A beautiful sign of spring is when the cherry trees bloom. Since it doesn’t snow in the Bay Area where I live, our cherry blossoms usually arrive in early March. Here is a picture of the cherry tree in my front yard when it was in full bloom:

That made cherry blossoms the inspiration for my March theme in my reading journal. In Japanese, cherry blossoms are called “sakura,” and Sakura is also the main character from one of my favorite magical girl anime, Cardcaptor Sakura. I’m currently rewatching the original series before I watch the new one, Clear Card. So I combined the character and the flowers for another cute theme!

The Sakura stickers were printed by me from pictures that I found on the internet. The cherry blossom origami paper, flower stickers, and washi tape were all purchased at Daiso. Just like February, this was a very pink and pastel theme. I’ll be moving on to brighter colors in later months.

I know that these cutesy themes don’t always fit with the books I’m reading. Rival Demons, for example, is a dark urban fantasy about a war between witches and demons. Putting that on a page with pink flower stickers might seem weird. But I pick my themes and decorations based on things that I like and what will make me smile. There are other reading journals I’ve seen which look more elegant or theme each page to the book, but I’m not trying to copy them. This journal is for me.

As you can see, I read four books in March. I was busy at the time, so I only read thirteen days. These books had a total of 1254 pages, about half of what I read in February. Here’s a peak at one of the books I read:

The review is still to come.