I hope you’re all enjoying the sunshine if you have it and making the most of the warmer Springtime weather. This month, for my BuJo, I’ve opted for an April showers and umbrellas theme. It’s something I did before back in 2021 but my set up is quite different so I don’t mind repeating it. I’ve used coloured markers (Tombows, Crayola Supertips, Pentel sign brush pens and Pigma microns) for all of the doodles and I tried to stick to some kind of colour palette to make the pages cohesive, although I deviated at times! I hope you enjoy seeing my set up and don’t forget to let me know what theme you’ve chosen for April in the comment section.
Front cover
After writing a small title using a blue Pentel brush pen, I filled the page with different umbrella doodles using a combination of oranges, pinks and blues. I then added raindrops to finish things off.
Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative
Two Page Calendar
I like to draw up a nice, big calendar so I can add the main events of the month straight into it. I also like to put reminders in such as when I need to order my medication and when our hamster, Aggie will be getting her monthly full cage clean (an event that my husband and I always look forward to – not! ha ha!).
I enjoyed adding umbrella doodles in the surrounding spaces and some more raindrops.
Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative
Monthly finances
I always like to keep track of my finances each month so my outgoings don’t exceed my income. I fill in my spending each week so the task doesn’t become something too onerous. I remembered that I had a stencil sheet in my collection which had an umbrella outline as part of the shapes, so I used this to create uniform images across the bottom of the page. I used a Tombow and the Pentel sign pen to create a sketchy feel to the colouring as I didn’t want it to be too perfect.
Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative
April goals
I decided to try to limit the amount of goals I set for this month as there are a few from March that I’m still working on. I picked out eight which I still think is a few too many, but some of them are relatively quick ones such as planting our chard seeds outside and trying out a couple of new plant based recipes.
Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative
Final words…
I would share my first weekly, but I haven’t got around to decorating it yet and I’ve added some personal information to it which would need blocking out. I might share the weekly plans on Instagram at a later date – you can find me here if you want to see my content.
I had fun doodling lots of umbrellas this month but I really must remember to be careful not to smudge the marker colours as I had to use some whiteout pen to hide a couple of smears! This is part of the joy of being left handed – can anyone relate?
That’s all for this month. Wishing you an amazing April,
Late last month, I sat down at my desk to create a list of ideas for what I want to do over the course of spring with a view to writing a bucket list for the season. When I’d finalised things, I set to work on a two page spread in my bullet journal which contains all of my planned activities, a sticker image or two to represent each one and some general springtime flowers. Today, I’m sharing the pages I created in the hope of inspiring you to make your own Spring bucket list. I’ll also discuss how I went about choosing what to include.
My finished Spring bucket list BuJo spread
Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative
How I went about choosing my bucket list items
I started the process of choosing my items by looking at my vision board for 2025. This helped me to focus in on things I want for the year and I picked out using my Cricut Easypress to create some projects and using the principles of Kaizen to discover why I haven’t made much progress with tidying and organising my craft room. You can see above how I added these to my bucket list.
I also thought about things that I wanted to achieve last year, but, for whatever reason, didn’t get around to or didn’t have much success with. In 2024, we bought a wide shallow pot to grow rainbow chard in. We planted seeds and grew some leaves but we didn’t really maintain them and also never used them in any recipes. For this reason, I’ve added homegrown chard to the bucket list and a picture of some nice colourful leaves to remind me of my intention.
Next, I considered creative pursuits that I want to do more of and remembered that I loved exploring with my watercolour paints. I hope to do more painting so I added ‘Do another watercolour exploration or two’ to my list. I’ve tried to keep it realistic and doable by only stating one or two activities this spring as I tend to add too many items and then struggle to get them all ticked off in the given time.
There are also a few activities on my list which I like to do every year or each season such as decorating our home, doing a seasonal jigsaw and collecting photos, ephemera, caption ideas and tip ins for my creative journalling. This year, I’ve bought a gorgeous Garden Allotment jigsaw puzzle which I couldn’t wait to get started on and have already made good progress with. I’ve also started to change our home decor to add spring related accents, including a few new ornaments which I purchased over the weekend. Towards the end of the season, we will be going on holiday to Portugal and, whilst there, I will be planning which aspects of the trip I wish to document in my journal so this has become part of my bucket list too.
Finally, I turned to Google and Pinterest to provide inspiration for other items to add to my list. I searched ‘Spring bucket list ideas for adults’ and selected some activities which appealed. I included some which I think would be fun to do such as baking bread and playing an outdoor game. I’ve already seen a frisbee in a National Trust shop which reminded me of my intention to do something I enjoyed as a child but I’m keeping my options open until the sunnier and warmer weather comes.
