Digital planners are taking off in a big way and I am SO here for it. With bullet journals and traditional journals come accessories: Washi tape, pens, stickers etc. But if you're holding back from taking the plunge into the world of digital planning because you fear it may not be as creative as paper planning I have some good news. It's not. If anything it's more creative because the possibilities are endless.
With digital planning you can paint in procreate and import it over, you can download images from the internet for vision boards, you have an unlimited colour palette that doesn't bleed through paper, and you still have the tatctile experience of writing - especially if you have a screen protector on your ipad that feels like paper. For more on the pros and cons of digital planning vs paper planning, check out my blog post on why using a digital planner on ipad has replaced my bullet journal.
I recently discovered that digital stickers and digital washi tape is a thing as well and I am obsessed and have been busy making both planners and digital stickers which you can check out on my Etsy shop!
If you're sat there like 'wtf are digital stickers and how do I use them?' look no further. I got you.
Caveat: First thing first; I want to clarify that this tutorial is specifically about how to use them with an ipad and Goodnotes 5 because that's what I use.
In a nutshell, digital stickers work the same way actual stickers do. They can serve a function like making appointments stand out, or act as post-it notes, or they can simply be decorative. It may sound like a bit of a procedure to get them loaded up into GoodNotes, but I promise it's not as complicated as it sounds, and you'll be on your way to having the aesthetic planner of dreams without stressing about not being an artist yourself, or not having space to keep all your random journalling/scrapbooking stuff, and not having to wait for physical stickers to arrive in the post. Because the modern world is all about instant gratification after all, and you're saving a few carbon emissions along the way!
Step 1: Download GoodNotes
It's free for 3 notebooks, or you can pay a surprisingly cheap one-time purchase of 7.99 for premium - which is less than half the price of a single Leuchtturm notebook in Ryman's and you can have as many as you want with handwriting recognition so your scribblings are searchable (I know!!). To be honest the one time purchase also makes a very refreshing change from everything these days demanding a subscription.
I really never thought I'd actually get into digital notebooks because I'm such an analog person but I LOVE not having bits of paper all over the place. I'm not pretending my ipad isn't cluttered as heck instead, but at least I'm not overwhelmed with random bits of paper. Having searchable handwritten notes is a game-changer. Technically you CAN use GoodNotes on desktop and mobile but it's really designed for use with an ipad and apple pencil as a handwriting app.
Step 2: Create your new journal
You can do this in a notebook yourself, or alternatively you can download a pre-made template that has hyperlinked pages for easy navigation on somewhere like Etsy which works more like an actual physical planner. (In my best 'Blue Peter' voice for my British readers... I am not sorry)
Here's one I made earlier.
Step 3: Download a set of digital stickers to your ipad.
They tend to come as a .png 'sheet' of stickers or a .goodnotes file. Both formats have their pros and cons which I'll outline briefly.:
PNG - very easy to download - it transfers to the camera roll your ipad and you import it via the images button in goodnotes while still in your planner and crop from there. If your digital stickers have a solid white background option like my witchy sticker set (see left) it may be a little difficult to see if the background of your planner is also white. Some sticker makers who are not actually designers may also not know how to save out a png with a transparent background, so making tidy cut out selections may be harder for you if there is a solid colour background. Don't worry, as a professional designer I always check my files for quality and file size (so it doesn't clog up goodnotes and make it run slowly or even worse - crash!) and I always save out my .png files with transparent backgrounds. I got you.
.goodnotes files - Instead of importing via the images button you go to the 'add page' button on the top right, hit import at the bottom and locate it in your files. If you have a mac you also can simply airdrop it to yourself and then choose whether you want to import it to the current document or a new document.
I provide my files as both a png sticker sheet and .goodnotes file so people can choose which method they prefer to use. The only real difference I have found between using goodnotes files and pngs when it comes to adding them to the 'element' area of goodnotes is the lasso tool sometimes tries to select multiple stickers when importing from a .goonotes file.
Step 4: Lasso it!
So you've imported your stickers using one of the methods I just described. Now hit your lasso tool and draw around your sticker. Tap within your selected area and hit 'add element'.
If you only see 'take screenshot', tap your lasso tool and in the options, make sure 'images' is turned on. If you tap within your selected area again after doing this, it will still show 'take screenshot' as your only option, so tap out of it to deselect, draw round your sticker again, tap inside and this time your 'add element' option will show up.
step 5: Make your sticker album
You'll have a new window open up saying 'add 1 element to...' and then a bunch of lozenge shapes containing existing sticker albums. You can either add it to an existing sticker album or tap 'new collection'. Choose a title for your album and hit 'create' in the top right.
Congratulations you've just added your first sticker to your first sticker album!
Now simply repeat this to load all your stickers into your album.
You can now access these from any of your notebooks by tapping the elements button and selecting your sticker in the recently used area, or by choosing one of the sticker albums in the bottom row!
The other way of adding stickers to your sticker books you may have seen on youtube or on other people's blogs, is doing it via the images button instead of the lasso button. I strongly recommend you do not use this way of adding images to your sticker books because when you try to add your sticker to your page afterwards, it will be REALLY blurry. I have no idea why this is, but I think this image shows pretty well the massive difference in the image quality and why using the lasso tool is the best way to go.
Happy stickering!!
love
Tashlentine
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