bullet journal set up

February 15, 2022 3 Mins Read

February 2022 Bullet Journal Design

Crafts

Since I decided to continue with my bullet journal journey this month, I needed a really cool theme for my February 2022 bullet journal design. After spending a ridiculous amount of time trying to decide what theme to use, I finally settled on a Care Bear theme for this month and I couldn’t be happier.

Of course, I was inspired by a similar design I saw posted on Pinterest. I used that idea as a jumping off point and instantly started researching all things Care Bears. I created my Care Bear board on Pinterest and didn’t look back. Once I had several examples saved to my board, I began laying out the pages of my theme in my journal.

Check out my design process below in order to see the final product.

The Design Process

Materials

Pencil
Colored Pencils
Fine Liner Pens
Crayola Markers

The Cover Pages

Originally, I wanted to create a gingham pattern on both pages introducing the month. However, I realized after sketching the two bears on each page that drawing the pattern would be more work than I wanted to do. Therefore, I just chose 4 colors to create the colorful striped border on the top and bottom of the pages. I think they turned out beautifully and fit the theme well.

As for the two bears, I went with the cute bear on a swing and the sunshine bear grinning from ear to ear for the second page. I finished out the design with a bunch of hearts and stars. Then, I printed out a colorful title and pasted it on the page underneath the swinging bear.

The Calendar Page

When I started the calendar design I was worried about how it was going to turn out. I initially thought it was going to be all pastel colored, but fate had another idea in mind. When I finished coloring the star and heart border, the design looked washed out compared to the brightly colored care bear. Therefore, I had to color over the light pink hearts with a bolder color. The end result is a beautifully bold creation that fits in perfectly with the theme.

The Mood and Habit Trackers

My mood tracker is simple and cute. It’s just a bunch of hearts hanging from several strings. Easily tying in with the rest of the theme.

The habit tracker happens to be my favorite page for this month despite how tedious it was to create. First, it has my favorite Care Bear which is Grumpy Bear (the lovable grump). Second, it has a heart and rain drop pattern all over the page that nicely surrounds the title, chart, and Grumpy.

The Weekly Spread

The last spread for the month contains a sleepy time Care Bear lounging on a large moon. I decided to round out the design with a star border and a yellow and brown title positioned in the center of the pages.

Final Thoughts

I genuinely enjoyed creating this bujo design for the month of February. The Care Bears are so adorable and really make me smile. It was one of the easiest designs for me to create to date. I think I’m going to enjoy looking at this month’s pages each day.

What do you think of my February theme? Tell me your thoughts in the comments below.

January 15, 2022 3 Mins Read

January 2022 Bullet Journal Design

Crafts

This month’s design is special because I have officially completed one full year of working in my bullet journal. It was a personal goal of mine to work in my journal for an entire year and I actually achieved that with this design. HOORAY FOR ME!

Anyway, my January 2022 bullet journal design is a dreamy cloud design. As usual, I was inspired by other bullet journal creators on Pinterest and Instagram. Once I settled on this idea, I pinned a variety of ideas on my boards and started creating.

Check out my design process below in order to view the results.

The Design Process

Materials

Pencil
Colored Pencils
Fine liner pens
Crayola Markers
Gel Pen
Ruler
Erasers
Circle Stencil
Star stencil

Cover Pages

When I saw All in a Bujo’s original cloud theme set-up on Pinterest I immediately knew that I wanted to re-create it in my journal as the first spread. While I was sketching the design in pencil I had my doubts. To make matters worse, I had an issue with choosing just the right colors and supplies to make it look similar to the original design concept. I was on a wild roller coaster ride of emotions creating this design, but end the end I think it turned out ok.

The Calendar Page

This spread is my favorite design for the month. It was inspired by a design created by Len Journals on Instagram. I thought her design was so lovely and creative the moment I laid eyes on it. Even though the dark blue marker bled through the paper a bit, I was willing to take the risk to have this page in my journal. It is a nice addition to my overall theme for the month.

The Mood and Habit Trackers

I found the example of the mood tracker on Pinterest. It went perfectly with my theme for this month. I really like the soft pastel colors for this page. I am going to enjoy coloring this page for the month. I think it will look like a pastel dream once it is all filled in by the end of the month.

The habit tracker chart consists of my usual tasks and dates for the month. For the design, I created these fancy odd shaped clouds based on an example I found. I used the the same color palette from the mood tracker page to outline the clouds on the habits page. It looks like a very soft and cohesive design.

