Bullet journaling – Page 6 – Keeping it creative

art, bullet journal, Bullet journaling, creativity, lifestyle, Planning and journaling, watercolour painting

Setting up my Bullet Journal for February 2024: Valentine’s roses and hearts theme

Posted on Jan 25, 2024Jan 30, 2024 by Laura

For the month of February, I decided to do some more watercolour painting. There’s lots of tutorials online for loose watercolour roses, so I thought I’d give it a try and then use my new skill to create a front cover. I searched for easy and beginner tutorials but I used more than ten A5 sheets of watercolour paper developing my technique so it definately wasn’t a breeze for me and my perfectionist self!

For the rest of my spreads I made stickers using my Cricut Joy Xtra. I would love to turn my watercolour images into stickers but I’m not sure how easy it is to do, so, for now, I’m just using pictures from Cricut Design Studio which I subscribe to. I hope you like my finished pages and I look forward to seeing everyone else’s themes and approaches on WordPress, YouTube and Instagram.

Watercolour rose

My intention for the front cover was to paint three roses in different colours – pink, red and peach, and add leaves. However, every time I attempted the final piece, I would create two lovely roses that I was happy with and one which went completely wrong! In the end, I decided to do just one rose to place in the centre of my page. In a bid to save watercolour paper, I used a piece that I’d already practised on. Unfortunately, I didn’t watch where I was putting the leaves and had to fix my mistake with a carefully placed title on my cover page as you will see shortly!

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

Front cover

After my painting session, I scanned my artwork and printed it using my Canon Pixma printer. The colours aren’t quite the same but they look okay. I added the image to a page in MS Publisher and hid the top part of the other rose by adding a title using a text box with white background. As I eventually opted for just one rose and some leaf decoration, I had some space at the top and bottom of the page. I found a washi tape that worked perfectly. This one is from MT which are always superb quality.

The monthly calendar

When I popped to Hobbycraft the other week, they were having a 20% off Cricut consumables sale so I treated myself to some transparent sticker paper to use with my Cricut Joy Xtra. Unfortunately, when I got to the till, I discovered that the product I had chosen was one of the only items that wasn’t part of the offer – typically eh! Needless to say, I bought it anyway. I love how bright and colourful this double page turned out and it was super quick to create all of the stickers as both the roses and the hearts had a white border offset on them already!

Finances record

I absolutely loved the watercolour heart envelope so I made it into a large sticker. Of course, it means that I’ll have to try not to have too many expenses for February or I’ll run out of room to record them!

Weeklies

I opted for a Dutch door layout again this month but there was still plenty of room for the stickers I created. My daily events are recorded in the boxes on this double page and then overleaf, I have a running task list.

A Valentine’s mood board

This is another decorative spread which I think turned out really nice. I found the middle image on Cricut Design Space but when I’d printed and cut it, I had no idea what do do with it! Then I though, I know, I’ll make a kind of mood board which makes me smile every time I see it.

Final words…

Thank you for taking the time to look at my bullet journal spreads for February. The pages took me quite a while to create, but I’m pleased with how they all turned out. I hope you like them too and they’ve given you some inspiration for your own BuJo.

Wishing you a happy and healthy February and a month filled with self love and kindness,

art, bullet journal, Bullet journaling, creativity, lifestyle, Planning and journaling, watercolour painting

Setting up my Bullet Journal for January 2024: Watercolour winter scene and snowflakes theme

Posted on Jan 5, 2024Jan 5, 2024 by Laura

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you’re all having a good 2024 so far. I’m very late sharing my bullet journal spreads for this month for several reasons – one, we were away for Christmas and so I didn’t get out my paints until NYE, and two, the print and cut hack for making stickers using the Cricut Joy doesn’t work anymore and so I’ve resorted to purchasing the Cricut Xtra which is due to arrive today, the 4th January, with a view to creating some text stickers for my spreads.

