If you’re new here, Blogmas At Home is my annual festive series here on the blog, where I share daily posts full of festive fun & creativity throughout Advent! Christmas is my all-time favourite holiday, so I’m always practically overflowing with seasonal ideas to share with you guys. This is the third year of Blogmas At Home (big wow!) and I’m so excited to celebrate the season with you!

A little note before we get into today’s post: if you want to make sure you don’t miss a single DAY of Blogmas At Home this year, you can sign up to my newsletter! You’ll receive an email notification every time I release a new post, so you won’t miss a thing. The sign up link is in the side bar, right over there (—->)!

It’s become a bit of a tradition that my first Blogmas post of the year is my December bullet journal setup and this year is no different! Today’s post is all about my final, monthly bullet journal setup of 2025 (can you BELIEVE it’s the end of the year already?!).

Naturally, when deciding on a theme for my December setup, I headed straight to Pinterest (you can find my account here!). I saw this pin, which depicted a bunch of festive border design ideas and the one with the red berries really caught my eyes: it just feels so fun and Christmassy, but still very elegant and pretty! I decided to base my setup this month on that border, so I’ve used it copiously throughout, along with lots of torn kraft paper (my FAVE) and my beloved alphabet stamps.

Because it’s the festive season, I’ve included a few special spreads this month: the basic setup follows the same format as my typical monthly setups, there’s just a little extra, Christmas whimsy!

Table of Contents

• Equipment
• Cover + Quote Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Advent(ish) Calendar
• Weekly Spreads
• Christmas Day + New Year’s Eve
• December Review
• Final Thoughts

Equipment

To make this setup, I used the following equipment:

• Sakura Pigma Micron: 05 Black.
• Tombow ABT Dual Brush Pen: 990 Light Sand.
• Crayola SuperTips: Dark Red.
• Alphabet stamps and black ink pad.
• Glue stick.
• Scissors.
• Corner rounder.
• Ruler.

Cover + Quote Page

Recently, I’ve been moving away from quote pages in favour of slightly more ‘useful’ spreads (specifically, my ‘Things to Look Forward to‘ pages!). However, as I’m sure you know by now (or at least, can tell!), Christmas is my favourite time of year, so, honestly, I don’t really need reminders of how exciting life can be: it’s just a universal truth that once the Christmas lights go up, fun is to be had! Because of this, I did opt to include a Quote Page this time around: nothing fancy, just a little ‘Sleigh bells ring’ moment!

Honestly, this first spread was super easy to create (as was most of the setup, really)! I drew the borders with my Sakura pen, added the berries with the red Crayola and the leaves with the beige Tombow, then stuck in some torn up brown paper. I stamped in the lettering and that was it!

Monthly Calendar

I had a lot of fun making this Monthly Calendar, even though stamping in all of the dates was… a little labour-intensive (and the dates actually take up most of the calendar boxes)! Also, if you’ve noticed where I messed them up… no you haven’t.

To get the torn edges on the calendar section itself, I folded along the lines I wanted to tear, smoothed the creases down really well, then repeated that process, folding the paper back the other way and smoothing it again, so the crease was really well-defined. This meant that when I gently tore the paper, the the paper naturally tore along the crease I had made, which kept the section really uniform (which is useful, for this style of calendar!).

Advent(ish) Calendar

I completely forgot to add a heading to this spread, but it is my Advent(ish) Calendar spread! I’m calling it an Advent(ish) calendar because it includes the days after Christmas too. I plan to use this in pretty much the same way as my beloved Daily Sunshine page from my previous setups: each day, I’ll write one fun, (likely festive) thing that happened. This time around, though, there’s the added fun (read: effort) of having to locate the right date first!

Weekly Spreads

Into the Weekly Spreads now and I’ve kept the layout the same as the previous months— it’s just been working so well for me! I’ve trimmed down the central pages in this section so that, no matter which week you’re on, you can always see the task lists on the far left and right.

I used my corner rounder to soften up the edges of the cut pages: they can be pretty sharp, so I am hoping to minimise the risk of injury as much as possible!

Each internal spread is dedicated to a single week. I’ve split each one into 8 sections (2 down, 4 across) and used the spare section for the weekly subheading (which helps me to navigate through the setup and know which week I’m actually on).

To separate out the other 7 sections, I used that same berry border I’ve been using throughout the setup. It’s a bit more full on here, but I just love how pretty it is!

At the top of each daily box, I stamped in the first letter of the day of the week and the date itself.

Christmas Day + New Year’s Eve

This Christmas Day & New Year’s Eve spread is fairly minimal: just that same, berry border all the way around and a piece of kraft paper stuck in for the heading (or here, I guess, the footing!). I want this spread to have a scrapbook-y feel: I’ll fill it in after the respective days with photos and notes and little mementos, so that I can look back on all of the festive fun!

December Review

Finally, we have my December Review page! This includes all the same content as usual, but with the same berry border and torn kraft paper vibe as the rest of the setup. I’m particularly fond of how the ‘December Playlist’ subheading follows the shape of the torn edge in that top left-hand corner!

As always, I have spaces to note down my favourite songs from the month gone by (here’s betting they’re all Christmas songs), the year-end ATP & WTA (tennis!) rankings and my favourite memory from the month (here, indicated by a smiley face, because how on earth was I supposed to fit all of those stamped letters in that tiny space!). The blank space on the right-hand side is left blank, so that I can stick in a fun polaroid from December later on.

Final Thoughts

I’m so thrilled with how this setup turned out: it feels super festive, but also really soft and elegant (plus, it uses torn kraft paper, which is one of my favourite things to include in my journal!). It was surprisingly quick to set up: I didn’t worry too much about being perfect but it still looks really neat and precise, which is magical!

I do wish my number stamps were slightly smaller, because they do rather take over the monthly calendar boxes, but I can’t quite justify buying more stamps: guess I’ll just have to make do!

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my December bullet journal setup for this year and that you’ve enjoyed the first day of Blogmas at Home 2025! I can’t wait to celebrate this festive season with you. See you back here tomorrow?

Gemma

xxx

My November bullet journal setup started out life as my October bullet journal setup (which never actually came into existence, as a result of the aforementioned lack of enery). I had an idea for a setup inspired by one of my favourite knitting projects: my Pumpkin Strange Brew Sweater, with colouring pencil ‘colourwork’ designs and kraft paper accents. By the start of October, I’d just about managed to finish the layout & coloured patterns, but hadn’t gone beyond that and made the setup, you know… functional.

Around mid-October, I figured I’d be better off putting my energy into my November setup, rather than finishing off the October one. It seemed a waste to leave all of that colouring/effort behind, so I decided that I would just convert my October setup into a November setup: the pumpkins aren’t quite so relevant, but November’s still autumn here in the UK, so I think it still works??