The Weekly Spreads

My weekly spread is a puffy pastel array of clouds on the top and bottom of the pages. I added a few stars and dots to round out the design. The end result looks like cloud magic.

Final Thoughts

Creating this month’s theme was bittersweet. I’m pleased with the outcome, but now I have to decide if I will move forward with my bullet journal into the new year. I haven’t made up my mind yet. I’ll just take it one month at a time. We will see how I feel in February.

Anyway, what do you think of my cloud themed design for the month of January? Let me know in the comments below.

October 7, 2021 4 Mins Read

October 2021 Bullet Journal Design

Crafts

My October 2021 bullet journal design has to be one of my favorites thus far. Since this is the first time I have had the opportunity to create a theme for the month of October, I couldn’t resist making a Halloween themed set up. Of course, I found a plethora of inspiration via Pinterest and YouTube.

As soon as I latched onto this theme, I immediately set up a Halloween Art Pinterest board. I decided that I would use all of the traditional elements of Halloween to create this design. Therefore, I searched for examples of witches, skulls, pumpkins, cauldrons, spiders, and haunted houses. Even though I struggled a bit creating this design, I don’t regret it all.

Image by Please Don’t sell My Artwork AS IS from Pixabay

Check out my design process below in order to view the final results.

The Design Process

The Cover Pages

When I saw She’z Art’s cover pages for her journal from two years ago, I immediately knew that I wanted to do something similar in my journal. I felt that the haunted house, bats, and pumpkins drawn in black would make an instant statement. There would be no doubt that this theme was all about Halloween.

As usual, I started by sketching everything in pencil. I used a different haunted house design in order to make it a little different from the original drawing. Plus, it seemed easier to draw. After everything was sketched out, I outlined and colored the drawing.

Once it was done, I felt like it was missing something. I was so frustrated because it wasn’t making a statement. After taking a break, I decided that it needed some background color. I chose to add some yellow and orange to the background and it immediately made a huge difference. I think this is one of my favorite pages in this spread.

The Calendar Page

For the calendar page, I had already decided that I would use pumpkins in the design. I sketched out various pumpkin shapes and faces along the top and right side of the page. Spiders and webs were added to the page in order to fill out the rest of the design. Finally, I outlined and colored the sketch using purple, orange, and black.

The Mood and Habit Trackers

The inspiration for the mood tracker came directly from Pinterest. When I saw the picture of this tracker I knew it would be perfect for my October theme. Not to mention, it would be pretty simple to draw. I think the ghosts are adorable and nice deviation from the type of trackers I usually have in my journal. Instead of coloring each day, I will draw a face on the ghost in order to represent my mood for the day. I can’t wait until the end of the month to see how they all look.

I decided to go with a cemetery scene for the habit tracker. In my mind, the cemetery drawing would fit nicely underneath the chart. I chose to add a few haunted houses and bats to the sketch to round out the scene. Once I was done drawing and coloring the page, I felt that it needed something extra. So, I added purple and magenta to the background which made everything pop. I’m very pleased with how this page turned out.

The Weekly Spreads

For my final spread, I chose to incorporate a witch, cauldron, and a black cat into my design. I found examples of every part of my design on Pinterest. The witch was hard to sketch at first, but I was able to get her done. I really like how she turned out. She is really the star of the show. The additional elements on the page round out the design. I feel this page is a nice ending to my Halloween theme for October.

Final Thoughts

I’m glad that I was able to create this theme for my October bullet journal design. I think it’s playful and fun. It represents the Halloween season very well. It will be a joy to use each day of the month.

What do you think of my October theme? Tell me your thoughts in the comments below.

October 6, 2021 3 Mins Read

September 2021 Bullet Journal Design

Crafts

My September 2021 bullet journal design is all about the bonsai tree. This design was inspired by the bullet journal spreads created by Julianne Doodles and Bullet Journal by Lena on Instagram. I decided to use this design for the month of September because it was beautiful and simplistic at the same time. Much easier to complete than my August bujo design.

If you would like to see how this theme turned out, check out my design process below.

The Design Process

The Cover Pages

After viewing a few bonsai tree bullet journal examples, the cover page design was a breeze to complete. I chose to draw one large bonsai tree on the title page and two smaller ones on the notes page. I used my color scheme of peach, brown, and grey to color all of the trees. Finally, I added an easy decoration to all four corners of each page in order to make the design look a look a little more polished and complete.

The Calendar

The calendar page has two more bonsai trees that look slightly different from the cover pages. I used the same color scheme and corner design as the first two pages. Finally, I finished this page off with few stars, sparkles, and circles in order to give it a little extra something to make it stand out.

