Tag: Bullet Journal

October 2020 Bullet Journal Set-Up

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Hey guys! I’m a little late in posting this, but I promise that it’ll be worth the wait. I don’t know why I keep doing themes that take so long😂 I thought this one would be more simple but nope! For October this year I’m doing a phases of the moon theme, and this is different for me because I’m ONLY using black and white, which I’ve never done before. If you want to know which phases are happening on which days of the month, check out this website that I found- it’s really helpful! This theme is inspired by AmandaRachLee, whose journal I love! Here’s the link to her video if you want to check it out: AmandaRachLee

She did this theme last year, but I’ve definitely tweaked it and made it my own.

I love these spreads but it just took me a while to colour in all of the black parts😂 I was impressed with how much ink is in my Tombow Fudenoske brush pens, because I coloured in SO much area with them! They’re almost running out though so I have to order some more. I also made good use of my white gel pen by doing cursive over the black, and a bunch of star doodles🥰 So yeah, these pages look simple but they kind of take a lot of work😂 If you’re looking for something a bit less time consuming, you could use black paper instead of colouring in with black, I just like how the black ink looks.

There are so many fun things that you can do with a moon theme though, which you’ll see in my journal down below👇 I can’t wait to start using these spreads! They’re so simple but pretty and timeless. Hope you find some inspiration in this post! Happy journaling:)

Here’s my title page:) As you can see there’s lots of black😂 I did a big black circle with stars in it and wrote October in there, surrounded by a bunch of moons in different phases. Then we have that black border with the moons in the four corners. I love the quote I used for this month; it fits my theme perfectly and reminds me that sometimes I don’t get the full picture!

I’m still using the little mini calendar, and this month there actually isn’t any room to write anything in there. I just drew which phase the moon will be in on each day, so it’s more for me to get a sense of what the month looks like. Then on the other page I have a space where I can write down events, tasks, school stuff, and goals for the month. I don’t know, I might switch back to a full calendar spread next month and just see if it works better with school, but for now this is pretty good for me. These spreads are pretty simple👌

This tracker layout has captured my heart, so it’s here to stay❤️ This month it’s pretty simple with those moons on the side, and a black header with white writing. I’m tracking all my habits, my mood, my productivity, and my workouts. This month I’m tracking if I worked out in the morning or not instead of if I just worked out anytime, because my workout tracker at the bottom will let me know if I worked out that day or not. I think this turned out really cute!

Here I have my gratitude and blog planner together on the same pages, so I’ll write what I’m grateful for on one side of the black divider, and plan blog stuff on the other. I did all of the moon phases again, and the black header, which both look great:)

I included a moon journal on half of this spread, which I thought was pretty cool! The basic premise is that during different phases of the moon, you focus on and journal about different things. Like for example, the Full Moon is gratitude, and the New Moon is your hopes and dreams. There’s actually a lot you can do with moon journaling, so feel free to do some more research. Here’s the link that I used for some info: Moon Journaling Info

Then on the other page I have my first weekly spread, which looks simple but was a lot of colouring😂 My hand was dead after I finished filling in all of the stars. But it looks really good!

I really like this theme and how different it is! Which themes are you guys doing for October? Have a great rest of your weekend and I’ll see you tomorrow:)

Yours Truly,

Olivia:)))

September 2020 Bullet Journal Set-Up

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Summer is coming to a close and it’s already SEPTEMBER. This year is going by so fast. I’m excited for fall though because I get to do a bunch of warm, cinnamony apple and pumpkin recipes, and also curl up with a good book, and do some cool bullet journal themes:) I was racking my brain for some awesome doodles I could do for September, and then I was like, how is it possible that I HAVEN’T DONE AN OWL THEME YET?!!?? Owls are my absolute favourite animal, and make for the perfect September theme. I didn’t want to draw any cutesy, adorable owls though. I found some great inspiration on Pinterest (I’ll show a pic below) for a geometric owl design that’s stunning. I coloured it in with olive green, navy, and gold, and I know I’ve used green and gold a lot this year already but I felt that these colours worked really well together and were sort of autumn-ish. It’s funny to see how far I’ve come because I was looking through my first ever journal from 2018 and literally all my weekly spreads were the same each month lol. Even last year I feel like I would’ve freaked the heck out if I used the same colour twice. Now I kind of just go with the flow and do whatever I want and it turns out way prettier:))

Back to my September spreads. They’re pretty simple, and I’m doing a lot of quotes and deep, meaningful stuff this month because I feel like I need a boost with going back to school and activities and all that. I really like the way it turned out and I think I can do some pretty cool weeklies in the future. This is random but I’m typing this on my computer and I really want to use emojis and I can’t:) But if I had to come up with an emoji to summarize this spread I think it would be the fire one. Scroll down and check it out!

