It’s finally time to go back to my reading journal! I’m still posting themes from earlier this year, which is why you’re seeing a post about my May theme in July. (I actually just finished my July cover, and it’s so pretty that I’m excited to show it to you, but it would be a shame to skip these other months that I’m proud of. So we’ll get to the new one in time.)

“April showers bring May flowers” is a common phrase, and we often have flowers for May Day/Beltane as well as Mother’s Day, which is celebrated this month in the U.S. What really sealed the deal for me was the “Flour Power” theme from Wonton in a Million. These brightly colored stickers and washi tape made an incredible cover page.

I’ve noticed that since I’ve started this reading journal, I’ve being steadily increasing the number of books that I read. I always love reading and try to make time for it. But it’s even more exciting when I can write about the book when it’s finished and decorate my journal. Since this set came with eight flowers, I pushed myself to read eight books so I could use all the colors… and then I ended up finishing two extras! Some of these were shorter stories, but the total number of pages read for the month has also gone up.

The monthly review shows the results. I read 29 days out of 31, finished 10 books, for a total of 2,714 pages. And there were some really great reads!

Here is an example of a page from this month’s books. This is a non-fiction book about writing, which I don’t usually review on this blog, so it won’t have its own post. Here is Take Joy by Jane Yolen.

And as an added bonus, I thought you might like to see how these compare to my planner when it’s filled out. I used these same flower stickers and washi during May in my Happy Planner. The bright colors and cute characters made me smile all month long.

It’s probably not a coincidence that the full moon in May is called the “Flower Moon!” And for another example, is the week of Mother’s Day:

As you can probably guess, I like to squeeze stickers into every last inch of space on the page. And they’re not all just decorative. There are stickers tracking my writing word count, when I’m reading, what’s for dinner, when packages arrive, chores, exercise, and more. I like to keep all these planners even when I’m finished using them so I can look back on the memories that I made with my family.

I hope that you enjoyed seeing all these photos from my reading journal and planner. Next week, I’ll share my June spreads from my reading journal. I bet you can guess what theme I picked!