Final words…
I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing my spring bucket list as a creative double page spread in my bullet journal. If you haven’t yet had a go at writing a seasonal list, I thoroughly recommend it as a way of making sure you get the most out of the coming months. It’s also great fun creating decorative pages and looking at a colourful layout (especially with doodles or stickers) can help keep you motivated to try new things and revisit favourite activities.
Let me know in the comments if the idea of creating a bucket list appeals and feel free to add your Instagram or other details if you share yours on social media.
Last April, when I picked out a new Notebook Therapy journal to use as my BuJo from May 2024, I also checked out their sticker collections so that I could add to my order to qualify for free delivery. I couldn’t resist the #08: Into the Song set which is… ‘inspired by the tranquil melodies of springtime songbirds and blossoming florals… just as the birdsong fills the air with melody and the blossoms paint the landscape with vibrant hues, our collection brings forth the delicate beauty and timeless charm of nature’s symphony…’. Anyone who follows my blog will know that I love all kinds of birds but particularly tiny woodland species such as wrens, robins, sparrows, tits and finches. And nothing says Spring to me like bird song and blossom. So, for March, I’ve chosen to incorporate the sticker set, but also create a life-like line drawing of a sparrow perched on a blossom covered branch and then shade in the illustration with my various coloured pencil sets (of which I have many!) to add to my monthly cover.
I didn’t want to add much more bulk to my already overstuffed bullet journal, so the Notebook Therapy transfers were perfect. As I’d stuck in a sheet of music as background on the cover page, I opted to do my sketch on quite thin drawing paper and then stick it in. I used a Winsor & Newton fixative spray to stop the colour transferring onto the opposite page. This month, I was also excited to try out a different colour palette which mainly consisted of pinks and browns and it felt good to try something completely new. Plus, I had plenty of pinks and pale browns in my marker collection.
The front cover
I actually found this mock vintage sheet of music as a free download and thought it would look good as a background to my bird sketch. I have no idea what the music is or whether or not it’s an actual song but I like the look it has created and it fit nicely with my colour scheme.
Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative
The sparrow drawing is based on a photograph I found online and I used quite a few of the compositional elements in the original image. I spent a while debating which woodland bird to choose and then Googled ‘birds and blossom’ to find examples. I’m really pleased with the finished picture and it didn’t take me as long as I thought it might. I did a basic sketch with pencil and then used a very thin (005) Pigma Micron to draw on the main elements including the branches, buds, open blossom and, of course, the male sparrow. I then went in with the coloured pencils on the branches, blossom and the bird. I created a few highlights using a white gel pen and also used a blending pencil to smudge some of the harsher lines. Rather than adding a blurry background, like the photograph, I just use a single pale blue colour and blur isn’t easy to achieve with coloured pencils. When I was happy with my finished picture, I sprayed it straightaway with fixative as this meant that I couldn’t go back and start altering bits of it as I’m prone to do!
Monthly calendar
I mainly loved decorating my usual calendar style with the transfers but, at times, they were a little bit frustrating. If I pressed one of the other stickers or a bit of the backing whilst rubbing the desired image, there was some transferal of parts of the other image or the backing stuck to a previously transferred image and it pulled it off the page. I started cutting each image out individually but that became too time consuming so I stopped and had to be super careful. I’ve managed to get the hang of it now but I did ruin a few of the pictures. Also, occasionally, there were small bits that didn’t rub on properly which I struggled to correct.
Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative
Overall, I would say the transfers look really nice but they definitely take practise and for over £12 for three small sheets, each mistake was quite costly in my opinion! I’ve definitely got the hang of transferring the images now though and would probably buy some more if I see some in the Notebook Therapy collections.
March finances
My usual set up with more transfers and a lovely pale sand Tombow. I added a blossom pattern at the top of the second page but I kind of regret doing it because it doesn’t really go with the delicate transfers. I could have covered it with a border strip sticker but I opted to leave it as it is.
Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative
March Goals and Evaluation
I tried to stick with a small number of goals for March as I found I didn’t meet quite a few of those I set for February and with only a few days of the month left, I’m not going to get them done. I’ve also picked some goals which are not so time consuming too. A combination of transfers and stickers finish off the pages nicely and I loved using the tiny blossom images as bullet points for my list.
Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative
Spring Goals
In preparation for next month, I’ve also created a double page spread with my Spring 2025 Bucket list items on. I’ll be sharing this in one of my blog posts for March so keep a look out for it if that is something that you would be interested in seeing and reading about.
Final words…
I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing my pages for March and you like the theme I’ve chosen. I can now tick off one of my February goals which was ‘write and publish three blog posts’ as this is my final one of those!
Although it’s rainy today, we’ve had a few nice days this week showing us that Spring is definitely on its way. We have a host of miniature iris, crocuses and even a couple of daffodils popping out and there are also plenty of chunky tulip stems in our garden too. Whatever the weather brings, my husband and I try to make the most of our days but nothing beats a bit of sunshine to brighten the mood.
Wishing you an amazing March and a wonderful Spring 2025,
For the last five months, I have been setting a number of monthly goals which I aim to have met by the end of the month. Today, I thought I’d share my process using my actual list for this month as an example. I also want to explain how I make sure that each of them are SMART, even if the original goal is rather loose and unspecific.
Before I share my goals for February, here’s a quick reminder of what the letters of the acronym SMART stand for.
S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Achievable
R – Relevant
T – Time bound
Now, obviously, all of my goals are time bound as I aim to have achieved them by the end of the month, but how do I make sure my goals meet the rest of the criteria? Well, here’s an image showing my simple goals laid out in my bullet journal and I’ll pick out two of them to consider in detail so you can see my thought process and actions I take to prepare.
My actual goals for February 2025
Image credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative
Let’s take the first one:
Learn how to use my diffuser to create perfect nice curls.
I’ve made this goal specific by explaining exactly what I hope to achieve by learning to use my diffuser. I haven’t just said ‘learn how to use my diffuser attachment’, I’ve also stated what I want to use it for.
My goal can be measurable as I’m currently clueless on how to use the diffuser correctly, whereas when I’ve achieved my goal I should be able to use it to create nice looking curls. I’ll deem them to be nice enough if I would be happy to leave the house for the day with them looking like they do!
The goal is achievable as I have the resources required to work towards it, i.e. I own a diffuser attachment for my hairdryer and I can select video tutorials on YouTube to watch to learn the techniques involved. And, you’ll notice I’ve crossed out the word ‘perfect’ – this was intentional as I’m saying that the curls don’t need to look as perfect as they would when I step out of the hairdressers, but need to look nice enough to show them off with confidence.
The goal is a particularly relevant one for me as my hairdresser has been curling my hair with with a wand or straighteners and, although they look beautiful at first, I’m always frustrated with the way they drop out in less than an hour so, I’ve armed myself with curling gel which should help to hold the curl better. Also, I’ve always wanted to be able to create bouncy curls so this is a good objective.
Now, I know I said earlier that the goal is time bound, but, for me, saying I’m going to get all of the above goals ticked off by the end of February leaves too much opportunity for failure, so, I like to get super specific and dedicate a block of time to each project, activity or task involved in my monthly plan. For example, I might decide that on Wednesday 12th February in the morning, I’ll watch a couple of tutorials on YouTube that have been liked by lots of viewers (more likely to be good quality) and then have a go at curling my hair in the afternoon. I’ll also dedicate another 2 or 3 hours to perfecting my new skill until the curls look nice enough to go out with.
I also want to talk about the very last goal in my list:
‘Do two watercolour exploration exercises’.
I’ve picked this one to explain about, because I had something similar for one of my January goals, but I didn’t achieve it. In fact, I didn’t achieve a single part of it because I wrote ‘Do some watercolour exploration each week, using ideas from Painting Calm’ and, although I did a small amount of watercolouring just before the end of January, it wasn’t using ideas from my new book (which I have barely looked at yet) and it certainly didn’t happen every week!
To be completely honest, my goal was far too ambitious as it demanded a lot of time, something that I didn’t have enough of, especially with all of the other goals I’d set for that month. Therefore, it didn’t fit the achievable element of a SMART goal. So, this time, I’ve reduced what is expected of me, and I’m going to write into my monthly BuJo calendar, exactly when my watercolouring sessions will take place. I’ll also pre-pick the ‘watercolour explorations’ I’ll be doing so I can get prepared before I start. They can also be activities from my new book or ones I see in social media if I fancy trying them instead (they’re specific but not too ridged).
