planning – Page 3 – Keeping it creative

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 May 28, 2024Jun 1, 2025 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,

art, bullet journal, Bullet journaling, creativity, Cricut, lifestyle, planner girl, planner lifestyle, Planning and journaling

Setting up my Bullet Journal for May 2024: Gardening quotes and flowers theme

Posted on May 1, 2024 by Laura

This month, it’s time for me to start a new bullet journal and the one I’ve chosen is the Tsuki ‘suzume’ from Notebook Therapy. Suzume is Japanese for sparrow and, as a bird lover, this was the perfect choice for me. The notebook features gold embossing of a sparrow carrying a flower in its beak plus a crescent moon, shooting star and sparkles on the front of the gorgeous pink linen cover. There’s also small details such as the same flower to the spine, plus gold edges to the pages which are really special touches too.

For my theme this time, I’ve chosen a combination of gardening quotes and pretty flowers. I’ve mainly used stickers to decorate my pages but I did take the time to create a hand drawn and coloured in image for my front cover. Hopefully, this month the weather will be a little warmer (and drier) and there will be a few more opportunities to get outside to tend to our flower beds and pots and see our bright blooms appear. We’re also hoping to spend some time relaxing on our garden bench (including after dark looking for our hedgehog visitor) and I might even get to enjoy my morning coffee in the sunshine. Fingers crossed!

So, here are my pages for the month of May. I hope you enjoy looking at them and I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about any aspect of my set up in the comments below.

Front cover

I enjoyed using a combination of Tombow Dual Brush pens and Crayola Supertips to colour in my hand drawn design. I then added the spots to the watering can using a Sakura gelly roll pen to add more interest.

Month on two pages

The sticker decor for this page was all created using images from Cricut Design Space and turning them into print and cut images. I couldn’t resist adding a few sparkles using a Uniball Signo gold glitter pen.

Finances

My usual chart to record my incomings and outgoings.

Weekly plans

I’ve done the same set up for each of my weeklies and used flower decor throughout. This is for the first week which I’ve already started to fill in. I’ve been busy making tiny icon stickers to use to represent different activities and I’m continuing to add to my collection. This will make my planning process quicker and more visual.

Final words…

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog post and look at my bullet journal spreads today. I appreciate any form of support or encouragement towards my blog whether that’s reading my content, liking my posts, making comments or asking questions – especially as things seem to have gone a little quiet over the last few months (sob!).

Wishing you a joy filled May whatever your plans are for the month. I’m hoping to get the rest of my Spring bucket list ticked off as there are still quite a few items left including a waterfall walk and a bike ride!

art, bullet journal, Bullet journaling, creativity, Cricut, lifestyle, Planning and journaling, watercolour painting

Setting up my Bullet Journal for April 2024: Houseplants theme

Posted on Apr 11, 2024Apr 11, 2024 by Laura

For this month’s BuJo theme, I took inspiration from a cute little gift bag I found in one of my local garden centres. I made stickers to decorate most of my spreads but wanted to do some watercolouring for the front cover. Unfortunately, I’ve been ill with a bad chest infection so, although most of my pages have been set up since the beginning of the month, I was only well enough to work on my painting for the last few days. I was really pleased with the finished design and wanted the gold effects to be seen in my bullet journal so I’ve actually trimmed the watercolour paper and stuck it in. Usually, I wouldn’t do this, but as I’m nearly at the end of my notebook, I’m not so bothered with the bulk it has added.

The front cover

My finished cover image had to be trimmed down slightly to make it fit in my bullet journal which was a shame but I hadn’t intended to glue it in so I didn’t check the paper size. When I scan my paintings in, it’s easy enough to shrink them to fit so I always use an A5 watercolour piece of paper.

I had great fun mixing the colours for the pots and leaves and I loved using my Finetec palette to add some gold detailing. The shimmering effect is so pretty and I’m excited to open my BuJo each morning to check my schedule for the day. To get the shelves looking super sharp and straight, I applied washi tape to the bottom of each and then used a light sand Tombow marker to colour in. You can probably see that it’s not watercolour but I really don’t mind! The April title is a little sticker I made using a font I found on Canva.

