Tag: Doodles

January 2021 Bullet Journal Set-Up

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Woot woot! It’s time for my first monthly set-up of 2021! I CAN’T WAIT to move into my new journal- right now I’m in that awkward phase where I need both my 2020 and 2021 journals to plan stuff😂😂 The fresh start and clean spreads will be very welcome, because I’m ready to do some big things in 2021🥳

I really struggled to come up with a theme this month! I wanted something simple because I’m tired from all the drawing I did for my Sound of Music theme, but I still wanted it to be pretty and elegant. I was literally doing research for this because I wanted it to be meaningful as well, so I looked up different New Years traditions around the world and stuff like that. I finally stumbled upon the fact that January is named for the Roman god Janus, who was the god of duality and doors. I couldn’t really see how the duality part would fit into my journal, but I loved the idea of doors!! Doors remind me of new opportunities, and since it’s January it’s kind of like the “doorway” to the rest of the year. So I went with a door theme!

The doodles I did this month are pretty simple, which I love because it makes for quick and easy weekly spreads:) I went with a nice pale, kind of robin’s egg blue, and a pale-ish brown. These colours are kind of winter-y and I think they complement each other really well! I didn’t want to bring in too many colours because I wanted these pages to be fresh and clean. I did try to switch up my font a bit though to a more bouncy style, because if I’m going to do calligraphy every month I want to challenge myself a bit😂

I hope that this set-up gives you some inspiration for the year to come! Let’s get into it:)

My title page is up first! I drew a bunch of different kinds of doors- some rectangular, some rounded, some with a frame, and some without. I coloured them in with that brown and blue combo, and then added some washi tape! And there’s that bouncy font I was talking about. I like it a lot! For my quote page I wrote out a saying from Mary Poppins, which I thought was perfect for my theme, and for the beginning of the year.

Here’s my calendar/monthly dash board spread. Yes, I decided to go back to that one page calendar! I find that I really don’t write things down in my calendar all that much, and would rather use more space for writing down stuff for school and any goals I have. I did a shorter quote below the calendar, used more washi tape, and also drew some more doors.

Next we’ve got my trackers. Ever since last May I’ve taken this layout and ran with it- I love it so much! This month I’m tracking a bunch of habits, my mood, productivity, and workouts. I really want to plan my workouts more this year, so this will help me with that! Just a side note, I’m really proud of how I wrote my k😂 I’ve always struggled with calligraphic k’s so I’m glad I’m finally getting them down👌

This spread is super simple, but I’m glad that it is because I need the space! On the left is my gratitude log, where I drew a few doors and write the title in the middle. Then on the right I have lots of space to plan out my blog stuff! I highlighted the days that I’m actually posting in brown, so it’s easier for me to tell them apart.

Finally I did my first weekly spread! I decided to just combine that first Friday and Saturday with the following week, so I have nine days in here. This is one of my favourite weekly layouts because it’s simple and gives me a TON of space to plan. To spruce this one up, I drew some more doors, used some washi tape, and wrote out the days of the week in that bouncy calligraphy.

That’s all for January!! I love the simplicity of this theme, and am really excited to fill in these spreads with some great plans🙌 Make sure you tune in tomorrow for another instalment in this week of book and bullet journal posts!

Yours Truly,

Olivia:)))

2021 Bullet Journal Set-Up

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Hey guys! Hope you all had an amazing holiday!! I’m really excited for today’s post because it’s my 2021 BULLET JOURNAL SET-UP!!!!! I received a new bullet journal for Christmas and had so much fun creating my spreads for the new year. Opening up a new journal is always so satisfying, and I can’t wait for the fresh start that this journal is going to help me with in 2021✨

If this is your first year bullet journaling, a bullet journal is basically a planner, diary, mood and habit tracker and scrapbook all in one! I go a bit more in depth about what bullet journaling is all about in my very first set-up in 2018, and I also have a whole post on How I Use My Bullet Journal which is very helpful if you’re just starting, so be sure to check those out:) Plus, if you’re looking for more inspiration make sure to take a look at my 2019 and 2020 set-ups as well:))

This year I’m using a Leuchtturm 1917 journal for the third time because I really love the quality; it’s hardcover, has numbered pages, a pocket at the back, and it’s not too expensive! This is also the only journal I can find that has at least 240 pages. I like to give myself 20 pages per month and be able to fit the whole year in one journal, so the amount of pages in the Leuchtturm 1917 is great🙌 For 2021 I chose their Lemon yellow colour🥰 It’s pretty bright, but yellow is one of my favourite colours and I thought that it would bring some positive vibes into this year which we all need!

