Setting up my Bullet Journal for August 2023: ice cream and ice lollies theme

Today, as I write this blog post, I have the window in my craft room wide open and a large bottled of iced water on my desk to sip from. The weather has finally improved after days of rain, and the sun is peeping out from behind the clouds. I was beginning to think the summer was over but it appears to be back, for a brief time at least judging by the forecast! August is almost here and it is one of my favourite months as my niece and I share our birthdays on the 3rd (which coincides with factory shut down week so my husband can take some well earned time off from his office job), plus we celebrate our wedding anniversary (17 years on the 11th!). As we will be busy making the most of holiday time next week, I started working on my spreads super early, this time, choosing a seasonal theme of ice cream and ice lollies.

Cover page

Once I had decided on the theme, I spent some time searching Google for pictures of bullet journal spreads that others had shared, doodles of ice creams and lollies, plus photos of some of my childhood favourites and different types of cones. I then printed off lots of examples for inspiration for my spreads.

For the cover, I opted for some brush lettering in the centre of the page with just a simple hello August. I wasn’t happy with my first attempt, so I practised on my pad of dot grid paper then cut out the title when I was happy with it. The slim border around the cut out is created using mint green ink on a finger sponge dauber which I lightly pressed all around the edge. One the lettering was sorted, I then penciled in a range of ice creams and ice lollies before using a 0.2 Pigma Micron to outline and a 0.05 to create the cross hatching for the cones. Finally, I used Tombows and Mildliners in pastel colours to complete the doodles.

Calendar page

The calendar pages features my usual 6×6 grid spaces boxes with a pop of colour for the dates. I enjoyed creating the doodles for these pages and I’m pleased with how they turned out. I messed up once so I covered the mistake with a sticker I created using a Google image.

Finances and habits pages

Although the beginning of August is likely to be expensive for our joint finances, I’m hoping to keep my personal spending relatively low so I’ve made my outgoings table even shorter than last month. This left a big space at the bottom of the page, so I filled it with some habit trackers. Recently, I’ve started going to bed really late and by the time I’ve read my Kindle for a bit, it’s gone midnight. Because of this, I’ve been sleeping in and not getting as much done with my day. So as not to put too much pressure on myself, I’ve set myself the target of being up by 8.30am for August which will still be a bit of a challenge but hopefully doable. The rest of the habits I want to instill are related to my goals for 2023.

Final words…

That’s all of the pages I’ve created for August so far and when I draw up my weekly plans, I will probably keep them fairly minimal. I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing my designs and I look forward to seeing other creations and theme ideas as they are shared.

Wishing you all a fun-filled August with lots of opportunities to create happy memories,