So, for my final goal (i.e. the one at the bottom of my list), although ‘Do 2 watercolour explorations’ might seem a bit vague, it can easily be developed as a SMART goal. It is specific as it states the kind of art I want to do and explains that they’re explorations so basically just me trying out a couple of techniques. It’s measurable as I’ll be able to see the evidence of two exploration style activities on watercolour paper or in a sketch book. It seems to be much more achievable – as long as I don’t get COVID again! It’s relevant, as exploring with watercolour is on my vision board for 2025 and it’s time bound as I plan to do both activities before the end of the month with my sessions identified on specific days (recorded in my BuJo) and time blocks drawn up on the actual day, based on how long I would like to spend doing them.
Final words…
I hope today’s post has been helpful for you and will assist you in turning your simple goals into SMART goals to increase your chance of achieving them. I see so many examples of incredibly unspecific goals when people share their monthly spreads and then, when they come to review their progress, they talk about how they only achieved a small number of them or, more often than not, had forgotten what they had said they wanted to do! As well as making your goals SMART, you should also remember to check back in with them on a regular basis. This way, you can pick out two or three for each week of the month and then outline your plans, first in your monthly set up, and then in your weekly.
I would wish you the best of luck with your goals, but really, what’s required is hard work and paying attention to what matters to you so I’ll just say I hope you’re ready for action and are focused on what you want! Go get em!
Following on from my winter foliage theme for December, I continued taking inspiration from nature and chose winter trees as the focus for my January spreads. With being ill at the beginning of the month, I simply drew up the basics of my layouts and added the decoration later when I was feeling much better.
So, although January is nearly over, I thought I would do this post to show how my spreads turned out and some of the ways in which I use them. Obviously some of the information needs to remain private so I’ve covered a few bits up.
Front cover
As I enjoyed doing my watercolour painting so much last month, I thought I’d give it a go with my front cover for this month. Again, I used cold-pressed watercolour paper but this time, it was from a new paper pad I picked up in Hobbycraft which has quite a pronounced grain to it. As my BuJo is getting very bulky, I needed to scan and print my finished art, but, although it doesn’t look exactly the same as the painted piece, it’s quite close, with the tree looking slightly paler. I also like the fact that you can see some of the grain in the sky. My inspiration for the background was from a photograph which I took early in the month, although I wish I’d had the photo in front of me when I did the sky as mine looks a bit bland in comparison! I opted for a dark brown tree and created a muddy grass ground effect using my fan brush, rather than painting snow.
Gorgeous winter sky. Photo credit: Laura Jones
Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping it CreativePhoto credit: Laura Jones for Keeping it Creative
Monthly calendar
I wanted to create a watercolour background effect again for some mini tree images to surround my calendar, so I selected some relatively thin paper from my stash and did some trials with it. I also had a go at painting mini backgrounds in the back of my bullet journal but I didn’t like the effect with the coated paper of my Notebook Therapy journal. The paper I opted for was a cream coloured drawing paper which the paint sat nicely on and didn’t cause buckling. When my simple backgrounds were complete, I used four sizes of Pigma Microns in 0.4, 0.2, 0.1 and 0.05 to create different tree shapes. I’d watched various online tutorials on You Tube and the key teaching points were to create lots of y shapes and make the branches thinner the further you went out and up from the trunk. I’m really pleased with the different effects that I achieved. They’re not based on particular species of trees but I did spend a lot of time this month looking at bare trees on my various walks (okay, it turned into a kind of mini obsession ha ha!).
Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping it Creative
January finances
I kept these pages really simple because I wanted to spend time on other things. Obviously, I’m not sharing information about my income and expenses.
Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping it Creative
Monthly goals
I tried to create heart stickers in Cricut Design Space but the cutting was so off that I ended up having to spend hours talking to a representative from Cricut to get it sorted. I found these mini hearts in my stash and used tweezers to try to get them relatively straight!
Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping it Creative
If you want to see my evaluation for the month, let me know in the comments and I’ll do a quick blog post about it.
Weekly plans
The first week of my weekly plans is a bit sparse and I couldn’t resist making some feeling like poo stickers to show why the first half of the week is pretty much blank. Some of my dailies are more busy than others and sometimes I run out of room. I also usually do a rolling weekly for general, none day specific tasks.
Meal planning
My husband and I have now got into the habit of doing one of these each week. We peruse our cookbooks, recipe files and magazine cuttings as well as looking online. Then, I write up the plan whilst my husband makes a shopping list and checks ingredient availability in our cupboards. It takes quite a while, but it’s well worth it.
Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping it Creative
Final words…
I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing my January spreads, including how I fill them out. I’ve almost finished my pages for February now so I will no doubt be sharing them very soon, hopefully before the end of the month.
Keeping it creative 