planning – Page 2 – Keeping it creative

Blogging, crafting, creativity, Cricut, goal setting, Health and Nutrition, Home cooking, intentional living, life hacks, lifestyle, manifestation, mindset, personal development, Planning and journaling, reflective journalling, Setting goals and intentions, watercolour painting

Setting up my 2025 Vision Board

Posted on Jan 22, 2025Jan 22, 2025 by Laura

Last year, for some unknown reason, I think I must have decided against making a 2024 vision board. I’m not sure why, but maybe I didn’t feel up to it or perhaps I had a variety of commitments at the beginning of January and decided it was too late in the month to work on one.

For 2025, I decided that, for me personally, it’s not really important to have the board finished in super quick time and it doesn’t matter if I’m still working on it towards the end of January. I wanted to have a slow start to the first month, really pondering over what I would like the year to look like. I found it helpful to revisit a couple of old blog posts of mine in which I’d talked about key questions you could ask yourself to prepare your mind and what to actually do to improve your chances of manifesting everything you’ve visualised for the year.

I decided to create a larger display, rather than using two pages in my bullet journal as then I can have it on my craft room / office wall to look at all year round. I also chose to combine images, motivational sayings, affirmations and a few cute decorative elements to make it visually appealing. I’ve spend days thinking about what I truly want this year, flicking through a huge stash of Psychologies magazines, answering deep questions from my previous vision board posts, journalling my thoughts and closing my eyes to visualise things. I’m so glad I put lots into the preparation as my 2025 vision board is now complete and turned out exactly how I wanted it. I can’t wait to share a photograph of the finished product!

And here it is…

Photo credit: Laura Jones for Keeping It Creative

My main categories

Diet – The plan this year is to eat more plant-based goodies than ever before. We’ve made so many healthy and delicious vegan dishes this Veganuary and we’ve also found a cafe that has a range of vegan friendly cake options. It’s getting easier and easier to eat a plant based diet and my husband and I have already made a number of changes over the years such as soya milk on our cereal and oat milk in our hot drinks, vegan spread on our bread, lots of plant based alternatives to meat such as soya mince, veggie sausages, VLTs etc.

Creativity – I want to develop my watercolour skills even further this year, whilst also engaging in mindful and calming activity after busy days. I got a gorgeous book for Christmas which provides exploratory activities and projects with a nature theme. I want to incorporate a weekly slot of time to experiment and develop a range of techniques.

Blogging – I want to spend more time promoting my blog posts so that I develop a wider readership. I used to consistently post pins on Pinterest but I’ve let this slide over the last few years. I get plenty of readers but I want to reach individuals who do not have their own blog as well as those who are keen bloggers.

PCPI work – I thoroughly enjoy my work at the university but it’s really important to me that I’m making as much of a difference as I can to the students. I particularly want to develop my feedback skills for medicine sessions, particularly with young adults who are in the initial stages of their uni course.

Kaizen – I recently started a short book called The Little Book of Kaizen – The Japanese art of transformation, one small step at a time. I’m enjoying reading it and doing the exercises at the beginning. The idea really appeals to me, so, to make sure it’s a focus for me this year, I’ve added a photograph of the mini book on my vision board with a view to working through all of the chapters. I’ve even pick out a cute notebook to use to jot things down and I’m using my fountain pen to write beautifully inside.

Cricut – As you probably already know, I’m obsessed with making stickers and cutting them using my Joy Xtra. However, I also have the smaller Joy machine and also invested in the EasyPress 2 when it was on offer at a discount. I have lots of vinyl and HTV as well as some iron on papers so I want to spend time this year getting creative and using them all up. I have so many ideas but I now need to schedule time to actually get making things. I added a Cricut bug sticker to watch over me and remind me to have more fun playing with my machines.

Getting organised – We have a lot of stuff in our house and some of it needs purging. As well as trying to use up craft materials before buying any more, I also want to re-organise our home so it’s easy to clean and keep tidy.