Here was my inspo BTW:

I mostly used the kind of neon-y owl on the bottom left, as you can see in my cover page:) It took me a little while to draw, and then I realized it was perfectly centred on the page and I should’ve drawn it slightly up more so that I could write September underneath and it wouldn’t look so cramped at the bottom. But I didn’t feel like re-drawing it so I just left it and it was fine. I did more of a bouncy cursive font this month, with some of the letters a bit smaller than others, which creates more interest. On the opposite page I have a nice, inspiring quote, surrounded by some geometric triangles in the corners. I love this title page because it’s simple and sophisticated and so pretty!!:))

I was debating whether I should do a full calendar layout this month since I’ll be busier, or stick with the half page ones I’ve been doing, and I went with the half page. I’ll have more room to write down events and school stuff this way, so we’ll see how it works out. I might end up putting little dots in the calendar boxes, with the colour corresponding to the bigger boxes on the right page, because I won’t have a lot of room to write in the actual calendar. Like if I have an event I’ll do a green dot, and school stuff will be navy dots. That’s confusing but hopefully it kind of makes sense:) These pages are nice and simple as well; I drew a smaller owl over the calendar, and another quote on the right page. Oh I also ended up using my white gel pen to write over the navy, because it shows up better than black and just looks nicer.

My trackers are on point this month! I still love the chart/graph layout; it’s just so easy to use and look at. I find when I use different colours to define my mood I pick ones that are too similar and they all just blend together, but here I can just see everything without to many legends and stuff. This month I’m tracking my habits (I track 12 habits which may seems like a lot but idk I just like to see what I’m doing), mood, productivity and workouts. Then on the side I drew another owl and wrote words that are often associated with them. Love how this spread turned out:)

I decided to include a spot to write down my thoughts each day next to my gratitude log; sort of like a “line a day” thing. I wrote another quote at the bottom of that page, and then did a blog planner, because I think I’ll need it this month. I just have to get better at sitting down each week and filling it out. I made use of those mosaic-y triangles when doing these pages.

Then my first weekly spread:) On the left I have a big quote page. I’ve been into these really long quotes lately, and I like the look of all that writing on a page. Again I was kind of mad about the placement of the owl, because I thought I’d write the quote underneath it but it turned out to be too long. So I wrote it all around the owl, which I feel should’ve been centred but no way was I drawing it again lol. But it turned out nice in the end. Then I have a super simple weekly with lots of space to write down events and stuff that are coming up.

There you go my friends! After this there’s only 3 months left to go in this journal:( I’m so sad because I love this colour, and my very very slight OCD isn’t quite ready to allow me to get the same coloured bujo 2 years in a row. But I’m going to make these last 3 themes awesome so don’t worry:)) Have a great weekend and I’ll see you next week!!

Yours Truly,

Olivia:))

August 2020 Bullet Journal Set-Up

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July just flew by, and I’m sad to see my Anne of Green Gables theme go, but I’m absolutely IN LOVE with my theme for August!! At first I was kind of going for a Spanish tile look, but now that I’m done I’m totally getting Mediterranean vibes. I used the fine tip of my light blue Tombow Dual Brush Pen, and a darker blue crayola marker, as well as my gold brush pen from the dollar store, my white Gelly Roll pen, and a finer gold gel pen. I haven’t used my bigger Tombow markers in a while because the brush tip is a little to big for the size of my journal, but the fine tip works perfectly here and I love the colour.

I also didn’t use ANY black in this entire set up and I plan to keep it that way! It just makes it feel really clean and simple and bright, which I love for summer. These spreads are pretty simple in general, cause I wanted a bit of a break from lots of drawing. The tiles are easy to draw because I used the dotted lines as a guide. I also varied the tile sizes a bit to keep things interesting.

