art – Keeping it creative

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Setting up my Bullet Journal for July 2025: Summer flowers theme

Posted on Jul 1, 2025 by Laura

Happy July everyone! This month, I’ve opted for a floral theme for my bullet journal, taking inspiration from nature, particularly wildflowers and those found in our garden. I initially found some simple flower bouquet stickers in my collection and planned to have a go at recreating them but, I decided that doing some drawing for my front cover was going to take enough time so I used the stickers themselves in my following pages. I know I said when I moved into this notebook that I was going to try to avoid too many stickers in my BuJo but the vinyl is very thin so I relented!

The front cover

For the cover page, I sketched out a number of flowers and leaves focusing on different shapes and sizes of bloom as well as different colours for both the flowers and the foliage. I took some inspiration from my own garden as we currently have some lovely bright orange poppies next to our pond, lavender in one of our pots and some pink flowers with white tips in our hanging basket.

After sketching, I used a size 0.2 Pigma Micron to outline before using coloured pencils and a blending pencil to add some nice, bright colours. I kept the stems black so the focus was on the blooms themselves.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

The monthly calendar

This is my usual calendar layout with stickers added as decor. I wanted to do something in the white spaces between and decided to add a few loose petals. I opted to do the title in a different font from my usual choices and I selected a nice bright purple which I felt complemented the flowers.

July finances

I like to choose quite a pale colour for the lines in my finances log and I picked out this minty green to go with the mid pink colour of the title. I also used one of my stickers leftover from the calendar and added a few petals to look like they’d fallen from the bouquet.

Monthly goals

A goals page has become a regular feature in my monthly bullet journal pages. I look at my vision board for the year and also my bucket list to help me choose a small number of goals to work towards. When I first started adding goals, I would come up with around eight in total, but I soon discovered that this was too much and for the last few months, I chosen five which I feel is a lot more attainable, even if I’m busy with work and fitness classes.

I’ve actually created some more little stickers to add to my goals pages but unfortunately Cricut Design Space is currently down for maintenance and I wanted to get today’s post up at soon as I possibly can so I’ll have to print and cut them later and add them tomorrow.

Weekly spread

This has become my favourite layout for weekly spreads as it allows plenty of room for events and to dos. Sometimes, I’ll add decor at the bottom of the boxes and sometimes it’ll just be a long list of things I want to get done that day so I’ll skip the decor. Often, I’ll add more information or to do lists to the boxes as the days go by. Also, on a weekend, we might make last minute plans so I’ll write in what we got up to in retrospect. This helps me remember any days out so I can include photographs and text to my highlights journal when the month is over.

Final words…

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog to look at my bullet journal set up for July. I’m super excited to use my pages this month as I love how bright and colourful they are. As well as drawing flowers, I’ve also treated myself to a flower press and I’ve been busy pressing blooms from our garden. I’ve had mixed success with it so far, with some of the flowers falling apart when I’ve removed them from the greaseproof paper, but I’ve also had some which look fantastic. I’m hoping to get my watercolours out to have a go at painting the results but this was one of my goals for June and, so far, I haven’t dedicated any time to it. I have my second lot of flowers pressing and they’ll be ready by mid month so hopefully, I’ll give it a go at some point in July or, if not, August.

Wishing you a relaxing month where you find time to do some of the things you enjoy too.

art, bullet journal, Bullet journaling, creativity, goal setting, planner girl, planner lifestyle, Planning and journaling, productivity

Setting up my Bullet Journal for June 2025: Portuguese ceramic tiles theme (AKA azulejos)

Posted on Jun 1, 2025 by Laura

This June, I’ve gone for something completely different for my monthly BuJo decor. Usually, in the Summer months, I opt for bright colours and seasonal things such as fruits, butterflies, ice cream and beach holidays. However, this time, I took inspiration from our recent trip to The Algarve in Portugal and decided on a Portuguese ceramic tiles theme. Although a range of colours appear in these traditional items, the most popular by far is dark blue on a white background. The designs can be incredibly intricate but I opted for simple patterns as I really wanted to add cute swallows somewhere in my theme but at the same time, ensure I hadn’t set myself too much of a drawing challenge!