Anyway, enough chit-chat! Let’s get into the setup…

Table of Contents

• Equipment
• Cover Page + Things to Look Forward to
• Monthly Calendar
• Autumn Bucket List + Daily Sunshine
• Weekly Spreads
• November Review
• Final Thoughts

Equipment

To create this setup, I used the following equipment:

• Uni Pin Fine Line pen: 0.5, sepia.
• Colouring pencils (brown, orange and green).
• Kraft paper.
• Scissors.
• Corner rounder.
• Glue stick.
• Sakura Quickie Glue pen.
• Alphabet stamps + ink pad.

Cover Page + Things to Look Forward to

For my Cover Page, I decided to fill the whole page with the colourwork design. Admittedly, this took a rather long time, but I think it really sets the scene for the rest of the setup. I used the alphabet stamps to write the ‘November’ heading on a piece of kraft paper and my brown fineliner to add a ‘stitched’ border around the edge (I was on a bit of a fibre-craft theme this month), then stuck that in over the top of the colourwork design. I really love how this turned out (even if it was pretty labour-intensive to make)!

Alongside my Cover Page, I included a spread that I’ve been really enjoying in recent months: my Things to Look Forward to Page. On this page, I can jot down all the fun things I have coming up throughout the month, so that I can check in on them from time to time and get re-excited all over again. Fun!

Monthly Calendar

To protect my sanity, I opted to draw just the chevron pattern from my colourwork design as the decoration on most of the other pages in this setup, and for my Monthly Calendar I opted to place it near the bottom. For the calendar itself, I stuck in little squares of kraft paper, then wrote in the dates with my brown fineliner (the alphabet stamps I was using sadly do not contain numbers). Finally, I stamped in the ‘November’ heading vertically, down the left-hand side of the page.

I had actually already set this spread up back when the setup was still in its October phase, so I had to add a few more kraft paper boxes to the end of the month to fit November’s layout (which is why there are 5 blank boxes in the top row… needs must!).

Autumn Bucket List + Daily Sunshine

Next up, we have my Autumn Bucket List and Daily Sunshine pages. I used a similar chevron pattern to decorate these spreads as the last spread (only with two stripes this time, rather than three), placing this decoration at the top of the left-hand page and the bottom of the right-hand page.

I plan to use my Autumn Bucket List page to jot down some of my favourite autumnal activities that I don’t want to miss out on before this season ends and the snowy, festive season begins! Autumn is my favourite season and I feel like I’ve missed a lot of it these past two months, so I really want to capitalise on the last of the cosy reds and golds!

My Daily Sunshine page serves exactly the same purpose as usual: each day, I write down one thing that happened that brought me joy or was just, in general, very sunshine-y. I’ve opted for a grid format this month, though I usually prefer a vertical format (it gives me more space to waffle!), so we’ll see how that goes.

Weekly Spreads

Into my Weekly Spreads now and I’ve used my classic layout again: trimmed down central pages, leaving a section on both the far left and far right exposed. In those exposed sections, I put my ‘master task lists’ (i.e. tasks I need to do, but don’t necessarily have a specific date for), so that I can refer to them easily throughout the month. The internal, trimmed-down pages then house my daily task lists, separated out into individual weeks.

I used a long piece of kraft paper for each of my master task lists. This means that no matter which page of the weekly spread section I am on, there is always a kraft paper accent to the spreads, so I was able to tie this section into my theme with minimal glue-ing in & effort.

For the weekly spreads themselves, I decorated the right and left side of each spread with that same two-stripe chevron design, though this time I drew it going vertically down the length of the pages and added some additional dots of colour to the pattern.

For the daily task lists, I split each spread up into 8 sections (4 down, 2 across). I used my brown fineliner to draw a ‘stitched’ border around 7 of the sections, leaving the final section plain, so that I could use it for the weekly subheadings, which help me to navigate through this section of the setup.

Finally, I used my alphabet stamps to add the weekly subheadings. As I mentioned, this particular alphabet stamp set doesn’t include numbers, so I had to write those in with my brown fineliner. It doesn’t look amazing, but I was kind of losing the will to live by this point, so I let it slide.

November Review

Finally, we come to my November Review spread! The layout of this one is exactly the same as in its previous iterations: on the right-hand page, I have the ‘November Review’ heading (here, stamped onto pieces of kraft paper) and a big space for sticking in a polaroid at the end of the month. On the left-hand page, I have sections for noting down the ATP & WTA (tennis) Top 10 players, a favourite memory and my 6 favourite songs of the month.

I also recreated the full colourwork design from the Cover Page on the right-hand page of this spread, just to really tie it back to the theme (and because I think it will make a great backdrop for the polaroid!).

Final Thoughts

I really love this spread and I’m so glad I opted to carry on with it instead of letting it go to the bullet journal graveyard when October got too overwhelming to finish it off. It was quite labour-intensive, but I think it’s really functional, autumnal and nice to look at, which is exactly what I need in a bullet journal setup this time of year! Admittedly, it probably does suit October slightly better than November (mainly because of the pumpkins), but what’s a girl gonna do? Sometimes life just gets in the way.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my November bullet journal setup!

Gemma

xxx

I opted for a super simple design this month: something really minimal (in fact, I actively challenged myself to be as minimal as possible, because, if you’ve been here a while, you’ll know that I am many things, but minimal is not one of them), quick to create and easy to use.

Table of Contents

• Equipment
• Cover Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Things to Look Forward to in Autumn + Daily Sunshine
• Weekly Spreads
• September Review
• Final Thoughts

Equipment

To create this setup, I used the following equipment:

• Sakura Pigma Micron black fineliners.
• Tombow ABT Dual Brush Pen: 990 Light Sand.
• Ruler.
• Scissors.
• Corner rounder.

I meant what I said about being minimal this month!

Cover Page

I did some research on ‘minimal bullet journal spreads’ on Pinterest before diving into these spreads (mainly because of my aforementioned lack of inherent minimalism). I particularly liked this design, so I tried to replicate it for my Cover Page this month, using my Tombow pen in the shade Light Sand as the accent colour, instead of the green shade in the original design.

Monthly Calendar

To keep my Monthly Calendar as minimal as possible, I only separated the grid out horizontally, omitting my usual vertical lines. I have to say, I don’t love doing this (I’m a major waffler, so I need strict boundaries to keep my notes in check!), but it did make the process of setting this spread up much quicker! I used my Tombow pen to highlight the horizontal lines, wrote the dates on top of those coloured lines, then added the SEPTEMBER title at the bottom of the page.

Things to Look Forward to in Autumn + Daily Sunshine

Next up, we have two spreads that I have recently (re)introduced to my monthly setups & am still loving: my Things to Look Forward to page and my Daily Sunshine page!

The Daily Sunshine page is exactly the same as its previous iterations: just a vertical calendar format where I can write in one positive thing that happened on each day.

