shadows in the picture don’t match the aesthetic you’re going for, or you try and edit them out after taking the photos, I can guarantee this is a recipe for disaster.

Edit, but don’t overedit: Everyone with a studyblr edits their photos. I personally use a combination of VCSO and Snapseed, and have been doing this for a while, but even then I often make errors in judgement about filter strength and editing, and sometimes my photos end up looking overprocessed and frankly unattractive. I have 11.5k followers, and even now I get posts with 0 reblogs because my photo editing has been so bad. It happens (and the posts get deleted once I realise), and that’s just something you just gotta keep trying at.

Be inspired by others: See something that you like that someone else is doing? There’s no harm in trying to recreate something similar yourself, as long as you’re not plagiarising or downright stealing.

Regularity is important, but you are more important: Obviously, uploading and/or reblogging content regularly is important to your blog. However, it’s a studyblr, and if you find that it’s getting in the way of doing actual work, there’s no harm in taking a break. I rarely upload during term time, or even in the holidays, because I’m so busy trying to get my actual life sorted and enjoying my university experience. For me, I worked the most on my studyblr last summer after I finished my A-Levels, and that’s when I experienced the most growth through very regular uploads (and since everyone else was also on their summer break, they had more time to spend on tumblr and see my content). From there, it’s just been growing by itself, and it’s almost 10x as big as it was in January of 2018. Don’t feel pressured to dedicate loads of time to producing content if you simply don’t have the time. If you’re a studyblr who reblogs rather than produces content, it’s always possible to just queue up stuff so it’s released regularly whilst you are working.

Stick at it: It took me over two years to experience any real growth, and by that time I’d poured many hours of work into it. Growth doesn’t come overnight, and no matter how hard you work, you’ve gotta keep working. My first text posts got 10k notes and that did almost nothing to my follower count. Keep going and it will happen, and when this happens, you’ll be able to reach out to more people, directly and indirectly, and it becomes an even more rewarding experience.

[ 9/9/17 ] 🍋

This weekend is going to be my busiest so far. I have a ton of auditions, a couple of events I want to try and make it to, and my homework load is finally picking up. I’m in my element.

MSC 8/31 8.3.17- Your notes

˚‧*♡ॢ˃̶̤̀◡˂̶̤́♡ॢ*‧˚ // 06. 13. 17

june 19, 2017 - your planner/bujo

#ssn june challenge: week 2, day 1

here’s my spread from last week! since i’m currently on summer break and i haven’t had much going on lately, i’ve been keeping my spreads to just one page. featuring a lyric from one of my favorite songs and a lovely edit of oikawa tooru from haikyuu!! created by @hiruma.

14.06.17 — holding up the universe is such a good book! also, congrats bts on their 4th anniversary! ♡