Anyway, I hope you like the theme and the watercolour bits and pieces which I had great fun creating. On to the pages…

Front cover

Having chosen the theme, I did a bit of Googling, looking for winter scene watercolour painting and I found this gorgeous design on a blog post from way back in 2014. This inspired my front cover but I changed the colours up a bit. The trees were painted first using Intense Green (AKA phthalo green) mixed with a small amount of Payne’s Grey and Vandyke brown and a tiny bit of grey. When that was completely dry, I created the snowy ground using very watered down grey. Then, after drying, I mixed a range of blues for the sky. Whilst still wet, I used coarse salt sprinkles to create the snowy effect. Finally, I used white gouache for the snow on the trees and then paint flicks to give the idea of falling snow.

The original watercolour was then scanned in using my printer and I pasted it into an MS Publisher A5 page and added the January 2024 title. The colours never look the same as the original, but I’m still happy with how it turned out.

The calendar

My husband and I had a go at creating a blue background with salt sprinkles on New Years Eve! We enjoyed experimenting, and it was a great, relaxing activity to do in the evening and helped us to stay awake to see in the new year. Again, the piece was scanned in and this time, it was used to cover the whole page. I then cut out the calendar shape using some dot grid paper which I then positioned in a location on the pages which was close to where it would have been if I could see the dot grid. The titles were created using Cricut Design Space and printed when my machine eventually arrived!

When I’d finished it, I felt like something was missing so I used Design Space again to make lots of snowflake stickers in different sizes. I’ve done a snowflake theme in January previously, but this one looks very different so I don’t feel like I’m repeating designs.

Finances spread

My finances record is still working really well so I’ve kept to the same layout but changed the decor to go with my theme for January. I love the little watercolour scene I found on Design Space to make into a sticker!

TV watched record

I create one of these every quarter or so to record the series that I’ve watched on TV. This time, I’ve added a date column so I can see, at a glance, when we started watching each series. There’s already some great stuff on TV for January and we’re loving the black comedy / drama of season 2 of The Tourist. The genres are taken from IMDB.

Weekly Plans

I went for another Dutch door layout this month and used a second print out of my watercolour background to create page borders to either side. I couldn’t resist adding some more snowflake stickers.

Veganuary meal planning

My husband and I have been doing Veganuary, where you go vegan for the month of January for quite a few years now. We try to create a meal plan each week as this helps when we go shopping. We also try to do more homemade meals which are packed with nutritious veggies.

Final words…

I hope you’ve enjoyed looking at my spreads for this month. At the moment, January is proving to be more wet than snowy and our little garden is looking a bit soggy and flooded. I must say, I love pretty winter scenes with snow and sparkling frost but it’s not so much fun trying to drive in such conditions so I have mixed feelings about the weather at this time of year.

Wishing you a fantastic 2024,

art, bullet journal, Bullet journaling, creativity, lifestyle, memory keeping, Planning and journaling, watercolour painting

Setting up my Bullet Journal for December 2023: Christmas, snow globes and decorative glass domes theme

Posted on Dec 2, 2023 by Laura

This month’s theme contains a mixture of elements related to Christmas and winter. Whilst visiting the haberdashery and craft selection at Boyes Department store, I came across some sweet sets of seasonal stickers. This snow globe and glass jar themed pack really caught my eye so I treated myself to a sheet (despite it being no spend November!). I decided to use the stickers for my calendar page and my first weekly but I wanted a large image for my cover so I’ve had a go at creating a watercolour snowy scene in a snow globe to scan, print and glue in which is in a similar style to the stickers. After that, for the remainder of the month, I’m going to be using general Christmassy stickers made using images from Canva Pro. I hope you enjoy looking at my spreads for December and I would love to hear what theme my fellow bullet journallers have chosen for the month.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative blog

The front cover

The front cover image was painted on watercolour paper using my Winsor & Newton tubes, plus some gold and silver from my Finetec palette. Unfortunately the gold and silver don’t show up very well in the scanned image so I used some sparkly gold paper as a background with the addition of some holly leaf and berry borders at the top and bottom. I was debating having a go at painting over the top of the sticker paper with the gold and silver paints but I’m worried it won’t turn out as well as the original or it might end up getting spoilt.