The Front Cover

I created my two tile designs on dotted paper from my Claire Fontaine pad and then traced them using pencil so I could create a repeating pattern and keep the images looking almost the same. They’re not exactly identical but this is in keeping with the hand-painted look which the traditional ceramic tiles would have. I then decide to outline the squares with a light sand colour Tombow. The June title was hand-lettered using my darkest blue Tombow and I went over it twice to intensify the colour. As I didn’t have a very dark blue Tombow, I had to make use of my Crayola Supertips which made it quite difficult to be precise with the colouring as the pens are quite thick and not super pointed. I think the tiles turned out okay but I’m not sure if the tile outline is impactful enough and I’ve been debating using a darker colour.

Monthly Calendar

I worked on a few more fairly simple tile designs for the spaces around my calendar, again using tracing paper to copy the images multiple times. I opted for a darker surround, but, as a dark yellow is quite often used in addition to the dark blue on azulegos, I thought it made them look more vibrant but still similar to the actual Portuguese tiles.

Finances – income and expenses

My usual financial information record with a Portuguese tile sticker I made using an image from Canva.

Monthly Goals

I’ve been setting monthly goals for a while now and like how they keep me focused on what I hope to achieve. I used both my vision board for 2025 and my seasonal bucket list to help me choose specific goals and I have some printables which I got from Etsy to help me map draw up action steps. I also use my monthly calendar and weekly spreads to record when I will work on each of the goals to ensure I meet with success.

I got some washi and PT tapes from The Washi Tape shop last month and decided to add a few motivational phrases on the pages. I love the different messages but I wish they were pre-cut like some of their other collections.

Final words…

I hope you enjoyed seeing my various spreads for this month. I don’t think I’ve ever done a theme with such a small range of colours before and I’m certain I’ve never used blue shades as the main focus of my palette at any time of year. I’m still not sure I’m happy with the front cover but I guess I’ll have to live with it as it’s done now! Let me know your thoughts or suggestions if you have any.

Wishing you a joyful June,

art, Bullet journaling, coloured pencil, creativity, goal setting, planner lifestyle, Planning and journaling

Setting up my bullet journal for May 2025: Primrose / primula theme

Posted on May 5, 2025May 5, 2025 by Laura

This month, I’ve again taken inspiration from our garden. A few weeks ago, I decided that I wanted to add more colour out the front of the house, so we went to the garden centre to look for a set of six bedding plants that should come back year after year. I opted for primroses (AKA primula) as there was already one out there which pops up each spring and was obviously set before we moved in over a decade ago. After the flowers had settled in – they went a bit floppy when we first installed them – I took some macro photos to use as inspiration for my spreads. It’s taken me ages to sketch out, draw and colour in all of the images but it was such a lovely, mindful activity that I found it really therapeutic. As I write this, it’s the 2nd May and I still haven’t finished all of the decor but I have drawn up my calendar, finances, goals and first weekly so I can actually fill in events and tasks. I hope you like my finished pages and they inspire you to give florals a go to practise your drawing, colouring or maybe painting skills.

Front cover

The calendar was the last page I finished and took me a long while to complete. I used a photograph of a plant pot of primroses for reference which I found on Google. I used mainly my Staedtler Ergosoft coloured pencils and blended a few shades together to get a nice peachy colour. I also used my blending pencil to mix up the colours and to create a smooth appearance. I also used my Sakura Gelly Roll pen in a size 10 to draw lines inside of the Pigma Micron as the actual primroses had a very thin white trim.

Monthly calendar

I added the decor to my calendar second, after I did the image for my finances record, and, as it had taken me such as long time to finish that one, I opted for a more sketchy appearance to the primroses you see here. I held my fineliner really lightly and tried to create a slightly wobbly appearance so the plants looked more natural. I’m really happy with how they turned out and the colours look so cheerful. I made good use of lots of my coloured pencils and also used my blending pencil to blend out any harsh lines.