I know that lots of people like to keep their beginning-of-the-year spreads pretty neutral, but last year I brought in some olive green because my journal was an olive green colour, and it looked really good. So this year I decided to use some yellow in my 2021 set-up and I love how it turned out!! I paired it with a nice light grey. Actually yellow and grey are two of the Pantone colours of the year as well, so look at me go! As is hinted at by the cover of my journal, I used a lot of brown kraft paper in these spreads as well, and wrote over it with a white gel pen. I got a whole roll of this stuff on Amazon for like five bucks and it was TOTALLY worth it- it looks so good! And then I also used some washi tape because the one I have is neutral and it’s a great way to fill in empty space. The markers I used throughout this spread were a bright yellow Tombow Dual Brush Pen in the shade 055, a light grey Zebra Mildliner, my Faber Castell fineliners, and my Sakura Gelly Roll 08 gel pen.

On the inside cover I glued in some simple little spacing cheat sheets. These are great for when I’m making any sort of spread and need to know how to divide up the page without doing the math or counting every single time. There are some great resources on how to use a whole page to make a more elaborate cheat sheet; I love AmandaRachLee on Youtube! But I like this simple and I don’t feel like I need to use up a whole page for it. I decorated with a cute little olive branch motif on that brown kraft paper, which is something you’ll see me use a lot throughout this set-up!

Then on the opposite page I wrote out my name and contact info, and a little quote/personal motto:)

This journal also comes with a pre-made index, which is really nice! I don’t keep track of every single page in my journal, but I did write out which pages I’m using for which months. I wrote out my own title, and I love the way that the yellow and grey work together! There is still some space on those grey lines to keep track of more spreads if I want to. There were two more pages that had indexes on them, but I think I’ll just either glue those together or leave them blank.

Here’s page 1 in my journal! I did a nice 2021 title page with a border of kraft paper that has some of those olive branch doodles on it. I wrote out 2021 in a simple, yellow font, and then actually wrote out the words twenty twenty-one as well. On the opposite page there’s my key. I pretty much kept the same key as last year because I found that it works really well for me! But there are so many options that you can use when it comes to bullet shapes and pen colours to differentiate between tasks and keep you organized. I used a stencil to draw out a key on that kraft paper for decoration as well.

This next spread is my future log! This is where I write down all the events that are coming up for the year; like birthdays, future appointments, or exam dates. The little calendars I drew out are also helpful when I’m setting up my monthly spreads. This year I was inspired by AmandaRachLee to try something really cool. I cut the edges of the page in between two spreads so that it’s like a little door that you can flip back and forth. This way you only have to write out one title, and it also makes the whole thing feel more cohesive because instead of splitting this between two spreads, it’s like it’s only one spread. I used kraft paper for those olive branch doodles, and also to write out the calendars. This spread is super functional and super cute- which is great combo when it comes to bullet journaling!

Next up is my goals/”this year” spread. I drew out a big 2021 in the centre on kraft paper, which I LOVE. On the left side I have some boxes to write down my goals for the year, which I split into school, fitness, blog and personal. Then on the right I have a space to do a bit of journaling before the year begins. I wrote some prompts that will help me to get focused on what I want to achieve this year. It’s great to have some goals to work on over the course of the year- whether you’re using a bullet journal or not. I love these pages so much and can’t wait to fill them in!

This spread took me a while to figure out because I knew that I wanted some sort of blogging spread at the beginning of my journal, but just didn’t know what that would look like. But now that I’m finished I’m so so happy with the way that this looks! I wrote out “My Day Is Booked Dashboard” on that kraft paper and used it as a tile, and then wrote 2021 in yellow beside that. Beneath the title on the left page, I have a chart where I can track all of my blog and Instagram stats. Last year I tracked these monthly in my monthly recaps, but because I was often behind on those monthly recaps I couldn’t get an accurate count of my Instagram growth. So this will allow me to write down everything right away. Then on the next page I have lots of space to write down both blog and Instagram ideas, and I made such a cute little envelope out of my kraft paper to hold any extra notes that I might have! Maybe I’ll do a tutorial on Instagram reels on how to make one! I’ll write that down in my ideas section:) Even if you don’t have a blog, a page like this can still be very helpful for work or school. Make it your own!