I hope you like this month’s set-up and can pull some inspiration from it! I love love love how it turned out and I can’t wait to come up with some more weekly spreads:))

Here’s my title page! I drew 12 tiles that are 8×8 dots each, leaving some space at the top and bottom. It was lots of fun drawing out all these different designs! After I had coloured everything in, I went over the darker blue parts with my white gel pen for some extra detail. Then I wrote August in gold in a simple lowercase font. My quote for this month is “Go bravely, go deeply, or do not go”. While I don’t officially have a focus for this month, I want to make it a priority to give 110% in everything.

Again, I’ve been liking this half page calendar layout a lot! I might have to switch back to a full page one once school stuff starts up again, but for now I’m enjoying this look. I have space for my goals, events, and tasks, and then just my little calendar to write a few important dates down and keep track of what day it is (because when it’s summer AND Covid it’s hard to know). I messed up on my calendar because I forgot that August ends on a Monday and kept drawing circles until the end of the week. But I managed to cover it up by doing some little doodles, and then I did more in the top row too so it looks intentional. And yeah, I drew some smaller tiles here to which I think are so cute:)

My trackers spread is just super clean and simple. I think I’m just going to stick with this horizontal style because I just love the way it looks and how simple it is to fill out. I used a finer gold gel pen to write smaller, because I didn’t want to use black. And then I also have a workout tracker to keep tabs on my fitness.

These pages turned out great and it makes me happy just looking at them!! I did more small tiles for my gratitude log, and bigger tiles over on my blog planner. I haven’t included a blog planner in a while because I wasn’t really using it, but recently I started planning out my posts in advance and it’s helped me a ton, so hopefully I can plan stuff more using this.

And finally, my first weekly spread. Super simple; just some tiles and the first letter of the days of the week. I had another head-smacking moment as I started the week off with Sunday, and then I was like oh shoot, August first is a SATURDAY. I really didn’t want to paste paper on top or mess it up, so I just put Saturday and Sunday together into one box and whatever. I also ended up writing the dates in with my gold gel pen, but it didn’t make it into this photo.

There’s my set up for August!! It’s one of my favourite ones I think; I just love the colours and the simplicity. I had a few little hiccups but it turned out great in the end! Let me know what you think of it and I’ll see you guys Wednesday with another post:)))

Yours Truly,

Olivia:))

July 2020 Bullet Journal Set-Up

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Hey guys! To be honest, this month’s set-up was a bit of a struggle. I’m in love with my theme, but trying to transfer my ideas on to paper was so hard! And then I came up with some super complicated stuff that took me FOREVER to execute, so it was just a long and arduous process. But I’m super happy with how it turned out in the end!

The theme I chose is Anne of Green Gables;)) I’ve been reading all of the books again recently, and I love them! They’re so cute and have so many awesome quotes and life lessons in them. There’s so much good doodling and quote material to choose from, and I think that’s why I was stuck a bit- there’s too many possibilities! But I finally went with lots of doodles of the Green Gables house, some flowers and cherry blossoms, and some of Anne herself. I used a bunch of different colours and played around with layouts, and I don’t think I’ll stick to one set group of doodles for the whole month, I’ll probably switch it up week to week like I did in my Harry Potter spreads a couple of years ago, to make sure I capture the whole essence of the books. Despite how long this took me to do, I’m really glad that I spent the time because I love these spreads:)) Let’s get into them!

For my title page I drew Green Gables, as well as some trees and flowers. I really like how the outline of the grass and sky is kind of squiggly, and then the black border cuts through it. On the opposite page I drew Anne’s gable window, and a cherry blossom branch because there’s a flowering tree outside her window in the books;) I also used some white and green checked washi tape because it just screams Green Gables to me! My first quote is, “Dear old world, you are very lovely and I am glad to be alive in you.”. Something that I want to focus on this month is just being grateful for all of the little things, and immersing myself in summer, and I think that this quote embodies that!

I haven’t gone back to a full-page calendar spread yet, because I like how this mini calendar is working for me. Underneath it I have sections to write down events, tasks, and stuff for the Chem 20 course I’m starting soon. And then I drew Green Gables again, as well as Anne and more cherry blossoms. There’s a spot for my goals, and my focus for the month is “feed the soul”. I included another quote in this spread as well.

