September: Serenity Theme

My September theme started with a quote (as it so often does).  Every year I have a "word of the year" and for 2025 that word is Still. Every month, I have a quote in my journal that incorporates my word of the year. The quote I chose for September is:
"Serenity is knowing that even your worst shot is still pretty good."


This one really spoke to me because one of my goals for the year was to release a new pattern on September 1. While I did technically do this, (Yay! My tombstone pattern expansion pack is now available!) I did not technically do everything that I wanted to in order to prep for launching this pattern. Ideally, I would’ve had more examples sewn up and more photos and more videos ready to share before releasing it. But nothing’s perfect, I can’t let perfect be the enemy of good or whatever that saying is. And I’m feeling that although this pattern release is not everything that I wanted it to be, it is, in fact, "pretty good" enough.


So long story short, that is why I chose this quote for September. But as soon as I settled on the quote and began to think about how to incorporate it into a theme, I realized that I cannot read the word "serenity" without thinking about the movie Serenity and the TV show Firefly. If you know, you know.

I love this TV show/movie, and I love the idea of having themed journals spreads celebrating this fandom. But also, I’m feeling pretty stressed and burnt out because I've been trying to launch a pattern. So I decided to try to pair it down as much as possible and have a more simplified celebration of Serenity as my theme for September.


So I brainstormed a few different quotes and symbols that really represented the show for me. I decided to just focus on incorporating at least one symbol into each page. It could be in any version: as a doodle, a quote or a printed out sticker. I tried to keep it rather minimal while still honoring the theme and not making it boring.

​Obviously, I had to incorporate the spaceship Serenity into my decorations. Because my quote included the word serenity, I put a sticker of the ship on my quote/cover page. I also added some leaves to represent the whole "I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar" quote from Wash.

The font for September is Papyrus, which is very similar to the font used on the cover of the Serenity film. For the image of the ship, ​I downloaded a free graphic from pixaby and printed it on sticker paper. Here is the link if anyone is interested:
https://pixabay.com/vectors/serenity-firefly-spaceship-6193620/

As for the colors throughout this whole month, I picked out a few orangish reddish rusty brown colors and just used them throughout to add some visual interest. The whole show really feels like these colors to me (people’s outfits, the red engine room, the DVD menu screens etc), and it was an easy way to keep the theme going without adding too much difficulty.

​For my aims page, I couldn’t resist putting the quote "I aim to mis-behave".

​For the calendar page, I decided to use the Papyrus font again on sticker paper. Also, for the days of the week I chose to draw in a font that looked to be similar to Chinese characters. (A big part of the world building of the show is that it's set in a future where the US and China are super powers that merged to form the dominant governing power in the universe) Of course, I know nothing about Chinese characters, but this at least gave the feel that I was looking for.

​For my habits page, I made my usual habits layout but I scooched it to all the way to the left to give me room for a doodle and a quote. Anyone who loves the show knows this quote and I couldn’t resist adding it in. Then I randomly used the colored markers to fill in my habit tracker.

My finance page paid tribute to Kaylee with some strawberries and the title of "Shiny".

My journal page I felt went well with Inara. I put a simple little teapot with cups in the corner to represent her character and left the rest open for my journaling entry at the end of the month.

Fun fact: my robe pattern is named Inara in honor of Inara Serra from Firefly.

​On my September review page, I made a doodle of Jayne’s hat as the centerpiece and created my review sections in kind of a mind map style around it.

For my second decorative cover page (although I know it’s not a cover) I put another picture of Serenity. This time it's one that I drew myself. To make it faster I use my phone as a sort of light box underneath the page to get the initial sketch. Then I simply blacked in and added a few lines of detail on top. And I couldn’t resist the quote "still flying" since my word of the year is Still.

For my weeklies, I kept it basic: using the same basic set up that I’ve been using for the last few months. The left page includes a weekly menu, highlight, routines, an overview of the calendar for the week, and a rolling tasks list. The right page I leave open for any notes, sketches, or dailies I might have. I just ended up using my color scheme at random and also sticking in a printed quote on each of the weekly notes pages. Either another quote from the show or a quote that contained the word Still. There are quite a few great quotes that I know I won’t have time to get to this year since I only have a couple months left. So I sprinkled a few in here.

Overall, I’m really happy with how this month's designs turned out. It even had more of a fall theme than I anticipated with the rusty oranges, reds and browns and the leaves on the cover page. Although really it doesn’t even feel like fall here yet since it’s still been in the 80s pretty much every day. I also had a lot of fun rewatching some the show as I did my journaling and sewing last month.
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