Posted in 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

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
Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

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.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

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.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

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.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

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,

Posted in bullet journal, Bullet journaling, creativity, Cricut, goal setting, lifestyle, personal growth, Planning and journaling

My Autumn 2024 Bucket List BuJo spread

Although I’ve finished doing my four traveler’s notebook journals where I documented each season of the year including my bucket list items, I decided to continue making a seasonal bucket list and adding it to a double page spread in my bullet journal as I really enjoy making them. Today I’m sharing my Autumn 2024 list in which I’ve included some seasonal activity favourites and new things to try. I hope my bucket list inspires you to create your own, whether by simple writing them down in your journal or getting creative and adding hand drawn pictures or making stickers like mine which complement the items.

Before I created my Autumn 2024 bucket list, I revisited my autumn 2023 list so I could be sure I wasn’t just repeating last year’s items. I then spent time writing down all the things I love about the season such as seeing the beautiful colours on the trees, spotting autumn visitors at my local nature reserve, making my home warm and cosy and putting out seasonal decor, trying out new comfort food recipes and warm desserts and so on. I also added new activities I would like to try such as making caramel covered apples on sticks and planning out my TV viewing for the next three months so we can have plenty of series to look forward to as we cosy up each evening.

Having made plenty of notes, I turned lots of them into bucket list items on a scrap piece of paper before making stickers for each of them in Cricut. I also used Canva Pro and downloaded images to go with each. For a few of them, I also downloaded mini pictures either using Canva photos or via Google and turned these into little stickers too. Finally, I used Cricut Design Space and Canva to download watercolour leaves to add further decor in the spaces on the spread.

My finished bucket list BuJo spread

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

Final words…

I’m really pleased with how my pages turned out and I hope you like them too. I won’t be creating TN journals to record my progress but I might stick a few photos in my BuJo weeklies to evidence the items as I tick them off. I hope today’s post has encouraged you to give making a seasonal bucket list a go and I would love to see your creation if you would like to share yours to your own blog or email me at laura.j.jones77@gmail.com

Posted in bullet journal, Bullet journaling, creativity, memory keeping, planner girl, planner lifestyle, Planning and journaling, reflective journalling

Setting up my BuJo for August 2024 – Birthday theme

Next month, I share my birthday with my niece, Lexi. She’s turning 13 and becoming an official teenager, and I’m going to be slightly older than that! So, I decided to go for a birthday theme for August. I seem to recall that I’ve chosen this particular theme before, but I haven’t even checked back to see my BuJo pages from that occasion, so I’m sure they’ll be completely different.

I hope you enjoy looking through my pages and that they inspire you to do something similar for your own birthday month.

The front cover

My cover was inspired by an image I found in Cricut Design Space. My birthday cake turned out quite different, but the basic shape with two tiers and four candles with stripes is the same.

When I’d finished the design, I outlined it using a Pigma Micron in 0.2 and this helped to detract from the bumpy marks where I shaded places that had a piece of ephemera on the page overleaf. I still felt something was missing and decided to add hundreds and thousands onto the iced cake, which I think made it look more special. I’m pleased with how it turned out despite initially being disappointed because of the marks on the right hand side.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping it Creative

The calendar

I found a few pieces of ephemera in my stash to add to these pages, and I then made a few more images to glue in using Cricut Design Space. I created the stars to add to the page to complement the ones on the cover.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

Finances

This is my usual income and expenses tracker that I use to help monitor my spending with a few pieces of birthday themed ephemera for decoration. In August, I want to try to keep my purchases to only essentials in order to save money whilst I’m not doing university sessions over the Summer.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping it Creative

Record keeping and journalling pages

When Michael and I are taking a short holiday from work, the focus of my bullet journal pages tends to be recording events and places visited, plus a little bit of reflective journalling. I’ve set up a page for the dates around my birthday for the left hand side of the spread and a cute frame for a photograph of the two birthday girls, a number of decorative pieces from my stash and a little room for me to journal about bits and pieces from our celebrations.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping it Creative

Final words…

Thank you for visiting my blog today to have a look at my bullet journal set up for August 2024. I hope my pages have provided inspiration and ideas for planning, memory keeping and journalling for your own birthday or the celebrations of family.

Wishing you a healthy and happy August and don’t forget to plan in some ways to enjoy the summer now it has eventually arrived in the UK even if it has waited until the last month of the season!

Posted in bullet journal, Bullet journaling, exercise, fitness, goal setting, Health and Nutrition, lifestyle, wellbeing

Setting up my Bullet Journal for July 2024: Health and fitness theme

This time, I’m coming to you with what might be considered a bit of a random BuJo theme for summer. My original idea was to do wildflowers and grasses, but, as my current personal goals are mainly focused on weight loss and body toning, I thought why not choose a theme related to these, so I opted for health and fitness. I wrote lots of ideas on mini post-it notes and then decided which ones I’d actually go ahead and do (with the limited time I had left to be ready for July). Here’s what I have to show you so far:

Quote page

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

This was created using Canva (none pro version), an A5 size portrait size design and a lovely peachy pink colour font. I then added a couple of bits of washi and a little sticker from a page of health and fitness related phrases from my Carpe Diem booklet.