Final words…

That’s everything on my vision board for this year and to ensure that everything on the display comes into fruition, I will be checking in with it at the beginning of each month and using the different aspects to set mini monthly goals. I’ve developed pages in my bullet journal to list my goals and I’ll make sure at least some of them relate to things I want to manifest throughout the year.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my board and that it’s inspired you to have a go at creating your own. It doesn’t matter if you don’t get around to it for a few weeks – there’s still plenty of days left in the year to take action.

Good luck!

bullet journal, Bullet journaling, Christmas, planner girl, planner lifestyle, Planning and journaling, watercolour painting

Setting up my Bullet Journal for December 2024: Winter foliage theme

Posted on Dec 5, 2024Dec 5, 2024 by Laura

This month, rather than doing a full on Christmas theme, I’ve taken inspiration from an artist whose content I follow on YouTube. In a recent video, she shared some easy watercolour cards featuring winter foliage, and one of the designs was a bauble shape decorated with red berries, leaf stems and pine branches. I had a go at creating my own on watercolour paper and loved how it turned out so I used it for my front cover (even gluing in the thick paper directly into my notebook). For the rest of my spreads I used felt tip pens and foliage stickers using designs found on Cricut Design Space, plus gold paint to create shine. I can’t wait to share the results with you.

Front cover

Usually, I scan and print my watercolour designs but, on this occasion, the finished result was so disappointing that I decided to stick the original straight in. It’s made my journal super bulky, and I’m only on my second month, but I’m so happy with how it looks. I added some gold sparkly paper behind it and I think it makes it really festive (unfortunately, it doesn’t show up too well in the photograph).

Monthly calendar

This is my usual calendar with leafy sprigs, berries and pine pieces created using an array of pens including my Tombow dual tips, Papermate flairs, Pentel brush pens and a couple of American Craft precision pens. Rather than sketching the designs, I went straight in with the colour and I think the pages turned out okay. The December title is backed with another glitter paper, this time in a lovely green colour.

Finances

For some reason, the camera on my phone has made the grid appear a horrible yellowy colour, but it is, in fact and a pale green with just a hint of yellow to it. I would love to know how to correct this so if anyone has any ideas, please let me know in the comments. I might have a play with the photograph settings and see if I can improve it at all.

Monthly goals

Most of my goals for this month are taken directly from my winter bucket list and relate to Christmas. The stickers were made in Cricut Design Space and I used vinyl sticker paper which really easily ripped so I had to be super careful.

Christmas related pages

I created pages like these last Christmas and found them really useful so I’ve done the same again this year. Now that I’ve shared them on here, I can start filling them in!

I also have a Christmas packing list page to set up nearer to the time too.

My first weekly plan

Final words…

Thank you for visiting my blog to look at my Christmas bullet journal pages, I would love to know what you think to them, especially the front cover which I had great fun painting. If you like playing with watercolour, I would definitely recommend checking out the YouTube video that I drew inspiration from.

Wishing you a wonderful Christmas time and all the best for 2025,

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 Nov 25, 2024 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

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,

bullet journal, Bullet journaling, creativity, memory keeping, planner girl, planner lifestyle, Planning and journaling, reflective journalling

Setting up my BuJo for August 2024 – Birthday theme

Posted on Jul 30, 2024 by Laura

Next month, I share my birthday with my niece, Lexi. She’s turning 13 and becoming an official teenager, and I’m going to be slightly older than that! So, I decided to go for a birthday theme for August. I seem to recall that I’ve chosen this particular theme before, but I haven’t even checked back to see my BuJo pages from that occasion, so I’m sure they’ll be completely different.

I hope you enjoy looking through my pages and that they inspire you to do something similar for your own birthday month.

The front cover

My cover was inspired by an image I found in Cricut Design Space. My birthday cake turned out quite different, but the basic shape with two tiers and four candles with stripes is the same.

When I’d finished the design, I outlined it using a Pigma Micron in 0.2 and this helped to detract from the bumpy marks where I shaded places that had a piece of ephemera on the page overleaf. I still felt something was missing and decided to add hundreds and thousands onto the iced cake, which I think made it look more special. I’m pleased with how it turned out despite initially being disappointed because of the marks on the right hand side.