Monthly Calendar pages

Last month, I had another free trial of Canva Pro so I typed in ‘watercolour houseplants’ and chose my favourite images to use as stickers. Cricut have finally fixed the issue with their print and cut sticker offset in Design Space so I was able to print my sticker sheets straightaway without having to reboot my computer. I’m so pleased they eventually sorted the problem as it saves so much time.

Expenses

I decided to use a mid green Tombow brush pen to highlight every other line in my expenses chart this month. It takes a while to do them, as I use washi tape strips to get the bottom of the lines perfectly straight, but I think it adds more interest to the spread. I left enough room to add three pot plants as decor too.

Weekly plans

April is another busy month so I wanted plenty of space to record daily events and to do lists but also a little room to add some plant stickers. I decided not to do a Dutch door layout this time but stuck with the horizontal days. I’ve added my running task lists to the pages after my weeklies like I did in March. The leaves across the top were created using a single leaf shape spaced out and in different orientations to make a kind of border to fill the space. I created one for each week and I think it finishes the pages nicely.

Final words…

Thank you for taking the time to look at my bullet journal pages for this month – I hope you like my chosen theme and my designs. I apologise for sharing them so late but I’ve been feeling completely wiped out for several weeks. I’m still not totally better but I managed to go to Clubbercise yesterday and Zumba today, so my energy levels have certainly improved.

I hope you’re all having a lovely April and that the weather where you are is better than it is here in Sunderland – we’ve had so much rain recently and one of the flower beds in our back garden is completely flooded and has been that way for weeks.

Much love,

bullet journal, Bullet journaling, creativity, Cricut, Planning and journaling, sticker making

Setting up my Bullet Journal for March 2024: Spring / Easter theme

Posted on Mar 6, 2024Mar 6, 2024 by Laura

As Easter falls at the end of March this year, I decided to do an Easter theme for my bullet journal with some Spring elements. I made a list of words associated with both (decorated eggs, chicks, bunnies, tulips, daffodils etc.) and then searched for images on Design Space which I could use to decorate my spreads. I added lots of images to my canvas and used the sticker making function to create a set of kiss cut stickers on a transparent background. I hope you like my pages as much as I do.

Cover page

As I was searching Cricut Design Space for Easter bunnies to use as stickers, I found this cute cut file of a yellow rabbit with flowers and leaves cut from the body. I had some bright yellow cardstock which was perfect as it was relatively thin and wouldn’t add too much bulk in my BuJo. It took me four attempts to get it to work out well as it was quite delicate but I got there in the end! When I placed it on the page, I felt like something was missing so I experimented with placing different coloured papers behind the image and thought this pink colour created a nice contrast.

The calendar pages

I had great fun making tons of stickers in Cricut Design Space but, unfortunately had lots of issues with the program printing a black line around each of the images. It was so frustrating and I ended up having to bin lots of transparent sticker papers which was costly and such a waste. I resorted to contacting Cricut about it who were very helpful but the problem hasn’t been fixed properly yet.

Anyway, I persevered and I love how the stickers and my pages turned out.

Finances pages

This is my usual income and expenditure record set up with a cute bit of decoration at the bottom. I’m enjoying using the transparent sticker paper but I have a feeling that Cricut are no longer making it as many of the branches of Hobbycraft are out of stock.

Weekly plans

Again, I’ve used a simple Dutch Door set up for my weeklies this month. I couldn’t resist adding more stickers to the days though! The decorative eggs along the top are actually a roll of sticker tape from Hobbycraft. Some of them have gold foil on them but the camera hasn’t picked it up.

I haven’t finished setting up the last two weeklies but I have added the stickers and used Easter chicks for the third week (some real photograph style and others cartoon style) and Easter baskets and Spring blooms for the final week.