The Things to Look Forward to page is a little different this month, because, instead of being ‘Things to Look Forward to in September‘, it’s ‘Things to Look Forward to in Autumn‘! There’s a couple of reasons for this: firstly, I knew I had a lot of things happening in September that I was not looking forward to (just general life stuff: appointments etc) , so I was a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to scrounge enough fun things together to make this page the encouraging, fun addition to my journal that it’s supposed to be. Secondly, autumn is by far my favourite season: I get so excited in the run-up to it and I just love every second of it when it comes, so I figured a seasonal version of this spread was more appropriate this time around!

Weekly Spreads

Now we come to my Weekly Spreads, for which I’ve used the exact same format as recent months: I’ve trimmed down the central pages in this section, so that there are two spaces, one on each side of the spread, that are visible no matter what weekly page I’m on. These spaces house my master task lists, where I note down jobs that I need to do, but don’t necessarily have an assigned day for yet.

I added a vertical stripe of colour down the left-hand side of each master task list, using my Tombow pen. In this stripe, I can add little checkboxes alongside each individual task, so that I can easily tick them off as I complete them.

As always, I used my corner rounder to soften up the corners of the cut pages. I like how this helps these pages fit in with the rest of the journal (which also has rounded corners!), plus I feel less at risk of paper-cuts this way, so it’s a win-win!

I opted to use the same layout for each of my Weekly Spreads this month, to speed up the process. I divided each spread into 8 sections (4 down, 2 across), and used 7 of the spaces for my daily task lists. I then used the remaining space for the weekly heading (which helps me to keep track of which week I’m on!).

As I’ve done throughout this setup, I used my Tombow pen to define the different sections, then wrote the corresponding dates/days of the week over the top.

September Review

Onto the final spread in this setup now: my September Review page. The content and basic layout of this spread is exactly the same as its previous iterations: on the right-hand page, I have the ‘September Review’ heading and a space to stick in a favourite polaroid from the month. On the left-hand page, I have sections for writing down the ATP & WTA (that’s tennis!) Top 10, my #1 memory and my 6 favourite songs from the month (or my ‘September Playlist’).

As with the other spreads in this setup, I’ve used my Tombow pen to highlight the different sections, then used my Sakura fineliners for the headings and extra decorations. For this spread, that mostly just equates to a few extra lines and some little doodles on the playlist section!

Final Thoughts

Okay, so I’m not a minimal person— we’ve established that! I’m pretty happy with how this spread turned out, though: I used every ounce of my self-restraint to keep it as minimal as possible (admittedly, that self-restraint slipped a little with my doodles on the final spread, but… oh well) and I think this definitely qualifies as a minimal setup, right?!

It may not be my usual style, but this setup was exceedingly easy to create, took almost no time to make AND is super functional, which is just what I needed this month with all of the life-induced chaos. All-in-all, yes, I do generally prefer a more detailed setup, but there’s a time and place for minimal and this month was definitely that!

I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about my September setup! It won’t be too long before I’m posting again about my October one (and isn’t that a scary thought…)!

Gemma

xxx

I ended up scouring Pinterest for inspiration (if you don’t follow me on there, you should! I’m forever pinning delicious-looking recipes and crafty inspirations: my username is gemmaathomeblog!). In my scouring, I found myself really drawn to the simple floral patterns, particularly this one, which reminded me of a cute, patchwork quilt! I figured this would be a great starting point for an August setup: it has a summer-y, bright(ish), pastel colour palette, with a gentle sense of cosiness brought about by the patchwork vibe.

This, then, is my floral/patchwork bullet journal setup for August 2025! Let’s get into it, shall we?

Table of Contents

• Equipment
• Cover + Quote Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Things to Look Forward to + Daily Sunshine
• Weekly Spreads
• August Review
• Final Thoughts

Equipment

To create this setup, I used the following equipment:

• Coloured pencils (dark pink, pale pink, yellow, blue and green).
• Uni Pin Fine Line pen: 0.5, sepia.
• Scissors.
• Corner rounder.
• Ruler.

I wanted this setup to be really soft and gentle, so I opted to use coloured pencils throughout. I also used a brown fineliner, instead of my typical black, just to reduce the contrast and soften everything up even more. I ended up using the fineliner a lot throughout the setup, including to fill in lots of letters and scalloped borders, which took a very long time. If I’d thought ahead, I would definitely have using a thicker brown pen for this!

Cover + Quote Page

For my Cover Page this month, I really wanted to create an eye-catching, patchwork design, similar to my inspiration photo, that filled the whole page. I alternated between blocks of colour and plain, white blocks that contained flower doodles, using the same five coloured pencils throughout. I put the ‘August’ heading in the bottom right-hand corner of the design, placing one letter in each square. I also added a scalloped border all the way around the edge of the design, using my brown fineliner. I love the pretty, cosy finish the border gives the design and I think it really helps to neaten up the (otherwise pretty messy) edges!

I decided to include a Quote Page this month, alongside my Cover Page, because I wasn’t quite sure what else to do with the empty space here. I’ve not been quite so into including quote pages in my setups in recent months, but I think this one is simple and pretty, plus it sits nicely alongside the more eye-catching cover page. My quote this month is from Taylor Swift’s song, ‘august‘, because, well, of course!

Monthly Calendar

Into my Monthly Calendar now and I wanted to create a patchwork-style grid layout here too, in a similar style to my Cover Page. However, I don’t love writing in pen over sections of coloured pencil, so I opted to just draw the outlines of the block colour grid sections, instead of colouring them all in. It’s not quite as eye-catching as the cover page, but it’s definitely more functional!

Just like with the previous spread, I wrote out the ‘August’ heading in a messy, bubble-style font (painstakingly drawn and filled in with my brown fineliner), added a scalloped border around the calendar grid and added a handful of flower doodles down the right-hand side of the spread, to help tie it into the theme even more.

Things to Look Forward to + Daily Sunshine

This was a new spread combo for me last month and I LOVED using it so much, I just had to include it again this time around! On the left-hand side is my Things to Look Forward to in August page, where I can jot down all of the exciting/fun/interesting things that will (or might) be happening in August. I don’t sit down and fill this out all in one go— I just note things down as they come to me, so it’s very low pressure, but still a really fun and positive spread!

On the right-hand page is my Daily Sunshine page, which, if you’ve been here a while, you’ll recognise as one of my classic spreads. Essentially, at the end of each day I just write down one positive thing that happened: it can be anything! This helps me look back on each day with a more positive mindset (having to find a good thing even on the worst days will have that effect). It’s also so nice to look back on these spreads and relive all the lovely memories from the months gone by! I’d been having trouble keeping up with this spread recently, so I left it out of my journal for a few months there, but I reintroduced it properly last month and really held myself accountable for keeping up with it, which seemed to work, so I’m glad to have it back in my life now!

