Tag: bucket list

Posted in bullet journal, Bullet journaling, creativity, goal setting, intentional living, lifestyle, planner girl, planner lifestyle, Planning and journaling, Setting goals and intentions

My Summer 2025 Bucket List is good to go…

Posted on by Laura

This is my second year of making seasonal bucket lists and, so far, I’ve managed to make them all quite different. I’ve been looking back at Summer 2024’s spread in my bullet journal and quite a few elements of it were related to our holiday in Wales. This year, however, we’ve had our main trip last month and we haven’t decided where we might go for my birthday in August yet. Today, I’m sharing my finished Summer 2025 bucket list spread in my current BuJo. I’m starting to work on the items already as I follow the meteorological times, beginning on June 1st and finishing on August 31st rather than the astronomical calendar. And, although we had a bit of rain earlier, it’s bright sunshine and blue sky out there now so it certainly feels like the summertime has arrived.

Creating my bucket list and turning it into a bright and colourful spread in my BuJo

Last year, I went into detail about how I develop my list and then turn it into a double page board in my bullet journal and you can read all about my process here. This time, as I’ve noticed there tends to be quite a bit of ink transferal, if I use lots of black, I opted for a lovely, bright pink for the bucket list items. It’s still really easy to read and hopefully, I won’t spend the season erasing smudges!

A couple of items that I chose are common to most of my bucket lists, such as doing a seasonal jigsaw and reading a book set in the particular season but the rest are all something new and different.

Final words…

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing my Summer Bucket List spread and it has inspired you to create your own. You don’t necessarily have to make it a creative exercise – just writing one on plain paper and putting it up somewhere prominent such as on a cupboard in your kitchen will be enough to help you make the most of the season. You could even turn it into a family activity where you each contribute some ideas of seasonal favourites or things you’ve always wanted to try. And if you get a bit stuck, you can always turn to AI to generate ‘Fun things to do this Summer’ or your own show me phrase.

I would love to see your finished lists if you would like to share, so feel free to upload it to Instagram and tag me in your post with @ljdesignsne

Hope your Summer is great fun and you create lots of happy memories!

Posted in bullet journal, Bullet journaling, creativity, goal setting, intentional living, lifestyle, planner girl, planner lifestyle, Planning and journaling, Setting goals and intentions

My Spring 2025 Bucket List

Posted on by Laura

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.

Posted in Bullet journaling, goal setting, intentional living, lifestyle, planner girl, planner lifestyle, Setting goals and intentions, sticker making

My Winter 2024-25 Bucket List: Maximizing the Season’s Potential

Posted on by Laura

I started creating seasonal bucket lists in autumn 2023 and earlier this year I shared a short guide to them in a blog post, where I discussed exactly what a bucket list is, the benefits of making one and some tips for deciding what to include so it is tailor made to you. Over the last week, I’ve been working on my winter 2024/5 bucket list and it’s quite different to my previous winter season one which I’m really pleased about because I want to make sure I plan new opportunities for myself and my husband.

Today, I’m sharing the two page spread I created in my bullet journal where I add the bucket list items, small illustrative stickers to go with each and a few snowflakes and sparkles to fill the gaps. Although it was quite time consuming, I had so much fun making most of the stickers using Cricut Design Space, my Cricut Joy Xtra and a couple of sheets of matte sticker paper and then planning their positions over thew two pages with an icy blue background. I also found a few extra tiny stickers in my mini Carpe Diem ‘Season’s sticker book.

My finished bucket list pages

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

I think the result is so aesthetically pleasing that I’ll be sure to keep checking in with pages, selecting goals for each of the winter months (obviously doing the Christmas ones in December), then deciding on one or two to complete or start to work on for each week across the season. As I finish them, I’ll be adding little tick stickers that I also made with my Cricut Joy Xtra.

Final words…

Creating a seasonal bucket list is a great way to maximize the potential of the coming months and it’s so much fun too. As you can see, I love getting creative with mine in my bullet journal but you could simply make a list and tape it to your fridge or add your own cute little doodles to show what you want to achieve.