Monthly calendar

This page came together really quickly and I think it looks really eye-catching. Along with the stickers, I added some sparkles using a gold glitter Uniball Signo and a strip of glittery stars to separate the December 2023 title and fill in the gap underneath. I used a Pigma Micron PN pen in a very dark red to number the boxes in the calendar. I love how the month finishes on a Sunday so that the calendar for January will go neatly across the top of the page in my next spreads!

Finances

The set of stickers had a few separate groups of trees so I’ve used these to decorate my title for my finances spread. I’ve also used one of the larger snow globes and another strip of glitter stars to finish the bottom of the page.

Winter Bucket List

In my previous post, I shared how I was going to create another bucket list for winter as I thoroughly enjoyed creating the autumn one and journalling about the process. I’ve included the actual list in my bullet journal but, like last time, I’ll be making a wide TN journal book to go in my Carpe Diem Traveler’s Notebook to record what I did for each item on the list. This will be instead of doing December Daily as it means I can work on it from the beginning of December to the end of February 2024.

Winter Aesthetic Inspiration Board

Again, I created one of these for Autumn and had great fun setting it up, using photographs from Canva Pro and phrases created using Cricut Design Studio. This one looks just as good I think and was well worth the time and effort involved. I wanted to add some more snowflakes in different shades but I’m having problems with cutting small items using my Cricut Joy so I’ll have to add them at a later date.

Christmas Gift List

The first of many Christmas related spreads that I hope to get done this month. This is a space to record gift ideas, purchases and expenditure for family and friends. All of the stickers were created in Cricut Design Space and made using my Cricut Joy.

Weekly Spread One

I’ve been changing my weekly spreads each week according to how much work I have on at the university but I’ve decided to create a two page spread for the first week of December because I was eager to leave room for some stickeration! I’ll probably do the same for the remaining weeks because I’ve got a big stash of general Christmas themed stickers in a mini envelope on my craft desk.

Final words…

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing my December BuJo spreads for 2023. I’ve seen some lovely set ups on YouTube already but I look forward to seeing many more. I know many people use digital planners nowadays but I love setting mine up in my notebook each month and you can’t beat being able to flick through the pages to keep organised.

Wishing you all a happy and stress free December and an enjoyable time with your family during the holidays.

art, bullet journal, Bullet journaling, creativity, Planning and journaling, watercolour painting

Setting up my Bullet Journal for November 2023: Squashes theme

Posted on Oct 30, 2023 by Laura

This month, I’ve gone with a pumpkins and squashes theme which includes stickers I made using my Cricut Joy and my own watercolour painting. I got most of the layouts done about a week ago but spent a good while yesterday playing with my paints and then creating my front cover. I hope you like my art work as I’m really pleased with how it turned out.

Front Cover

The idea for the theme and cover this month comes from my experience of going to a pumpkin patch a few weeks ago. The wheelbarrow is based on the actual one we used to put our squashes in but I used artistic license to create a the different varieties of pumpkin as we only picked out three small ones to take home.

Before painting I sketched out the wheelbarrow and placement of the squashes with light pencil. I also practised doing the straw and mud on the ground by creating a darkish yellow wash and then using a dry fan brush to create a messy effect. I think it works nicely and I hope you can tell what I was trying to achieve. The sky was created with a pale blue turquoise wash and I used scrunched up paper towel to lift the paint to create a loose cloud effect.

The original artwork – the paper has curled so I need to put it under a heavy book!

Rather than glue the thick, watercolour paper in, which would add too much bulk, I’ve scanned it in on 110gsm paper and stuck in it. The colours aren’t exactly the same, but I’m happy with it.

Calendar page

The calendar is made of my usual 6 x 6 boxes using a 0.3 Pigma Micron. The November title was created using a brown Tombow brush pen and I added the year for reference so I can quickly see when it was produced (I’m getting quite a collection of old BuJos now!) The squash designs were from Canva Pro and I made the stickers using my Cricut Joy. The offset isn’t perfect as usual but I think they look okay.