These are the last two pages of my set-up:) Of course I had to include a 2021 reading challenge- I enjoyed the one I did last year so much! I’ll have a whole other post dedicated to this coming out soon. Then on the opposite page I wrote out a quote, because I love to have one to start off the year. My quote this year is “What the New Year brings to you depends a lot on what you bring to the New Year.” This really resonated with me because it reminds me that it’s important to have a positive attitude, work hard and give it your all! I did another of those kraft paper borders to surround this page.

And that concludes my 2021 Set-Up!! I’m so excited to fill all of these spreads in, and I love how they make me feel ready to take on the world in 2021. I hope that you found some inspiration in this post and that you have fun setting up your own journal! Don’t forget to check out my past set-ups if you want to see more spread ideas, and feel free to ask me any questions you have about bullet journaling! Stay tuned for my January 2021 Set-Up coming up soon:))

Yours Truly,

Olivia:))

**BULLET JOURNAL GIVEAWAY!!** + My Favourite Bullet Journal Spreads of 2020

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Hey guys! I’m so excited to announce my first ever giveaway!!

Leuchtturm 1917 Canada very kindly sent me one of their beautiful journals to giveaway to you guys! I’ve been using a Leuchtturm 1917 journal for the past two years now, and the journal that I’m planning to use next year is a Leuchtturm as well. I love them so much because of the quality and all of the features that they have. Their dotted notebooks have a pre-made table of contents, an elastic band for closure, numbered pages, and a super handy back pocket! They’re also one of the only journals that I can find with over 200 pages, which I need because I like having just one journal for the whole year.

The specific journal that I’m giving away is a gorgeous emerald colour and was a collaboration with the founder or the Bullet Journal system, so it has BULLET JOURNAL embossed on the front and comes with a bullet journaling guide! It’s absolutely amazing and great for both a first time and veteran journaler.

I’m also including a set of Tombow Fudenoske Brush Pens (these were not sent to me by Tombow), which are my favourite pens to use in my journal, as well as a MyDayIsBooked bookmark, and some super cute washi tapes! So this is perfect if you’re looking to start your first bullet journal this year!

This giveaway will be taking place on Instagram, so make sure that you check out my Instagram page for all of the rules and instructions on how to enter!

Moving on with my post… I wanted to look back on some of my favourite spreads from 2020! I did such a range of styles this past year, and I love to see the progression that I make with my writing, doodles, and different spreads that work for me at different times. Also something that struck me when looking through these was how my photography evolved- I really want to scream at my January 2020 self for having sucky lighting and not showing my journal off to it’s full potential! I kept the same photos in here from when I actually made the spreads, so that picture-taking journey is on display here as well.

I love that I found out a lot about what I absolutely need to have in a journal this year. That’s what’s so great about bullet journaling as opposed to having a pre-made planner; you can totally customize everything, and all of your essentials are in one place! If you haven’t already, defintely experiment with different spreads. The only way to find what is the best for you is if you go a little out of your comfort zone!

Here are some of my favourite spreads from 2020:))

This is my favourite weekly spread from January! This is the month where I did sort of a 1920’s art deco theme, which was a kind of style that I’d never really done before. I love the combo of the gold and black, and how much space I had to plan in this spread. I’ve realized that planning space is a number one priority for me! I also love how the quote came together at the top- I glued in some pieces of paper here for a more scrap-booky look.

I just LOVE this February title page. It’s so simple and clean yet so elegant! I want to do more things like this in my 2021 journal because I feel like I’ve been going a little heavy on the detail and the drawing lately. I love the quote, cute borders, and colours on this page. Plus my calligraphy is pretty good:)

March was a fun month! In my journal at least; I know that March was the time when we really got hit with COVID stuff. This was the first time that I went with this more graphical tracker, and I actually stuck with this style for the rest of the year. I love the way that the plants are coming out of the side! On the left side of the spread I did some really nice habit trackers as well. I’m not a huge fan of that style of tracker functionality wise, but I like the way that it looks.

May was one of my favourite themes this year, and this is definitely one of my favourite tracker spreads of all time. Just the way that everything looks together, from the illustration to the boxes to the font, is so good! It’s the first time I tried this layout and I absolutely love it; I stuck with it for the remaining seven months of the year. So yeah, totally in love!

Here’s another spread from May because I just love it so so much. My font and the design of the page for my gratitude log just stands out so nicely! And on the opposite page I did a Crash Course episode tracker. The logo turned out really well:))

This spread was great for some mid-year reflection! My quote is so pretty and it’s a really meaningful one too. It went hand in hand with my word for this year, which was flourish. I kind of fell off the track of writing about my thoughts and feeling, which is something that I want to do more of in 2021 because it helps me assess where I’m at and what I need to be doing better.