And, if you don’t achieve it all, it doesn’t matter. You may find that your priorities change or that other opportunities present themselves that you want to do instead. You might run out of time or decide that you simply don’t want to do one or more of the items. For example, I had on my list for this season to create an autumnal quote page in my bullet journal with hand drawn elements, but, by the third week of November, I’ve still not done it and it seems pointless to spend the time drafting one out and decorating it when my focus in now on winter and what I want to do over the next three months.

I hope that seeing my bucket list for this winter has inspired you to have a go at creating your own. You’re quite welcome to use some of my ideas if you have similar interests to me and Pinterest has a good number of lists too, but I recommend taking your time and really thinking about what you love about the season, activities you’ve done before and want to make time for again, or things you’ve always wanted to try, either on your own or with loved ones. Let me know in the comments what your top three are!

Wishing you a fun filled winter season,

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

My Autumn 2024 Bucket List BuJo spread

Posted on by Laura

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 journaling, goal setting, life hacks, lifestyle, memory keeping, planner girl, planner lifestyle, Planning and journaling

Creating a bright and colourful Summer Bucket List spread in my Bullet Journal

Posted on by Laura

Last autumn, I set myself the challenge of creating a bucket list for each of the four seasons and making a Traveler’s Notebook journal for each in which to record all of my experiences across the year. This week, I finished setting up my final double page spread for the summer season in my Bullet Journal and I’m super pleased with how it turned out. The aim was to produce something inspirational using bright summer colours and images which embody the summer season. I enjoyed the process from start to finish and thought I’d share with you my finished product, explain a bit about how I went about setting it up and give a step by step guide to help you make your own.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

Defining the season

The first step I took was decide on the dates for summer – I chose to base my seasons on the meteorological start and end which is June 1st to August 31st, but I could have opted for the astronomical period which cites the beginning as Thursday 20th of June to Sunday 22nd September. It’s obviously up to you which you go with and you probably already have your own idea when summer falls.

Brainstorming ideas

Initially I look at a range of bucket list ideas on Pinterest and noted down any which appealed. I also spent some time thinking about what summer means to me e.g. going to the beach and activities I enjoy doing such as birdwatching, photography, tasting summer fruits and going for walks in nature. As we’re off on holiday to Wales for a week next month, I then researched places to go and things to do in the local area which I could add to my list.

If you end up with a huge, long list of ideas, think about which activities most excite you, which fit in with your priorities for this year (e.g. relaxation, having fun, being adventurous, learning new things etc.) and which feel most realistic.

Setting some achievable goals

Whilst adding items to my list, I tried to make sure that there we’re some quick and easily achievable goals and some which will take more planning and organising. It’s also important to consider your budget, time constraints and any other commitments you have. It’s no good writing that you want to do a hot air balloon ride if you have no idea of the cost and haven’t researched locations from which these are available.

Creating a visual representation

For my bullet journal inspiration board, I selected some stickers from my stash and made some in Cricut Design Space. I even chose to add some real photographs of the places we would like to go, so I have an image of my local beach, and pictures I found online of Yorkshire Lavender and the two National Trust places we intend to visit during our holiday in Wales. I also found some tiny stickers to fill in the gaps between the bucket list items.

Of course, you don’t have to create a concrete visual representation for display. You might choose to simply close you eyes and picture yourself doing the activities and thinking about how they would make you feel or you might just write your list and put it somewhere you can regularly refer to.

Planning the details

For each activity, I’m now spending time fleshing out the details. So, for example, I’ve found what looks to be a simple and tasty recipe for strawberry lemonade and added it to Notion. I’ve written down the postcodes and travel times for the National Trust places and the RSPB reserve and have done some reading so I know what to expect when we go. I’ve also noted costs involved for different items and have purchased my summer novel on Kindle (for 99p!) and seasonal jigsaw puzzle already.

Final words…

I hope I’ve inspired you to make your own bucket list for summer 2024 full of exciting activities you’d like to try and maybe some old seasonal favourites. Creating a plan which is unique to you, is a great way to explore possibilities for the upcoming months so as to ensure you make the most of all of the free time you have available to you.

Wishing you a fun summer,