The Mood and Habit Trackers

Both the mood and habit tracker pages are a continuation of the bonsai theme and color palette. I love the mood tracker for this theme because it consists of several bushy bonsai trees. Each bush on the trees represents a day of the month.

The habit tracker page is pretty self explanatory. I just added more unique looking bonsai trees and decorative corners to the page and colored it will my the same color scheme as the previous pages.

Bonsai Bullet Journal Theme — Mood and Habit Trackers

The Weekly Spreads

The weekly pages are pretty much more of the same. I drew a bonsai tree at the bottom of each page and added the fancy corners to each page to complete the look.

Final Thoughts

Even though I had a hard time getting motivated to complete September’s bullet journal design, I’m glad that I finally worked up the energy and desire to get it done. It turned out to be a pleasure to draw and complete. I’m very happy with the end result.

What do you think of my September theme? Tell me in the comments below.

August 6, 2021 3 Mins Read

August 2021 Bullet Journal Design

Crafts

In honor of my birthday this month, I decided to create a birthday themed bullet journal design. I wanted my August theme to have a playful party feel. Therefore, I tried to use bright colors on each page. Of course, I scoured Pinterest and Google to for inspiration and found a few ideas that tickled my fancy.

My birthday design isn’t as simple as the bubble theme I created for July, but I think I did a good job of creating a party feeling for the month of August. I chose to draw cake, confetti, balloons, and gift boxes to represent the theme. Check out my design process below for more details about the theme.

The Design Process

The Cover Pages

For the title page, I drew a three tier cake with icing and flowers. I added balloons, confetti, party garland, and party hats in order to make everything pop. The colors on the cake were not what I originally planned. The cake was suppose to be a brighter pink with the blue icing. Unfortunately, when I colored the second tier, I picked up the wrong color. So, in order to correct the mistake I colored over both tiers with a darker purple. In the end, the cake looks like some weird ombre effect that I didn’t intend to create.

Overall, the cover pages look okay. I’m a little disappointed with the cake, but I think all of the other elements make up for my mistake.

The Calendar

I really like how the calendar page turned out for this month’s theme. I drew the party garland across the top, a gift box on the side, and confetti all around. I also used various shades of pink, purple, and blue as the color scheme for the calendar. I later added various birthday elements to different dates on the calendar to represent all of the family birthdays happening this month.

The Mood and Habit Trackers

The mood tracker for this month is a large cupcake topped with candy. I saw this tracker on Pinterest and thought it would fit in nicely with this month’s theme. I added some additional confetti to round out the page.

The habit tracker page is pretty simple. I drew party garland, balloons, and cake around the chart. I chose the colors pink and blue for both pages so they would look like one cohesive design. However, in hindsight, I feel I should have chosen different colors because I used those same colors in July’s theme and I was a little bit tired of seeing them. Oh well, you live and learn.

The Weekly Spreads

For the first two weeks of the month, I chose to draw a variety of balloons across the top of the page. On the last two pages, I drew a variety of gift boxes along the side and bottom of the pages. I used multiple colors for all of the boxes and balloons. Usually, I like for my color schemes to be more complimentary, but this time I was trying to do something different. At first, I wasn’t sure I like the multicolored look, but it grew on me with time.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I like how fun and playful this birthday theme looks this month. Although this design wasn’t that difficult to draw, choosing the colors proved to be a little more challenging than I originally expected. In the end, I’m glad I had the opportunity to create this theme to represent my birthday. Each page represents a party all month long.

June 30, 2021 3 Mins Read

July 2021 Bullet Journal Design

Crafts

I tried to make my July 2021 bullet journal design as easy as possible due to my busy schedule at the end of June. My original thought was as an abstract desert scene that could easily be re-created. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the correct set of colors to use with the design. Therefore, I had to quickly come up with a new idea to draw in my journal.

As I searched through Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube for inspiration, I had a difficult time finding something cute, yet simple to draw. Then, I finally stumbled upon an Instagram post that I had saved by Bullet With E. It was an adorable design which only consisted of pastel colored bubbles on each page. I instantly thought this would be the perfect idea for my journal because all it required was a lot of circles and some pretty colors. You can’t get any easier than that.

Take a look at my process for creating this month’s theme below.

The Design Process

The Cover Pages

For the title page, I decided to draw a ring of bubbles around the the word July written in lowercase cursive. I saw this same design for the cover of Bullet With E’s cover as well. I chose the colors sky blue, bubble gum pink, and a darker blue for the entire design. I used my circle stencil to draw the bubbles on both pages. Each bubble is outlined with my .03 fine liner pen and colored in with one of my theme colors. The boxes for my notes and things to do list were outlined in pink and blue which fits into the theme well.