Weekly Spreads

Into my Weekly Spreads now and, as always, I’ve trimmed down the central pages (and used my trusty corner rounder, to minimise the risk of paper-induced injuries!) to create spaces on the far left and right-hand sides of this section. In those spaces, I put my general task lists, so that I can see them throughout the month, no matter what day/week I’m on.

The first 3 days of August run from Friday-Sunday this year, so I opted to just lump them in with the first full week, which cut down the number of spreads that I needed to set up. Therefore, the first weekly spread contains 10 daily boxes, while the remaining 3 contain the usual 7.

Throughout this section, I (painstakingly) drew scalloped borders around every large box (including the two task boxes). When it came to dividing up the daily boxes, I used the same coloured outline technique as my Monthly Calendar.

For the dates in the daily boxes, I drew one flower doodle in each box, then wrote the corresponding initial of the day of the week and the date itself right on top of those doodles, in the centre of each one.

I forgot to leave space for the subheading on the first weekly spread (oops!), but, on the others, I just used my brown fineliner to quickly write in which dates each spread spanned, then added a couple more flower doodles for good measure.

August Review

Finally, we have my August Review page, which has pretty much stayed the same (in terms of content/layout, at least), since October 2023! I guess that it’s been working for me, because that’s a looonnnggg time.

As always, the right-hand page features the ‘August Review’ heading (here written using a combination of the bubble-style font and a basic, lowercase font) and a large space for me to stick in a polaroid at the end of the month. This month, I decorated that space in the same way as the Cover Page, sketching out a patchwork-style design with my coloured pencils.

On the left-hand page, I have some smaller boxes (all outlined with that same, scalloped border). These will house the ATP/WTA (that’s tennis, for those who aren’t major nerds) Top 10s, my #1 Memory from the month gone by and, at the bottom of the page, my favourite songs from August. Usually I leave space to write in 6 songs, but, just because of the way this layout worked out, I only have 5 spaces this time around.

Final Thoughts

I really love this setup— it’s so fun, sweet and cosy, but still bright and summer-y: it’s exactly what I wanted (but didn’t know I wanted) for this month’s setup.

It was a bit of a pain to set up, mainly because I decided to use a fineliner for the ridiculous amount of scalloped borders and bubble fonts (very silly of me), but also because it involved a hefty amount of colouring! The colouring though, was actually quite calming: it was a bit like using a colouring book: very mindful! The fineliner-ing was less mindful, mainly because as much I love the Uni Pin fineliner, I find it SO unbelievably uncomfortable to hold?! You have to hold it a certain way to get the best ink flow but, in doing that, your finger rests just where the sharp edge of the pen is. Overall, not a pleasant experience. I’m seriously considering looking into other brown fineliners when this one runs out, just to avoid the pain!

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my August bullet journal setup! Let me know what you think of it!

Gemma

xxx

Wimbledon is synonymous with a lot of things: grass courts, Pimm’s, all-white outfits and, most significantly, strawberries! I’ve done some pretty explicitly ‘Wimbledon’-themed bullet journal setups in the past (see my July 2023 setup here on the blog) , but this year I wanted something a little more subtle, so I decided to really embrace the strawberry vibe and make a whole setup dedicated to the fruit!

After the rather… labour-intensive… process of my 2025 Mid-Year Bullet Journal Setup, I desperately needed something quick and easy for this month and this might just be my quickest and easiest bullet journal setup yet! It uses just 5 pieces of equipment (3 pens, 1 pair of scissors and 1 corner rounder, to be exact) and I set the whole thing up in one speedy sitting. The dream!

Table of Contents

• Equipment
• Cover Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Things to Look Forward to + Daily Sunshine
• Weekly Spreads
• July Review
• Final Thoughts

Equipment

To make this setup, I used the following equipment:

• Crayola SuperTips, red & green.
• Sakura Pigma Micron black fineliner, size 10.
• Scissors.
• Corner rounder.

That’s it!

Cover Page

I saw this bullet journal page on Pinterest recently and really loved how the strawberries were drawn, so I wanted to mimic that style in my own setup. To draw the strawberries, I doodled some slightly rounded triangle shapes with my red Crayola SuperTip, added some leaves with the green SuperTip, then used my black Sakura Micron pen to doodle the outline over the top. It was so easy and, as an added bonus, they were supposed to look wonky, so I didn’t have to worry about making them perfect!

For the Cover Page, I doodled a wave of strawberries right across the double-page spread, then wrote the ‘July’ heading in the space at the bottom right, using my Sakura Micron. I had initially planned to add a ‘Things to Look Forward to’ section on the left-hand page, as I did with my June Setup, but I really liked how this spread looked as it was: super clean and minimal, so I opted to leave that section out and give it its own page later on!

Monthly Calendar

Onto the Monthly Calendar now and I’ve used my classic grid layout (where each box is 6×6 dot grid squares). Instead of drawing out all the lines, I opted to just mark the corners of each box using my Sakura Micron, which really did help to speed up the process. I added a tiny strawberry doodle to the top right of each box, then wrote the corresponding dates over the top (this was a slightly less speedy/minimal decision, but I think that it does look kind of cute!). To finish off this page, I added some more strawberry doodles around the edge of the calendar, plus the ‘July’ title at the bottom.

Things to Look Forward to + Daily Sunshine

Now we come to the aforementioned Things to Look Forward to page! I kept this page super simple, just putting the heading in the middle (using a mix of fonts, which I LOVE doing!), then adding a couple of strawberry doodles for good measure. I’ll fill the blank space around the heading with little notes of all of the things I have to look forward to in July: I did this last month and really enjoyed having it there, so I wanted to include it this month too!

Alongside that page is my Daily Sunshine spread, which has been M.I.A. for a few months, but is back now! I’d been having trouble keeping up with spreads like this that require consistent, daily input, so I took a little break from it to relieve some of the (completely self-inflicted) pressure. I’m determined to get back into it though and, so far this month, it’s been going well! Each day, I write down one positive thing that happened: a little ray of daily sunshine. This is a great mindfulness exercise, plus it’s super nice to look back at and see a whole cluster of positive things in one place.

Weekly Spreads

Into the Weekly Spreads now and, as always, I’ve trimmed down the central pages to make room for master task lists on either side of my daily boxes. I used my corner rounder on the trimmed down pages to soften them up (and reduce my risk of paper cuts, because I have a deep, irrational fear of paper cuts…).

Much like with my Calendar spread, I just marked out the corners of all of the boxes in these spreads, as opposed to drawing out the full lines. I think this is perhaps more effective here than in the calendar, because the boxes are larger and more spaced out, so the pages look less overcrowded.

For all of the headings/subheadings in this section, I used a combination of a block capitals and a cursive-style font, both written using the same Sakura Micron pen. I love combining fonts like this: I think it adds interest and makes everything look just that little bit more fancy!

In each daily box, I added a large dot of red/green (alternating the colours as I went) using my Crayola SuperTips. I wrote the corresponding initial of the day of the week and the date itself over the top of those dots, using my Sakura Micron.