Weekly running task list

I’m not sure if I’ve shared my running task lists before but it something I use each week. I add to the list daily and assign tasks to a day of the week or multiple days for longer tasks. This month, I’ve put all of the weekly calendars together and the task lists afterwards but sometimes I’ll put them together. I use the two ribbon bookmarks to mark the pages for easy access.

Final words…

That’s all of my pages for this month and I’m super happy with how they turned out. I’ve just signed up for another free trial of Canva Pro so I can’t wait to make more stickers using images on there. Although Cricut Design Space has some lovely images, there are some even nicer ones on Canva Pro.

Wishing you a wonderful March filled with lots of lovely Springtime activities,

art, bullet journal, Bullet journaling, creativity, lifestyle, Planning and journaling, watercolour painting

Setting up my Bullet Journal for January 2024: Watercolour winter scene and snowflakes theme

Posted on Jan 5, 2024Jan 5, 2024 by Laura

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you’re all having a good 2024 so far. I’m very late sharing my bullet journal spreads for this month for several reasons – one, we were away for Christmas and so I didn’t get out my paints until NYE, and two, the print and cut hack for making stickers using the Cricut Joy doesn’t work anymore and so I’ve resorted to purchasing the Cricut Xtra which is due to arrive today, the 4th January, with a view to creating some text stickers for my spreads.

Anyway, I hope you like the theme and the watercolour bits and pieces which I had great fun creating. On to the pages…

Front cover

Having chosen the theme, I did a bit of Googling, looking for winter scene watercolour painting and I found this gorgeous design on a blog post from way back in 2014. This inspired my front cover but I changed the colours up a bit. The trees were painted first using Intense Green (AKA phthalo green) mixed with a small amount of Payne’s Grey and Vandyke brown and a tiny bit of grey. When that was completely dry, I created the snowy ground using very watered down grey. Then, after drying, I mixed a range of blues for the sky. Whilst still wet, I used coarse salt sprinkles to create the snowy effect. Finally, I used white gouache for the snow on the trees and then paint flicks to give the idea of falling snow.

The original watercolour was then scanned in using my printer and I pasted it into an MS Publisher A5 page and added the January 2024 title. The colours never look the same as the original, but I’m still happy with how it turned out.

The calendar

My husband and I had a go at creating a blue background with salt sprinkles on New Years Eve! We enjoyed experimenting, and it was a great, relaxing activity to do in the evening and helped us to stay awake to see in the new year. Again, the piece was scanned in and this time, it was used to cover the whole page. I then cut out the calendar shape using some dot grid paper which I then positioned in a location on the pages which was close to where it would have been if I could see the dot grid. The titles were created using Cricut Design Space and printed when my machine eventually arrived!

When I’d finished it, I felt like something was missing so I used Design Space again to make lots of snowflake stickers in different sizes. I’ve done a snowflake theme in January previously, but this one looks very different so I don’t feel like I’m repeating designs.

Finances spread

My finances record is still working really well so I’ve kept to the same layout but changed the decor to go with my theme for January. I love the little watercolour scene I found on Design Space to make into a sticker!

TV watched record

I create one of these every quarter or so to record the series that I’ve watched on TV. This time, I’ve added a date column so I can see, at a glance, when we started watching each series. There’s already some great stuff on TV for January and we’re loving the black comedy / drama of season 2 of The Tourist. The genres are taken from IMDB.

Weekly Plans

I went for another Dutch door layout this month and used a second print out of my watercolour background to create page borders to either side. I couldn’t resist adding some more snowflake stickers.

Veganuary meal planning

My husband and I have been doing Veganuary, where you go vegan for the month of January for quite a few years now. We try to create a meal plan each week as this helps when we go shopping. We also try to do more homemade meals which are packed with nutritious veggies.

Final words…

I hope you’ve enjoyed looking at my spreads for this month. At the moment, January is proving to be more wet than snowy and our little garden is looking a bit soggy and flooded. I must say, I love pretty winter scenes with snow and sparkling frost but it’s not so much fun trying to drive in such conditions so I have mixed feelings about the weather at this time of year.

Wishing you a fantastic 2024,