This is another candidate for my favourite tracker spread!! The drawings are so cute, and I love how the colours go in and out of the black border. Again, just something about how this spread looks just makes me happy! Anne of Green Gables was such a great theme.

August had such a pretty title page! The colours worked so nicely together, and I was totally getting Mediterranean tile vibes. I love the patterns and how simple yet beautiful it is! My quote for this month was really inspirational too- all about giving 110%.

October was a lot of fun to do because of the contrast between the black and white! Something cool that I included this month was a moon journal, where I did some reflection based on different phases of the moon. It was a really unique and interesting spread! I love incorporating pages like this because it breaks up the repetition of having the same spreads over and over.

This full-page title page is gorgeous! It’s so nostalgic for me because I love watching The Sound of Music every year. It was really drawing heavy, so I kind of want to do some simpler spreads soon, but I do love the way that it turned out!

My Advent calendar spread is so cute, and was inspired by the song “My Favourite Things”. In each pocket there’s a little self-care task or act of kindness to complete. I’ll be honest, I haven’t been the best at keeping up with this! But I still love all of the doodles and how I wrote out the lyrics at the top.

Those were my favourite spreads from the past year! I’ll see you guys tomorrow with a delicious recipe! In the meantime, don’t forget to check out my Instagram page and enter my giveaway!

Yours Truly,

Olivia:))

December 2020 Bullet Journal Set-Up

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Hey there! This post has been postponed a couple of times but I’m glad that I’m finally getting it up! It’s my last set-up of the year which is both crazy and a little sad. For me this year kind of zoomed by, and while it was really weird and I’m excited for 2021, I still made some good memories in 2020. It was a good year in my bullet journal too!

My bullet journaling style went through a big progression this year:) I did some straight up doodle-y themes, but I also branched out and went with a lot more drawing and colouring! I did tons of experimentation and found a bunch of layouts that I really like. I’m sad to leave my olive green journal because I love the colour so much, but I’m going to leave you guys to speculate about what colour I’ll be getting next year:) I’m brainstorming ideas for my 2021 set-up already though, and I’m super excited for it! That’ll go up at the end of the month.

Setting up my spreads for December was a bit of a struggle, to be honest. I found a great theme which is near and dear to my heart- The Sound of Music! I watch this movie with my mom every Christmas and there’s a lot you can do with it drawing-wise, so I thought that it would work perfectly. For some reason I just couldn’t really transfer my ideas on to paper though. I didn’t want to do a ton of drawing because it can be time consuming, but I didn’t really know how to otherwise fill up the page. So this theme isn’t one of my best, although I have a few cute pages and I really love the concept. That darn bullet journaler’s block just got in the way I guess!

It’s all good though. I think you’ll enjoy my fun drawings and the advent calendar that I included again! I’ll explain more about how that works later in the post. Hope you enjoy my last set-up of 2020!

For my title page I did end up doing a lot of drawing/colouring, but I’m not mad about it because I think it turned out really nicely. I was inspired by one of the beginning scenes in the movie, which is also one of the cover photos for the DVD. I drew a mountain scene from Austria, and then Maria singing in the field. I did my title in yellow which I don’t think I’ve ever done, and my quote is directly from one of the songs in the movie. Super cute!

Here’s where I kind of ran into my dilemma. I didn’t want to draw out a whole scene again because it takes so long, but I didn’t know what else to draw! I ended up going with some Edelweiss, which is a mountain flower and the tile of a song in The Sound of Music. I drew a flower, wrote some lyrics from the song, and that was that. I can’t really decide if I like this full page calendar layout or the smaller, half page one, but I went with a full pager this month. Also I got new Tombow fudenoske brush pens recently and I’m kind of “breaking them in”, so I feel like my calligraphy wasn’t that nice. I don’t know I just wasn’t really feeling it with this one but they can’t all be great I guess! (I’ve wanted to use the laughing face emoji like 50 times in this post but I can’t because I’m writing it on a laptop.)

One of my favourite spreads of the month for sure! In the movie they have a puppet show with goats and goat herders, so I tried to recreate that for my trackers. Although I just drew a goat puppet because I can’t draw people, even in puppet form. (See, another good opportunity for the laughing face emoji). I did some theatre curtains, a mountainous background, and a cute lil’ goat puppet. You can’t really see but I have all my habits written out on the side, as well as space to record my mood and productivity, and my workouts.