On the final weekly spread, I included the first 3 days of August, just because I quite like being able to see the whole week at a glance, even when it falls across two months.

July Review

The final spread in this setup is my July Review page, which contains all the same elements as its previous iterations in recent months.

On the right-hand page, I have the heading (written in that same combination of fonts, using my Sakura Micron) and another cascade of strawberry doodles. This leaves me plenty of space to stick in a polaroid from the month: the strawberry doodles decorate the page in the meantime and will still peek through around the polaroid, decorating the page later on too, even when it has been filled in!

On the left-hand page, I have my typical 4 sections: ATP & WTA Top 10, #1 Memory and July Playlist. The tennis top tens are just for fun, because I like to look back at them and see how they’ve changed over the year. The #1 Memory is a fun way for me to sum up the month gone by and the July Playlist allows me to keep track of my favourite songs throughout the year (I have space to jot down my top 6 songs from the month!).

To tie the left-hand page into the rest of the setup, I’ve used the same Sakura Micron to write all of the headings and mark out the boxes, added more strawberry doodles and used my red and green Crayola SuperTips to highlight the different subheadings throughout.

Final Thoughts

This setup was so unbelievably easy to create (and actually very freeing— as I said, the strawberries are supposed to look messy and imperfect, which means, excitingly, you have to be messy and imperfect when you doodle them!). I love the minimal vibe it has going on: it’s clean and modern, but also fun and whimsical (strawberry doodles have that effect), which I think is such a fun, unexpected combination.

I realise I’m posting this setup quite late in the month (naturally, I fell behind), but it’s nice because I can also tell you how functional I’m finding this setup: as I mentioned, I have actually been keeping up with my Daily Sunshine page so far and I’ve found the clean, minimal vibe super conducive to effective planning and organising!

All in all, I really like this setup (and I like it all the more for how easy and speedy it was to create!). I hope you do too!

Gemma

xxx

This bullet journal setup ended up with a slightly strange hybrid of themes, but I actually think that they come together really nicely to form a super summer-y, happy setup. I’ve used a combination of asters, wavy line work, gingham patterns and confetti doodles to infuse this setup with some sunshine-y joy and, despite the fact I had no set plan going into it, I’m surprisingly pleased with how it turned out!

Table of Contents

• Equipment
• Cover Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Weekly Spreads
• June Review
• Final Thoughts

Equipment

To create this setup, I used the following equipment:

• Uni Pin Fine Line pen: 0.5, sepia.
• Tombow ABT Dual Brush Pens: Pale Yellow (062), Periwinkle (603) and Purple Sage (623).
• Scissors.
• Corner rounder (this is optional, but I like to round off the corners of the pages I trim down, to minimise the risk of sharp paper-induced injuries).

Cover Page

Throughout this setup, I used my Tombow pens for the majority of the doodles/decorations. I used Pale Yellow to add all of the gingham designs and draw the centres of the asters, Purple Sage to draw the aster petals and then the fine end of Periwinkle to add some little lines to define the centres of the asters. I used all three Tombow colours for the confetti doodles, then used my Sepia fineliner for all of the text and the lines, which I kept purposely messy and wavy (which, as an added bonus, massively speeds up the process!).

Typically, I include a quote page alongside my Cover Page, but, recently, I’ve been struggling with using quotes in my monthly setup: they’ve been feeling a little like something I include because I always have, rather than being an intentional addition. This month, I decided to use that space for something else instead: a list of things to look forward to in June! I’m someone who loves looking forward to things, so I think that having a list here full of all the exciting (big and small) things coming up this month will be a really positive addition to my journal.

Monthly Calendar

A Calendar spread is a staple in my monthly bullet journal setups: it really helps me to visualise the month ahead and keep track of any events/appointments. The Future Log at the start of my bullet journal is my main calendar, but it’s laid out in a vertical format (so I can fit in a whole year’s worth of events more easily!), so I find it helpful to add in a spread each month with a more visual, grid format too.

For this grid calendar, each box is made up of 6 x 6 dot grid squares. I added a little dot of Pale Yellow to the bottom right corner of each box, then wrote the dates over the top of those dots using my Sepia fineliner.

Weekly Spreads

Now we come to the Weekly Spreads, where I write my daily to-do lists. This is the section of my monthly setups that I use most frequently: it really helps me plan out my days and gives me a good overview of each week as it comes.

I’m still using my favourite layout for these weekly spreads, where I trim down the central pages of the section (and round off the corners!), leaving spaces on both the far right and left that are visible no matter what week you’re on. I use those spaces for my ‘master task lists’: tasks I know I need to do at some point, but don’t necessarily have a specific date in mind for yet.

There isn’t much space on the weekly spreads themselves, so I opted to incorporate the gingham design into the master task list sections instead. Admittedly, I’m not sure how legible my task lists will be when written on top of this pattern, but I did want to include the gingham design somewhere! I guess we’ll just have to see…

To save myself some time, I included 8 days, as opposed to 7, in the first and last ‘weekly’ spreads (June started on a Sunday and ends on a Monday this year). I often do this, just so that I don’t have to set up as many pages (less effort and less time needed: it’s a win-win!).

June Review

Finally, we come to my June Review section. This is a spread that I like to include in every monthly setup: it functions as a kind of ‘wrap-up’ of the month, which I find really fun to refer back to.

The format of this review spread is exactly the same as its previous iterations: on the right-hand page, I have the ‘June Review’ heading and a large space to stick in a polaroid from the month gone by. Then, on the left-hand page, I have spaces to note down the ATP & WTA Top 10 players at the end of the month (still have the tennis bug, apparently!), as well as a space to write down my favourite memory from the month.

At the bottom of that left-hand page, I also have six spaces to write down my favourite songs from the month. I find this particularly fun to check back on, seeing what songs have consistently been in my top 6 and remembering the memories/experiences associated with each one. To add an extra bit of whimsy to this section, I added a different, random doodle to each of the yellow dots in these sections.

Final Thoughts

This was another super quick and easy bullet journal setup, which was exactly what I needed (seeing as I started (and, thankfully, finished) this setup on 1st June!).

I have to say, I think this spread turned out SO summer-y and joyful: the gingham design makes me think of picnics, the asters are super pretty and remind me of the lovely gift from my dad, and the confetti adds a sense of celebration and fun. I’m not usually a huge fan of lemon yellow, but I really love how it looks with both of the purple shades here: the spread feels very sunshine-y and sweet.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my June bullet journal setup. Hopefully, next month, I’ll be a bit more prepared and not end up making my July setup in… July!

Gemma

xxx

For my theme this month, I was inspired by the menus that I designed for my brother’s wedding at the end of April.