Finances record

As well as the pack of six small primrose plants, we also purchased a much larger one for our back garden. The flowers are a lovely, pale pink but I didn’t have a coloured pencil which matched so I’ve gone for more of a peachy colour. I initially did just the flower in the centre but decided there were too many leaves and not enough floral bits so I added the other two and made them a little more washed out so the central one stood out.

Monthly goals

Last month I (yet again), picked far too many goals to be in with any chance of achieving them all. So, for May, I’ve really, really restricted myself and opted for just 5 (go me!). And, I’ve already achieved one of them as I made bread for the very first time yesterday!

Rather than adding some more primrose illustrations, I opted to add some stickers to make the set up much quicker. Some, I’ve made myself and others are from my ever increasing stash (you can never have too many stickers – right?). However, I have just started a new BuJo this month and a not to do goal of mine is to add plenty of my own illustrations straight into my notebook rather than overloading with stickers and making my journal super bulky (my orange one would barely close by the time I finished it!).

Weekly plan

I’ve been using this same style layout for quite a few weeks now and it really works for me. It gives me enough room to write events and add a few to dos underneath each day. I can then add a small illustration at the bottom if I want to, or use the full space for recording. This week, I’ve done some small primrose illustrations but I may not do any next week as I have lots of sessions at the university so I’ll be super busy.

Final words…

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today. I hope you like my finished spreads. I think they look really colourful and provide a great reminder of our new plants and all of the other bright colours of primrose which you can get. The flowers seem to be thriving at the moment but as we haven’t had any rain for weeks, they require daily watering as the soil is getting so dry. I’m hoping they’re going to stay looking good for a least another month and continue to make me smile each time I get in and out of my car!

Wishing you a marvellous May,

Much love,

art, bullet journal, Bullet journaling, Cricut Design Space, Cricut Joy Xtra, planner girl, planner lifestyle, Planning and journaling, watercolour painting

Setting up my Bullet Journal for February 2025: Valentine’s love hearts theme

Posted on Jan 31, 2025 by Laura

I tend to do some kind of love theme for February’s theme and this year is no exception. I already knew I wanted to use my watercolours for my cover page, but I also decided to opt for stickers to decorate the rest of the spreads to make it quicker to set up. I’m really pleased with how my pages turned out and I hope you like them too. The photos aren’t wonderful as it was another dreary day here in Sunderland, so I apologise for that but I hope they inspire you anyway.

For this month’s front cover, I opted to use the watercolour bleeds technique with a range of red, pink and purple hearts. I watched some tutorials on YouTube to remind myself of the basic techniques and discovered that one of my favourite watercolour artists, Emma Lefebvre had just shared a video called ‘easy Valentine’s ANYONE can paint’. And she was right, her techniques were all super simple and totally do-able. Also, one of the techniques was watercolour heart bleeds – such a good find! I’d already filled my palette with reds, pinks and purples, but in her tutorial, Emma used gold paint as well. I didn’t really need an excuse to get out my metallic paints, although I knew they wouldn’t show up properly on the scanned version that I could stick in my BuJo. Anyway, it turned out okay but I couldn’t fully saturate the colours as it ended up printing with a strange blue background tone which looked just awful! I wish someone would invent a watercolour paper which is super thin but works just as well as the high GSM ones that are available now.

February front cover

Here’s my original watercolour piece as a flat lay and raised to, hopefully, show the metallic gold, followed by my front cover. I again turned the digitized watercolour image into a sticker with an offset. This was easy to do in Cricut Design Space and means that the image looks nicer than it does on standard printer paper.

Monthly calendar

February finances

My usual set up, this time with some pink Tombow to add another colour element. I made the Love is in the air sticker design myself using fonts found in Cricut Design Space. I really like how it turned out!

February goals page

I intend to create a blog post for next week on how I go about choosing goals and how I make them ‘SMART’, so to actually read those, you’ll have to visit by site again! I’ll attach the link here when it’s written so it’s easy to navigate to.