July Cover Page

I had so much fun setting this up and it was nice to make use of some Carpe Diem stickers I already had in my stash. The solid black images of women exercising were made in Cricut Design Space.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

July Calendar

I shifted the boxes on my usual calendar one place to the right so I could add my goals for the month on the left hand side. I’ve now decided that a better target than 10K steps most days would have been 2400+ calories burnt but I can always create a habit tracker for the above instead.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

My reasons why…

I got the idea for this page and a few others from Planning Annie on YouTube. She has lots of ideas for health related spreads and I really recommend watching her ‘health and fitness planner spreads’ video if you need some further inspiration. The ‘reasons why’ I’ve chosen are very personal to me, so, for example, my GP has advised that my blood pressure is at the high end of normal and that my cholesterol levels are slightly elevated from the normal range so related reasons why have, as you can see, been added to the spread.

July Finances

I almost forgot to do my financial tracker as it isn’t something related to the aspects of health I’m focusing on (financial health aside). I’ve been really good at spending no more than I have coming in each month for quite a while now but it’s still interesting to see where my money is going.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

Another motivational quote page

With 9lbs lost so far in a relative short frame of time, I’m feeling really motivated to lose more weight. The second part of this popular quote, from Jim Rohn, will hopefully be related to my new and improved eating habits which will join with my regular fitness class habit that I’ve had for a fair few years now.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

My weight loss journey so far…

I thought this spread might help keep my motivation high until eating healthily becomes a habit. I also think it will become useful for making dietary tweaks. Basically, I’m going to record observations (e.g. a particular piece of clothing fits better), thoughts (e.g. this is just the beginning, am I drinking too much water? etc) and feelings (I always feel super hungry before Clubbercise so I need to plan is a filling snack two hours before, I feel much more confident in my new top etc) throughout the coming months to monitor my progress to good health.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

Final words…

That’s all of my spreads so far, although, as I said, I might create a habit tracker page ready for the new month. I’ve also decided to go back to a rapid logging style of creating daily pages as I’m finding that my week on two pages layout just doesn’t give me enough room. I will, however, need to record events taking place that week at the top of the page so I know what’s happening and when but this can be done on a Sunday night ready for the week ahead.

However you plan to spend the month of July, I wish you a good one,

Posted in bullet journal, Bullet journaling, creativity, planner girl, planner lifestyle, Planning and journaling, sticker making

Setting up my Bullet Journal for June 2024: Butterflies theme

Last night, having completed all of my spreads for next month, I had a vague recollection that I’d done a butterfly theme in my bullet journal once before. I searched my blog (much quicker than flicking through all of my BuJos) and discovered that I had indeed, back in June 2021, chosen butterflies. However, the pages are quite different today, even though I have stuck with the same calendar layout as this size is perfect for my needs. Whereas last time, I painted and drew outlined butterflies, this time I’ve made use of my Cricut machine and my favourite coloured pencils. I love how my spreads have turned out and I really enjoyed making them.

The front cover

For the front cover, I wanted to create a perfectly symmetrical butterfly outlined in black and shaded in using bright colours. I debated using paint and folded paper like we used to do at school but then I had the idea of printing and cutting an image in Cricut Design Space using sticker paper and then colouring in the interior shapes with Staedtler Ergosoft pencils. I used the add bleed feature when printing so as to ensure the outline was precise and it turned out really well. The tricky bit was peeling the shape from the backing and sticking it down straight and without wrinkles.

To ensure smooth colouring, I blended using a Derwent blending pencil. I also had to be careful to get into the edges of the cut shapes so there was no white space left. After finishing the butterfly, I couldn’t resist adding some gold sparkles using one of my Uniball Signo pens.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

Monthly calendar

My calendar uses a combination of Canva Pro and Cricut Design Space. These were printed and cut on transparent vinyl. I also used Design Space fonts to create the title for both the front cover and this spread and the days of the week headers. More sparkles were added using the gold gel pen.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

Finances record

Again, I used stickers and gold sparkles to decorate the bottom of my finances record so it’s in keeping with the rest of my pages.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

First weekly spread

I’ve been using this layout for a while now and it provides just enough space for events and a couple of day specific to-dos. This month, I’ve decided to use some days of the week stickers I’ve had for a while, plus some tiny number stickers. Unfortunately the digits don’t quite match the words because I couldn’t find the font that was used for the days which was a pre-produced file on Design Space. I found some butterfly washi in my stash which finishes the page nicely and was much quicker to add than creating a repeating pattern sticker like I did last month.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

Final words…

Thank you for visiting my blog to look at my spreads for June. I enjoyed using stickers again to set up my pages and it made it slightly quicker to do than trying to draw and colour lots of symmetrical butterflies. It does take a while to find the images I want though and then I have to turn them into print and cut images, resize them and add offsets to each one. Also, there seems to be some issue with Design Space each time I use it but I guess that’s one of the joys of technology!

Wishing you a happy and healthy June and lets hope the weather starts to improve soon (especially as I want to wear my new pairs of shorts I’ve bought for our Wales holiday),