I used a similar bow/ribbon motif to the menus throughout my whole setup, and the same two shades of blue coloured pencil for all of the text/lines throughout (I’m not kidding— no pens were harmed in the making of this setup). This was a super simple, super quick and easy setup (which is JUST what I needed after a busy April), though it was also kind of a lesson in not attempting to do cursive lettering with blunt coloured pencils (your girl was STRUGGLING), so, you know, there’s positives and negatives.

Anywhooooo, let’s get into it, shall we?

Table of Contents

• Equipment
• Cover + Quote Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Weekly Spreads
• May Review
• Final Thoughts

Equipment

I only used 5 pieces of equipment to create this setup (I really meant what I said about keeping things simple this month):

• Light blue coloured pencil.
• Mid blue coloured pencil.
• Scissors.
• Corner rounder (this is optional, but I like to minimise my risk of paper cuts as much as possible when I’m trimming down pages).
• Ruler.

Cover + Quote Page

For both the Cover and the Quote Page, I leaned pretty heavily on the menu inspiration, placing two bow motifs in opposite corners on the page, just like in the original design. For all of the bows throughout this setup, I used a single line of the light blue pencil to sketch out the bow shape, then added a thicker version, using the darker blue pencil, over the top.

For the Cover Page, I wrote ‘may’ in the centre of the page, first in the light blue pencil, then over the top in the darker blue pencil, just like with the bows. I used this same, cursive lettering style throughout the setup (though, as I mentioned in the intro to this post, with varying degrees of success).

For the Quote Page, I experienced my traditional, monthly Quote Panic, where I can’t decide what quote to put in my journal, despite unfailingly allocating a whole A5 page to it. Then, I remembered that my birthday is in May, so I thought a nice quote to commemorate that would fit right in. Admittedly, ‘another year on’ could sound a little morbid/morose, but, I swear, that wasn’t intentional. I actually set this page up last, and, having successfully talked myself out of adding any non-bow decorations to ALL of the other spreads, I finally caved on this one and added some hearts. Naturally, I regret it.

Monthly Calendar

I used my standard format for my Monthly Calendar this month (i.e. a table of 6×6 dot grid size boxes, with one box per day). I drew it out with the two shades of blue coloured pencils and intentionally made my lines a little wavy, to give the whole thing a more ribbon-y feel. I sharpened the darker blue pencil as much as I could without breaking the nib, then used that to write in the dates in the upper left-hand corner of each box. Finally, I added another bow to the top left and another ‘may’ heading (though a slightly less neat one here, that looks more like ‘mayo’ than ‘may’… No worries though, mayo is an important condiment that deserves to be honoured).

Weekly Spreads

For my Weekly Spreads, I’ve gone for the same layout that I’ve been using every month recently, where I trim down the central pages (which house my daily task lists) so that, no matter what day I’m on, I can always see my master task lists (which sit on the far left and right-hand side of the section).

For the daily task lists, I used the same style of line-work that I did for the monthly calendar: just wavy lines in the two shades of blue.

I also added the dates into the top-left corner of the respective boxes with the darker blue shade (again, with the pencil sharpened to within an inch of its life…).

With the remaining space on each Weekly Spread, I added a subheading (just to help me find my place easily throughout the setup). For this, I wrote out ‘may’ in the same lettering style that I’ve used throughout the setup, followed by the dates each page spans, in a simple, sans-serif font, written with the darker blue coloured pencil.

I wanted the master task lists to stand out a little bit more than the daily tasks lists, so I added bows to the top of each box and drew in thicker, more ribbon-like lines with the darker blue pencil over the top of the single line of lighter blue pencil (just like with the bow motifs I’d already drawn). I like the way this ties in the bow theme, while still using up only a small amount of space.

May Review

Finally, we have my May Review page. As always, the content of this one has stayed pretty much the same as my previous iterations: on the left-hand page, I have spaces to note down my 6 favourite songs from the monthy, keep track of the ATP/WTA Top 10s (your girl still can’t shake the tennis bug) and write out my favourite memory. On the right-hand page, I have the ‘May Review’ heading and a space to stick in a polaroid.

In terms of decoration, I used the exact same style for the right-hand page as I did for both my Cover and Quote pages, drawing heavily on the menu inspiration, with the two bows in opposite corners. However, on this page, I moved the heading to the top of the page, so that I would have space to stick in my polaroid. On the left-hand page, I filled most of the space with the boxes, drawn in that similar, ribbon-like style with the two shades of blue. I used the rest of the space for the subheadings, which I wrote in that same, two-toned, cursive style, to add an extra bit of prettiness to this side of the spread too.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I’m actually really happy with how this spread turned out! It’s definitely one of the simplest I’ve done (and the quickest— I think this whole setup only took me about an hour from start to finish, which is SUPER fast by my standards). Sometimes I felt like I absolutely nailed the cursive lettering, sometimes I definitely did NOT, but I guess that’s just the nature of the beast. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t think coloured pencils are quite the best tool for neat lettering, so I guess I fell at the first hurdle anyway…

My favourite thing about this spread is definitely the monochrome blue thing it’s got going on. I was worried it would be too much blue, all in your face, but I actually think it’s really striking, while still being gentle and feminine, so I really like it!

So that’s my bullet journal setup for May 2025! I hope you like it— I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Gemma

xxx

April, though, is another story (new month, new me and all that). I’m back to my usual bullet journalling ways, with a proper (albeit still relatively simple) setup, vaguely inspired by 70s-style line art, but mainly just an excuse for me to pass some time by colouring.

Let’s get into it, shall we?

Table of Contents

• Equipment
• Cover + Quote Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Weekly Spreads
• April Review
• Final Thoughts

Equipment

To create this setup, I used the following equipment:

• Uni Pin Fine Line pen: 0.5, sepia.
• Coloured pencils (for reference, I used the shades Yellow Ochre C050, Sea Green C380 and Pimento C540, from a much older version of this set, which is crazy expensive and not at all necessary for this setup, but very nice all the same).
• Scissors.
• Corner rounder.
• Circle stencil (specifically, I used the 30mm diameter circle stencil from this set).
• Pencil.
• Ruler.
• Eraser.

Cover + Quote Page

For my Cover + Quote Page this month, I opted to go for a pretty minimal, but still quite striking design, with this big line art detail and block capital heading. To make the line art, I sketched out the design with pencil first (using the circle stencil to map out the rounded shape of the corners), before adding the colour (coloured pencils, after all, cannot be erased if you go wrong…). To make the block capital heading, I drew the outlines of the letters with my brown Uni Pin pen, then (rather painstakingly, I must say), filled each letter in with the same pen.

It took me a while to decide on a quote for this month, but I eventually settled on this lyric by Ed Sheeran. I’ve been listening to Subtract again recently, and I just though that this quote had the perfect, sweet, springtime vibe that I wanted for this month.