Weekly plans

I spent a long while perusing images on Cricut Design Space and came up with 4 different subtopics for the 4 weeks – mini wreaths, cupcakes, postage stamps and Valentine’s drinks. And look at all the hearty content I found!

Final words…

Thank you for visiting my blog to look at my February Bullet Journal set up for 2025. I hope you enjoyed seeing my pages. Many of the sticker images could easily to drawn directly onto the page using black waterproof fineliners and coloured markers. I know some people choose to create watercolour images straight into their bullet journal pages but I find that the paper in Notebook Therapy journals does not take this medium well. The paper is plenty thick enough to hold watercolour with minimum buckling but the paint just doesn’t behave in the same way as it does on proper cold pressed paper designed specifically with that in mind. Perhaps with a better scanner and printer, you can get a printout which looks the same as the original, but I can’t afford to buy a more expensive one and the true cost really comes from the very pricy cartridges. Despite this, I will continue to explore the medium of watercolour as much as I can in the future, but I might not use my art to decorate the pages of my bullet journal as regularly.

Have a wonderful February and I’ll see you back here with more BuJo content next month (which, at the time of writing, starts tomorrow!).

art, bullet journal, Bullet journaling, creativity, goal setting, planner girl, planner lifestyle, Planning and journaling, watercolour painting

Setting up my bullet journal for September 2024: Night sky theme

Posted on Aug 31, 2024 by Laura

For my September bullet journal pages, I was inspired by a set of washi tapes that I found and purchased from TKMaxx (even though I have literally hundreds of rolls already – you can never have too much right?) They were all in similar shades of purple with some featuring tiny stars, crescent moons, Saturn, the moon phases and text saying ‘the stars shine for you’. In addition, the set included complementary patterns, a watercolour effect design plus a ‘to do’ tape for my running task lists. I wanted to use my paints to create an original piece of art that I could use for my front cover and, after spending a while perusing various night sky tutorials on YouTube, I finally settle on this one which explained the techniques really well and discussed use of colour and contrast as a key teaching point. I decided against adding dark tree outlines to the bottom and chose to add some stars and a moon using white gouache.

The front cover

As always, I used cold pressed watercolour paper and a wet on wet technique to ensure the colours blended seamlessly and there was no buckling of the paper as there would be if I’d painted directly onto my bullet journal page. This gave me a nice, clean design which I could photocopy using my printer and stick in. I wish I’d chosen thinner washi tape as a border because the finished piece ended up smaller than I wanted but I also didn’t want to scan and enlarge the piece as the stars would have ended up too big.

My original watercolour galaxy painting – Laura Jones

Monthly calendar

I decided to do a different calendar this month and opted for the style originally used by Ryder Carroll who is the creator of the bullet journal system. This involved writing the day numbers and the days of the week down the left hand side of the page, leaving space to write events and or happenings in the space to the write with one horizontal line for each day of the month. This allows the use of just one page for the entire calendar. I’ll let you know how I get on with it next month and whether I’ll continue to use this style or go back to my usual 6×6 dot spaces box calendar.

Finances

The one page calendar meant I ended up with a spare page to the right so I started my finance pages and then continued overleaf. Again, I’ve been making stickers for this month’s theme to decorate my spreads more quickly than drawing.

September goals

In order to not lose sight of what I want to achieve in September, I decided to create a goals page to refer to throughout the month. I opted to have two types of goal – health and fitness and business as this is what I want to focus on throughout September, aside from my work at the university.

Weekly layout

This is my first weekly, before the pen and I wanted to keep it simple so there’s plenty of room for events and a few to-dos each day. I’ll probably do a running task list for the week over the page but I intend to add some day specific tasks to the weekly calendar.

Final words…

Thank you for visiting my blog today to look at my bullet journal pages for September. I would love to hear in the comments what you think of my art work, my theme and set up.

Wishing you a lovely September filled with lots of fun autumnal activities,