Finances page

This month, I’ve only created one page instead of the usual double page layout. This is because I’m taking part in No Spend November and so my only personal expenses should be for essentials rather than luxury items. The page to the right of it will be for a spot of journalling about how we get on with our challenge.

First weekly plan

I’m trying a different layout this week to see how I get on with having more room to write each day. As part of the set up, the second page is folded in half and this is so that I can see my task list all week and can transfer items from it to my daily plan as and when I decided which day I want to complete or start a particular task. I’ve taken a couple of photographs to show how it works.

The washi tape is part of an autumnal set I picked up at The Range. It’s not wonderful quality but there are some nice designs and colours.

Final words…

Thank you for taking the time to check out my bullet journal spreads for November. I hope you like them all. It’s been a while since I did some watercolour painting and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Using watercolours is a wonderful mindful activity and, for me, it was a great way to spend a few hours over the weekend whilst the weather was completely miserable. You don’t even need to paint an actual picture, just messing about with the paint and different techniques is enough to calm the mind.

Wishing you all a wonderful November,

bullet journal, Bullet journaling, crafting, lifestyle, Planning and journaling

Setting up my Bullet Journal for October 2023: Autumn theme

Posted on Sep 28, 2023 by Laura

This month, I’ve been using my Cricut Joy to make stickers to decorate my October spreads and other pages as I start a new bullet journal, this time from Notebook Therapy. I bought lots of sheets of printable vinyl adhesive backed paper and explored using my cutting machine along with a hack I found on YouTube to create print and cut images. The process has been frustrating at times and quite a few sheets have unfortunately ended up in the bin as the offset around the images is sometimes off by a millimetre or two but I’ve made lots of little stickers that I’m pleased with and are worthy of a place in my new notebook.

My gorgeous new journals for the Autumn time – such a contrast!

Front cover

In order to have a good range of images at my disposal, I signed up for a free trial of Canva Pro. I have Cricut Access but I’ve found that the images aren’t as good on there as they’re mainly designed for cut files with coloured vinyl or iron on products. Canva Pro has so many amazing images and I’ve been spending time each day downloading themed pictures and patterns to make the most of my month of free use. For the cover, I typed into ‘autumn watercolour’ to get similar types of image. Each one was saved to a 3x3cm canvas which enabled me to reduce the size on Cricut Design Space before adding an offset. As you can probably see, none of the offsets are perfectly aligned but I think the finished stickers look okay. The image for the title was also found on Canva and a second layer was added with a calligraphy style font.

October calendar

For my calendar page, I simply searched ‘autumn’ and again saved each image on a canvas as above. I also find some border style images for the top and bottom of the title. After sticking them on, I regretted adding two as there was little room left to write the header but using my letter stamps worked out okay.

Weekly spreads

I decided to pre-prepare my spreads for October and went for a vertical Dutch door so that only one lots of decoration was required to either side. These washi style strips on either side are again borders from Canva Pro, this time with a pale colour background added in. I’m pleased with how my weeklies turned out and it will be nice to know that I don’t have to draw my set up for the week first thing on a Monday Morning. As my tasks are separate, I’ve only left a small amount of room for events on my daily sections. Hopefully these are big enough for anything I need to make note of.

Finances

In the excitement of creating some Dutch doors, I completely forgot about my finances spread so I’ve added it on after the weeklies. I love the hedgehog decor and there were actually about six different images on Canva to choose from which were clearly designed by the same artist.

Other spreads

As this is a new bullet journal, I’ve also created index pages, a future log (with Dutch doors and also little tabs) and some pages for Level 10 life reflection and goal setting. However, I’m yet to fill them in yet so it’s pointless me sharing them! I might share them on Instagram if I remember.

Final words …

I hope you enjoyed seeing my new BuJo and my spreads for October. I’m now totally addicted to making stickers and even have a themed set ready and waiting in a little handmade envelope for November. I’ve also started making Christmas themed ones too! I’m sure at some point I’ll go back to drawing my own images in my bullet journal but for now, I’m happy stickerating!