July 2021 Bullet Journal Theme — Cover Pages

The Calendar

This spread is filled with pink and blue bubbles big and small. The same cursive font is written for the title. Each box of the calendar is written in pink and blue ink and marker.

The Mood and Habit Trackers

I drew 31 bubbles for each day in the month of July to create my mood tracker. I decided to use bright pastel colors for the key at the bottom.

My habit tracker chart is surrounded by a sea of colorful bubbles.

The Weekly Spreads

If you guessed that my weekly spreads were nothing but pink and blue bubbles, then you guessed right. I created a bubble border on all of the pages at the end of this month’s spread.

Final Thoughts

This was the easiest design idea I have ever done in my bullet journal. It took me approximately 5 hours to complete the entire layout. I’m quite happy with the design even though I’m not use to each page looking the same for an entire month. It turned out to be a cute and playful design and I’m all here for it.

What do you think of my July theme? Tell me your thoughts in the comments below.

June 7, 2021 5 Mins Read

June 2021 Bullet Journal Design

Crafts

I’m not going to lie, I was on the Struggle Bus throughout the entire process of setting up my June 2021 bullet journal design. From start to finish I had issues getting this month’s set-up complete. At first, I was going to just skip this month altogether, but I finally got myself together to get it done.

I actually had two ideas in mind for this month. The first idea that came to mind was science related. This theme spoke to me because I was a science teacher for so many years. There were so many cute drawings and elements that I could include in this theme that could make it work in my journal. However, I wasn’t completely sold on doing this theme. Therefore, I just collected examples just in case I warmed up more to this idea.

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

The second idea that caught my eye was fruit related. I saw a bunch of pictures and videos related to this theme and it sparked a tiny interest in my spirit. I continued to allow that spark to grow and started to research it a bit more. Ultimately, this theme beat out the science idea because it’s the beginning of Summer and I felt I needed a theme that was bright and marked the start of the season.

Take a look at my process for creating this month’s theme below.

The Design Process

The Cover Pages

After searching Pinterest and YouTube for a ridiculous amount of time, I decided to use a lemon and lime design to introduce the month of June into my journal. I chose this design because it seemed sunny and bright. The yellow and green colors seemed to pop off of the pages.

I thought this would be a fairly simple design to complete, but it proved harder to create than I could imagine. Maybe my bad mood and lack of interest was the cause of my struggle. I had the hardest time drawing the circular shapes for the lemon slices and wedges. Everything looked crooked and weird in my eyes. It just looked like it was going to be a hot mess after everything was sketched out in pencil.

Lemon and Lime Bujo Design — Lemon/Lime Cover Page Design

Once I added color, the design started to take shape and look really nice. The color made all of the difference. Somehow, the imperfections seem to make it look nice. The only thing I would change is the color of green I used for both the leaves and limes. I think I should have colored the whole limes yellow and made them lemons because they actually blend in with the leaves on the pages.

The Calendar

I decided to draw oranges on my calendar spread because I liked the idea of using variations of the color orange for the design. I had a difficult time with this spread as well because it was pretty much the exact same idea as the cover pages. The only difference was the color.

The pencil drawing of this spread looked suspect at first, but adding color made it look lovely once it was complete. I love the color choices I made for this spread. It’s one of my favorite pages in this entire design.

The Mood and Habit Trackers

For the next two pages, I tried to use fruit that were similar in color in order to create a since of cohesion in the design. Therefore, I used fruit that were red in color for both trackers. I chose cherries for the mood tracker because they were simple enough to draw without too much drama. I chose apples for the habit tracker for the same reason. I also added a red gingham pattern at the bottom of the habit tracker in order to give it a summer picnic vibe.

The Weekly Spreads

I decided to keep the weekly spreads as simple as possible since I seemed to be having a hard time getting this month’s theme done. For the first two weeks of the month, I drew strawberries. I love the red color and the simplicity of the design.

The last two weeks of the month were all about blueberries. I used my circle stencils to draw all of the blueberries. I colored the blueberries using light and dark blue markers. The green used for the leaves complimented the design nicely.

Final Thoughts

Even though this isn’t my favorite theme, I’m glad I pushed through and got it done. It looks nice enough to be a part of my journal and is a great way to kick off the Summer season in my journal.

What do you think of my June theme? Tell me your thoughts in the comments below.