Monthly Calendar

As usual, for my Monthly Calendar, I’ve opted for a simple grid format (where each box is 6×6 dot grid squares). I drew out the grid with that same brown pen, then wrote in the dates with the same pen. I also added a thin, drop shadow border to the boxes, just to help them stand out and add a bit of dimension to the spread. I placed the ‘April’ heading on top of the line art design on this spread, but I’m not super happy with how it looks… I definitely prefer the contrast of the brown text against the white page— I think it gets a little lost among the other colours here.

Weekly Spreads

Into my Weekly Spreads now and, as I’ve been doing in all of my setups recently, I’ve trimmed down the inner pages so that my master task lists on the left and right are always visible, no matter what week I’m on. I used my corner rounder to soften the corners of those trimmed pages, partly because it fits with the vibe of the rounded line art, but mainly to minimise my risk of paper-induced injuries!

For the line art in this section, I tried to make it so that, no matter what page I’m on, the line art flows seamlessly from one side of the spread to the other. This took a little extra time, but I do think it looks really neat.

I added drop shadows to all of the boxes, just like with my Monthly Calendar, to help them stand out on the page. I also added some simple lines to the daily task boxes and page headings, just to add a bit of extra detail.

My daily task boxes aren’t huge this month (serves me right for all of that extra decoration at the top of the pages), but they’ll still be helpful for jotting down events and appointments, especially considering I have all the extra space for listing general tasks on the left and right side.

The last three days of April fall at the start of a new week, so I opted to include smaller sections for the first four days of May on my final weekly spread too, just so I can have a clearer picture of the whole week, when it comes.

April Review

Finally, we have my April Review spread, which, as always, features a large, empty space on the right-hand page for me to stick in a polaroid from the month gone by, then more specific boxes on the left-hand page for me to fill in at the end of the month. These boxes are pretty much the same each month: I have one to list out the tennis top 10s (ATP & WTA, respectively), because I like to see how they change over the course of the year, one to write down my favourite memory from the month and one to note down my favourite songs from the month (I like to narrow this list down to six each month, so I’ve split that box up in advance). I ran out of space for a subheading for my music choices, but I’ll remember what it’s for!

Final Thoughts

I really like this setup— it was super easy to create, but the process was also quite mindful (it was basically 90% colouring, which was very fun). It’s simple and relatively minimal, but it doesn’t feel minimal (which is good, because I’m not a very minimal person). I continue in my belief that drop shadows make everything better, and I think that this setup really supports that hypothesis!

I have had a few issues with the coloured pencil sections transferring to the opposite page while the journal is closed, but it does come off pretty easily with a gentle erasing, so it’s not the end of the world (just a little annoying). I would have liked to include more colours in my line art— perhaps some more earthy browns or oranges, to really give these spreads more of that 70s vibe, but I didn’t want the line art to be too fussy (with thinner lines) or too dominant (with more thick lines) on the spreads, so I had to narrow down my colours a little.

I should also definitely get a brown pen with a thicker nib, because filling in all those block capitals and drop shadows with a 0.5 size fineliner was… not the most efficient use of my time, but it looks good, so I can’t really complain!

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my April bullet journal setup (especially after the March setup was MIA…). I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Gemma

xxx

Initially, I had planned to use a classic, red and pink colour scheme. Then… I watched Wicked. I’ve never been a huge fan of pink and green as a colour combination (despite Nigella’s best efforts in her 2015, Simply Nigella era), but, (for obvious reasons) ever since watching the film, the combo has just been stuck in my head. Because of that, I decided to go for pink and green hearts, which actually worked well, in a Galentine’s kind-of-way, because I LOVE the friendship between Galinda and Elphaba in the film (and musical, which is actually the first musical I ever saw live!). The colour scheme then seemed to spiral into a whole Wicked theme, that is sometimes subtle and sometimes… less so.

Long story short, this setup morphed and changed as I created it. Some pages are super maximalist, while others are much more simple and minimal. I just had fun with it and let whatever happened happen— it was a bit of a different experience for me!

Table of Contents

• Equipment
• Cover + Quote Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Weekly Spreads + Daily Sunshine
  • Week 1
  • Week 2
  • Week 3
  • Week 4
• February Review
• Final Thoughts

Equipment

To make this setup, I used the following equipment:

• Uni Pin Fine Line pen: 0.5, sepia.
• Sakura Quickie Glue pen.
• Heart craft punch, small (I’ve had mine for years, so I can’t give you an exact link, but there are loads of similar products available online!).
• Coloured paper: dark green, mid green, mid pink, pale pink.
• Scissors.
• Corner rounder.
• Ruler.
• Pencil.
• Eraser.

Cover + Quote Page

The Cover Page was my starting point for this whole setup— it was the only page that I had any real ‘plan’ for before I started! I wanted to create a cascading effect of little hearts, almost like confetti, or the sparkles in a snow globe. To do this, I cut out loads of paper hearts from coloured paper (in my chosen pink and green shades), using a little heart-shaped craft punch (I’ve had this one for years, so I’m not sure where exactly it’s from, but you can find loads of similar ones online). I arranged them first, to check that I was happy with the positioning, then stuck each one in (rather painstakingly, I must say) with my Sakura Quickie Glue pen.

For the heading, I wanted to mimic the whimsical font from the title screen of the film, so I did my best to replicate it. I used my sepia fineliner for this and, to keep things simple, I decided to omit the drop shadow from the original font. To make the text stand out, I filled in each letter with that same, brown fineliner.

The Quote Page was actually the final page that I created in this setup and… I think you can tell that, by that point, I was kind of done with glueing in the hearts. As a result, this page is a little too minimal for my liking, but it was either that or a paper heart-induced meltdown, so I can’t say I’m unhappy with my decision. The quote, of course, is “Defying Gravity”, after the iconic song from the musical (and film, now!).

Monthly Calendar

The Monthly Calendar might just be my favourite spread in this setup— I really like the simplicity of it! To create it, I drew out a simple grid-style calendar using my sepia fineliner, then stuck a little paper heart into each box, on top of which I wrote the date (using that same, brown fineliner). I drew all of the lines freehand and went over each one twice to make them a bit more bold. I also added little heart-shaped details to each corner of the grid, to make the spread look a little more ornate (and to incorporate more hearts, because, obviously). To finish off the spread, I wrote the ‘February’ heading in the exact same style as the Cover Page in the space in the top left.

Weekly Spreads + Daily Sunshine

I had this crazy idea to house my Weekly Spreads inside a Grimmerie-inspired dutch door this month, just to pay tribute to this setup’s Wicked theme. In the film, the Grimmerie is an important spellbook that has a really interesting, angular shape and ornate design. However, I didn’t want to cut my pages down too much (because I like to have lots of space for my daily task lists) so, in the end, I opted to keep the pages cut straight and to draw the Grimmerie shape on, instead.

The original Grimmerie is a brown leather book, with an ornate, debossed pattern and gold hinges. I loved mimicking that ornate pattern, but I kept things simple by just using my sepia fineliner for the whole drawing, adding touches of block colour here and there, within the pattern to add dimension.