Here are my trackers! This spread took me a LONG time but it was worth it;)) I have the usual habit, mood and productivity trackers, but I decided not to track sleep this month because it’s hard for me to be accurate with it and tracking it isn’t super important to me. So I just have a bigger workout tracker, which is nice.

I drew Anne’s little window again for my gratitude log, and Green Gables for my summer bucket list. I included this so I can write down all of the things I want to do before summer is over! I’ll share some of the items on it on instagram;))

And finally, a quote page and my first weekly spread. This quote really resonated with me, because I think it’s what makes summer so special. Just a string of nice, chill, warm days with family and friends. For my first weekly spread, I took a little detour from the usual doodles and did some more items from the books.

That’s July! I love it so much and can’t wait to come up with more wekkly spread ideas;)) I used lots of Crayola supertips markers, some Zebra mildliners, some micron fineliners and some brush pens for these spreads. I actually had a crisis where my marker ran out and I didn’t have another one like it to colour in the sky. I almost had a heart attack! But then I found a highlighter that’s pretty close, so it’s all good. Hope you found some inspiration in this post, and that your July set-up is stress free!!

Yours Truly,

Olivia;))

20 Mid-Year Review Questions

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It’s that time of year again- we’re halfway through 2020 which means it’s time to sit down and reflect on what the year has been like so far. I for one always do this in my bullet journal, because it’s a great place to keep track of all of my goals and write down my thoughts. I started doing a mid-year review just last year, since I had a couple of extra pages after June and thought, why not? I liked it a lot and so this year I made sure to reserve two pages at the end of this month.

I don’t think I wrote a whole post about my Mid-Year Review from last year, but here’s what it looked like:

For my review this year I kept many of the same elements, although I used the colour scheme from my 2020 Set-Up , and I printed off a bunch more olive branches too. I love this “base” theme that I have going on for the whole year- I don’t know what I’ll do next year! Anyways, I did a cute quote page and then on the opposite page I have a bunch of reflection questions to see where I’m at:

I love the way it looks;)) I switched up the reflection questions this year, and that’s what I want this post to be about: the questions. Down below I’m going to provide you with a list of 20 questions that you can ask yourself as we approach the mid-way point of 2020. You can choose a few to answer that jump out at you, or answer them all! I think it’s really good to check in with yourself and your goals, and see what you can improve on. Especially because of the crazy times that we’ve all been going through, we need to reset and re-evaluate what’s going on in our lives. So take some time to sit down and think about how you’re feeling about your current situation, and what you can do to improve it. And of course, make your review pretty! I love doing stuff like this when I can embellish it a little. Here’s my master list!

20 Mid-Year Review Questions

  • What are some things that you’ve accomplished so far that you’re proud of?
  • What are some things that you still want to accomplish?
  • If you chose a word that you want to define 2020, how are you embodying that word? If not, choose a word and ask yourself what you can do to embody it for the rest of the year.
  • What have you loved about 2020 so far?
  • How have you been looking after yourself?
  • How have you been able to give back this year? How can you give back for the rest of the year?
  • What have you been doing to nourish your soul, body and mind?
  • What are some areas that you feel you’ve been struggling in? How can you improve in those areas?
  • Do you feel like something is holding you back? What is it?
  • How can you move past any fears you have right now?
  • One year from now, what would your future self wish you had been doing right now? How about 5 or ten years from now?
  • How do you feel about the goals you set for this year? Look back on them, make any necessary adjustments, and create a plan for how you will tackle each one.
  • What do you want to remember most clearly about 2020?
  • What is something that you want to learn about over the next six months?
  • What do you want to do less of this year?
  • What do you want to do more of this year?
  • On a scale of 1 to ten, how do you feel about the past six months? What number do you want to define the year, and how can you get there?
  • What would it take for you to feel that 2020 was successful?
  • How does 2020 fit in to your long-term hopes and dreams?
  • In an ideal world, where do you see yourself on December 31, 2020? Write that down and put it somewhere where you can see it each day. Think about what it will take to be where your ideal you is.

There you go! I might go through some more of these myself separately, because there are some good ones for goal setting in there. Hope these questions help you out and I’ll see you tomorrow!

Yours Truly,

Olivia;))