The calendar

I found a few pieces of ephemera in my stash to add to these pages, and I then made a few more images to glue in using Cricut Design Space. I created the stars to add to the page to complement the ones on the cover.

Finances

This is my usual income and expenses tracker that I use to help monitor my spending with a few pieces of birthday themed ephemera for decoration. In August, I want to try to keep my purchases to only essentials in order to save money whilst I’m not doing university sessions over the Summer.

Record keeping and journalling pages

When Michael and I are taking a short holiday from work, the focus of my bullet journal pages tends to be recording events and places visited, plus a little bit of reflective journalling. I’ve set up a page for the dates around my birthday for the left hand side of the spread and a cute frame for a photograph of the two birthday girls, a number of decorative pieces from my stash and a little room for me to journal about bits and pieces from our celebrations.

Final words…

Thank you for visiting my blog today to have a look at my bullet journal set up for August 2024. I hope my pages have provided inspiration and ideas for planning, memory keeping and journalling for your own birthday or the celebrations of family.

Wishing you a healthy and happy August and don’t forget to plan in some ways to enjoy the summer now it has eventually arrived in the UK even if it has waited until the last month of the season!

bullet journal, Bullet journaling, creativity, planner girl, planner lifestyle, Planning and journaling, sticker making

Setting up my Bullet Journal for June 2024: Butterflies theme

Posted on May 31, 2024 by Laura

Last night, having completed all of my spreads for next month, I had a vague recollection that I’d done a butterfly theme in my bullet journal once before. I searched my blog (much quicker than flicking through all of my BuJos) and discovered that I had indeed, back in June 2021, chosen butterflies. However, the pages are quite different today, even though I have stuck with the same calendar layout as this size is perfect for my needs. Whereas last time, I painted and drew outlined butterflies, this time I’ve made use of my Cricut machine and my favourite coloured pencils. I love how my spreads have turned out and I really enjoyed making them.

The front cover

For the front cover, I wanted to create a perfectly symmetrical butterfly outlined in black and shaded in using bright colours. I debated using paint and folded paper like we used to do at school but then I had the idea of printing and cutting an image in Cricut Design Space using sticker paper and then colouring in the interior shapes with Staedtler Ergosoft pencils. I used the add bleed feature when printing so as to ensure the outline was precise and it turned out really well. The tricky bit was peeling the shape from the backing and sticking it down straight and without wrinkles.

To ensure smooth colouring, I blended using a Derwent blending pencil. I also had to be careful to get into the edges of the cut shapes so there was no white space left. After finishing the butterfly, I couldn’t resist adding some gold sparkles using one of my Uniball Signo pens.

Monthly calendar

My calendar uses a combination of Canva Pro and Cricut Design Space. These were printed and cut on transparent vinyl. I also used Design Space fonts to create the title for both the front cover and this spread and the days of the week headers. More sparkles were added using the gold gel pen.

Finances record

Again, I used stickers and gold sparkles to decorate the bottom of my finances record so it’s in keeping with the rest of my pages.

First weekly spread

I’ve been using this layout for a while now and it provides just enough space for events and a couple of day specific to-dos. This month, I’ve decided to use some days of the week stickers I’ve had for a while, plus some tiny number stickers. Unfortunately the digits don’t quite match the words because I couldn’t find the font that was used for the days which was a pre-produced file on Design Space. I found some butterfly washi in my stash which finishes the page nicely and was much quicker to add than creating a repeating pattern sticker like I did last month.

Final words…

Thank you for visiting my blog to look at my spreads for June. I enjoyed using stickers again to set up my pages and it made it slightly quicker to do than trying to draw and colour lots of symmetrical butterflies. It does take a while to find the images I want though and then I have to turn them into print and cut images, resize them and add offsets to each one. Also, there seems to be some issue with Design Space each time I use it but I guess that’s one of the joys of technology!

Wishing you a happy and healthy June and lets hope the weather starts to improve soon (especially as I want to wear my new pairs of shorts I’ve bought for our Wales holiday),