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, watercolour painting

Setting up my bullet journal for September: hedgehog theme

Hi everyone, hope you are all doing well and finding plenty of time to explore your creative side. For next month’s bullet journal spreads, I took inspiration from our garden again. I mentioned a while ago that we have a cute night time visitor who we have started putting biscuits out for each evening (specially formulated little hedgehog ones I should add!). We love getting all wrapped up and sitting on our patio watching him (or her) feed. My husband bought me a wildlife camera for my birthday and so I now have some gorgeous photos and videos of our spiny friend in addition to my creative journaling page records. I hope you enjoy looking through my hedgehog themed pages and I can’t wait to see what you have all chosen for your bullet journal spreads this September.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

For my cover page I wanted to have a go at a little watercolour painting. As my current bullet journal is a Leuchtturm 1917 and the pages don’t hold up too well with paint, I decided to use watercolour paper and then scan and print my finished art work to stick in.

My original watercolour painting. Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping it Creative.
Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping it Creative

Next is a motivational quote that I found on Pinterest. It’s there to remind me to keep working towards my goals a little each day. I didn’t want to take the focus away from the words so chose not to add an illustrations.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping it Creative

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve just bought a circle making tool and I’m having great fun using it. For my calendar, I decided to go with a completely different layout, a circular design which fits on one page. What I think is great about it is that the space needed for the dates and days is minimal and there are no empty boxes like on the month on two pages grid that I usually use. I drew a relaxing hedgehog in the centre and added autumnal elements. You’ll notice that I’ve done the picture on a while piece of paper and glued it in the centre – this is because I wasn’t happy with my initial décor so I started again.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping it Creative

Even though Autumn officially doesn’t start until 22nd September, the weather is certainly getting cooler and it looks pretty Autumnal outside already. It feels like Summer is over and it won’t be long until we get those gorgeous shades of red, yellow, orange and brown that we all love to see. I had a little space at the bottom of my calendar page so decided to take the opportunity to do some lettering.

Next are my habit trackers. Some of them are a continuation of last month as I want to make sure I’m keep up with my studying and blogging and also finding regular time to be creative. I’ve got lots planned for my Etsy shop and so will have to make sure I put the hours in to achieve my goals so work on my business is on there again. The other two habits are related to my Level 10 Life goals where I’m aiming for a tidier home and even more exercise by making sure I get a decent walk in each day.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping it Creative

My next page was inspired by one of vlogger and bullet journaller Caitlin Da Silva‘s September spreads where she created a Fall Reading List. I thought it looked really cute with the little book covers (which I rarely get to see as I generally read on my Kindle Paperwhite) so decided to make my own. I went for a nice mix of fiction and non-fictions and all of the authors are completely new to me.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping it Creative

It’s been a while since I had a monthly expenses tracker in my bullet journal but I decided that I’d like to be more aware of my spending habits so I drew up this simple spread. I covered the left and right edges of the page with washi tape temporarily whilst I drew the lines of Tombow pen to keep it looking a little neater.

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping it Creative

That’s all of my main spreads for September. I haven’t done any fitness trackers this time as I’ve not really kept up with them this month and they became a bit of a chore. I may do a running list of my workouts which I can add to as I do them. I’m also debating adding a Pinterest stats page as I’m using the platform to advertise some of my Etsy shop items and I also pin all of my blog posts on there.

Until next time,