I also feel kind of meh about this spread, but it is what it is! I was going for the pattern on the play clothes that Maria makes for all of the Von Trapp kids, and it turned out alright. I balanced out the green with yellow font, and then highlighted every other line so I can differentiate them more easily. Just a simple spread to write down the things I’m grateful for, and to plan blog posts:)

We’ve arrived at my advent calendar! I love it:) I made 25 little pockets by cutting out rectangles of white paper and sticking then down on 3 sides with my roll-on glue tape thing. I drew a bunch of things from the “My Favourite Things” song on them, and they’re super cute! I then wrote down 25 things to do on other little pieces of paper, mixed them up, and put them in the pockets randomly so I don’t know what I’m doing on which day. This year I included acts of kindness in there, like doing an extra chore or cooking for my brother, and some of my favourite things, like having a smoothie bowl for lunch or having a good stretch. I completed this page by writing out some of the favourite things in cursive on brown paper, and also including a title:)

And finally my first weekly of the month. By the time I got to this spread I was pretty tired and I rushed it a bit, but it’s still cute! I just divided the page into five sections, and drew some mountains on the opposite side, with a to-do list.

There’s my December Set-Up! Stay tuned for my 2021 set-up coming later this month:)

Yours Truly,

Olivia:))

November 2020 Bullet Journal Set-Up

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Hey guys! October is coming to an end which is sad because my black and white moon theme was SO dramatic, simple and fun to do. I’m going to miss it✨ For November I’m doing something kind of different as well though, so it should be interesting!

I recently finished reading Sophie’s World (it was on my October Reading List, go check it out👍), which is a novel all about the history of mostly western philosophy. Anyways I really liked it; it makes you think about questions that you never really tackle in day to day life. Definitely recommend👌 It inspired me to do sort of a philosophy/abstract art/geometric/doodley theme for November😂 This may be a lot to take in. Let me explain.

At first I was just trying to figure out how to do a philosophy theme, like which doodles to do and stuff. And then I drew a bust of Plato on the front page, and was looking at how to draw those doodles around him, because I can’t just draw busts for the whole month because they take me forever😂 But instead of drawing philosophical doodles, I just ended up doing a bunch of geometric shapes. I was inspired by that kind of 80s pattern with all the dots and squiggles and different things like that:

So my final theme kind of reminds me of modern or abstract art, which I think is super cool! I’m definitely keeping that philosophy undertone with a bunch of busts and philosophical quotes though👌

Not gonna lie, I’m very surprised and proud of how my busts turned out. Usually I CANNOT draw people to save my life, so this was kind of an anomaly that you probably won’t see again😂😂 I hope you guys like these spreads and can draw some inspo from them! Even if you don’t want to draw the busts, just the shapes by themselves is a fun theme that you can play around with. Here’s my set-up!

First is my title page! I have my bust of Plato surrounded by abstract doodles. The colours that I used this month are all Zebra Mildliners, and I used this reddish-pink colour, a blue, a light green, and a purple. They’re all kind of the same saturation and I think they work well together:) I have my quote page on the opposite side as usual, and I also used my grid washi tape again this month because I think it fits in with the theme and adds a little something. I’ve actually been using some Faber-Castell black fineliners since my Sakura ones ran out, and I love them! The ink is so black and the sizes are perfect.

After a while of that half-page calendar layout, I finally switched back to this full page one. I feel like this one is just easier to use and plan with, plus you can see everything really easily. I still made room for goals and tasks though, and wrote out another philosophical quote from Socrates. I don’t really know how to describe the font I did this month, but it’s all caps and kind of rounded. I tried to space it out and fill up a whole square with each letter to make it look unique.

On to my trackers! I was brave enough to draw out another bust- Aristotle this time- and then I did more shapes and some more washi tape. As usual I’m tracking lots of habits, mood, productivity and workouts. The quote I have at the bottom is perfect for this spread! “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” – Aristotle

Loving my Gratitude Log and Blog planner this month! The shapes are so fun and everything looks very minimalist which is new for me- I like to fill the page lol. Anyways, I only wrote out the numbers once in this spread because I’ll just use the same line each day. I made sure to include a lot of quotes throughout this set-up to keep up the philosophy theme, so there’s another one at the bottom.

And lastly, my first weekly spread of November. Just did some simple boxes, a few doodles, and yet another quote. I also included a thoughts section, because you never know maybe I’ll have some philosophical thoughts that I’ll need to write down.

There’s my set-up for the month! Let me know if you’ve started your November journal yet, and what theme you went with. I’ll see you guys later in the week with some great recipes:) Have a great day!

Yours Truly,

Olivia:))