I drew the Grimmerie design on the first and last pages of my weekly spreads, so it’s almost like they’re enclosed within the book itself. As I have been doing recently, I used the remaining space on the far left and far right for my master tasks/notes sections, so that I can easily reference them at any point throughout the month. This month, I also decided to add in two smaller sections: one for any recurring, daily tasks and one for my blog schedule, just so I can keep both of those things at the forefront of my mind.

All of these design changes meant that I had two empty spaces leftover: one on the very first page and one on the very last. I’ve been hoping to get back into using my Daily Sunshine spreads (where I write down one positive thing that happened every day) at some point, so this felt like the perfect opportunity! On the first page, I have space to write down one good thing each day, from the 1st to the 14th February. On the last page, there’s space for Daily Sunshine from the 15th to the 28th February.

Week 1

Into the individual weekly spreads now! As I often do, I have merged the first two days of February (which fall on a weekend) with the first full week, just to save some time, as well as some space in my journal! As a result, I divided this spread into 10 sections (5 down, 2 across), used 9 boxes for the 9 daily task lists, then used the remaining space for the heading.

Week 2

For the first 7-day weekly spread, I went for my classic 4×2, vertical layout.

Week 3

The third weekly spread uses exactly the same layout as the second, but I’ve changed the location of the heading to the bottom left-hand corner.

Week 4

The final week of February only contains 5 days, so I could afford to give each daily task list a little more space in this spread. I divided the spread into 6 sections (3 down, 2 across), then used the space in the top right for the heading.

February Review

Finally, we come to my February Review spread. I’ve kept the layout of this one pretty much identical to my January Review spread last month, but, of course, this time around, I’ve added about a hundred little paper hearts to decorate it.

On the left-hand page, I have spaces to write in the ATP & WTA Top 10, as well as a place to write down my favourite memory from the month gone by. Below those, I have 6 spaces to note down my 6 favourite songs in February.

On the right-hand page, I have the heading (with ‘February’ written in that same, Wicked-inspired font), and the rest of the page is filled with another paper heart cascade, over the top of which I can stick in my monthly polaroid photo.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I like this setup, but I don’t think it’s my absolute favourite— I think because I didn’t have any real plan going in and it changed so frequently as I set it up, it ended up being such an amalgamation of so many different themes/inspirations all combined together that I just feel a bit discombobulated by the whole thing! Having said that, it definitely gives me the Wicked, Galentine’s, female friendships vibe that I was going for, so I think it will be a nice setup to use over the next month. As much as I love all the hearts, I could very happily go the rest of my life without having to glue a tiny paper heart onto anything, so there’s that too.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my February 2025 bullet journal setup! It’s a bit different to my usual style, but it was still a lot of fun.

Gemma

xxx

The new year always seems to sneak up on me SO quickly once Christmas is over, so I wanted to get ahead this year and make my January bullet journal setup nice and early! As seems to be becoming a bit of a habit for me, I’ve gone for a super quick and easy style this month: a simple, blue plaid pattern, some (purposely messy) brown line work and, because it is me, after all, some brown craft paper.

Table of Contents

• Equipment
• Cover + Quote Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Weekly Spreads
  • Week 1
  • Week 2
  • Week 3
  • Week 4
  • Week 5
• January Review
• Final Thoughts

Equipment

To make this setup, I used the following equipment:

• Tombow ABT dual brush pens, in the shades 491 (Glacier Blue) and 553 (Mist Purple).
• Uni Pin Fine Line pen: 0.5, sepia.
• Sakura Quickie Glue pen.
• Brown craft paper.
• Scissors.
• Corner rounder.

Cover + Quote Page

For my Cover Page, I filled the majority of the page with a blue plaid pattern, made using the two Tombow pens. I used the brown fineliner to draw a messy border around the pattern and to write the ‘January’ heading on some brown craft paper, which I stuck in using my Sakura glue pen.

It took me a while to decide on a fitting quote for my Quote Page this month— I wanted something that reflected the fact that January is the start of a new year, but most of the ‘New Year, New Me’ quotes feel a bit too… on the nose for me. As I was desperately trying to find a qupte, Natasha Bedingfield’s song Unwritten just happen to pop into my head and… it was just the perfect choice, so I went for that.

Monthly Calendar

As always, I went for a classic grid-style layout for my Monthly Calendar spread, where each of the boxes is a 6×6 square. I drew the grid and wrote in the dates using my brown fineliner, then filled the majority of the remaining space with more of that same, plaid pattern. Just like with my Cover Page, I wrote the ‘January’ heading on brown craft paper, then stuck it into the space in the top left corner.

Weekly Spreads

I usually include at least a couple more pages before going into my Weekly Spreads, but I wanted to keep this setup simple and pared back, so I opted to skip those pages this time around and go straight into my weeklies.

I’m using the same layout for my weekly spreads that I have used in my setups for the past few months, because it’s been working really well for me. To create it, I just trimmed the central pages right down, so there’s plenty of space on the far left and right for me to put in some master task/notes lists, while the trimmed down pages then house the daily tasks lists. I also used a corner rounder to soften the edges of the trimmed down pages, just to tie in with the style of this setup.

Week 1

The first ‘week’ of January 2025 only contains 5 days, so I was able to give each daily box in this weekly a little more space than I usually would. The first weekly sits on the same page as the task list on the far left, so I had plenty of space to add in more plaid decoration.

Week 2

The second weekly features a full week of 7 days, so I used my classic, 2-up/4-down layout for the daily task lists, leaving a space in the bottom right for the weekly subheading. I still managed to squeeze a little plaid section in though, just to keep things cohesive!

Week 3

The third weekly is exactly the same as the second, but I’ve changed the location of the weekly subheading from the bottom right corner to the top right.

Week 4

Again, the fourth weekly has the same layout as the two preceding weeklies but, for this spread, I’ve moved the weekly subheading to the top left corner.

Week 5

January ends on a Friday this year, so I opted to include the first two days of February in this final weekly. This page also includes the space on the far right for notes.

January Review

Finally, we have my January Review page. On the right-hand page, I have the ‘January Review’ heading, written in brown fineliner on brown craft paper, plus a large section of the plaid pattern, on top of which I will stick my monthly polaroid.

On the left-hand page, I have all my usual sections: ATP & WTA Top 10, my #1 memory from the month and my monthly playlist. I laid these sections out in the same way as in my December setup, which gave me lots of space to add another plaid section.

Final Thoughts

I’m really happy with how this setup turned out and I’m even happier with how quick it was to create! I literally set the whole thing up in an evening (while watching Jamie Cooks Christmas, because of course). I also surprised myself with how much I like the purposely messy linework— I think there’s something about doing two messy lines over the top of each other that makes it look extra intentional.

I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about my January 2025 bullet journal setup— I’d love to hear what you think in the comments below!

Gemma

xxx