Autumn theme – Keeping it creative

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.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

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,

Hi everyone, hope you are all well. This month, I’ve gone for an Autumn theme featuring brightly coloured leaves and acorns. I really enjoyed practising my drawing skills and I’m pleased with how the pages have turned out. I hope you like my spreads and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone else’s chosen themes for October.

For my cover page, I took inspiration from @lilbrownjournal on Instagram who created a wonderful circular design. Before starting, I spent some time doodling different leaf shapes using a variety of tutorials and images I found on Pinterest. I decided not to use my circle drawing tool this time as I wanted the outline to be quite big, so I took out my compass instead. To ensure that I didn’t end up with a hole in the middle of my page, I placed a few post it notes over the area before making my two circles.

The leaves and acorns were drawn in pencil and then outlined with a 0.2 Pigma Micron. I decided to use pencil crayons to shade them in to avoid ghosting. The only problem with this is that when you write on the page overleaf, it tends to transfer onto the previous page. It’s easy enough to remove with an eraser though.

Although I enjoyed using my circular month at a glance, I went back to a two page calendar for this month with 6 dot by 6 dot squares again drawn with my 0.2 Micron pen. Again, I decorated with lots of bright Autumn leaves and acorns.

October is a busy month for tidying up in the garden so I spent some time researching what needs to be pruned and then created this spread as a reminder of the benefits of pruning and the plants which need our attention.

The final page for this month is my habit trackers. I enjoyed the format I chose in September so I kept the layout the same but changed the decoration. I kept some of the same habits and added a few new ones focusing on getting outside for my walk every day and making sure I do my yoga consistently. I added some lovely Autumnal washi at the bottom which was gifted to me by my friend Bev and I think it finishes things off nicely.

That’s it for this month. I’m getting really low on pages in my Leuchtturm so I think I will probably be moving in to my next BuJo before October is over. I’ve gone back a Scribbles That Matter again as I’ve decided I prefer the thicker, white pages.

Thanks for reading,

Tag: Autumn theme

Setting up my Bullet Journal for November 2023: Squashes theme

Setting up my bullet journal for October: Autumn theme