Gemma 
Things have been quiet (read: completely silent) on the blog recently and I am so sorry about that! Unfortunately, I was struck down by Covid and have been out of action for the last month (truly, I’ve not been able to do anything other than flop around like a sad fish since mid-June). Luckily, I’ve FINALLY tested negative, so I’m excited to get back into making and baking and all of the fun things that come with running this blog!
Today’s post is all about my Mid-Year Bullet Journal Setup! Every time I start a new journal, I have to re-setup all of the initial pages- things like my Future Log, Media Trackers and Tennis Calendar. This new journal will cover July through to December (though, seeing as July is already nearly over, I won’t be making a July setup this year- we’ll just skip straight to August instead, and that post should be coming soon!).
A quick note as well for anyone waiting for the 6th and final instalment of my Bridgerton House Baby Blanket Pattern: it’s on its way! Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten- I’ll be getting that post, as well as the Ravelry pattern page, out as soon as possible.
Table of Contents
- Journal
- Inspiration
- Equipment
- Cover + Quote Page
- Future Log
- Tennis Calendar
- Medical Notes + Prescriptions
- Blog Planning
- Ideas
- Bullet Journal Theme Ideas + Wishlist
- Finance + Knit & Crochet Tracker
- TV + Reading Tracker
- Final Thoughts
Journal
As I mentioned, I’ve started a new journal for the rest of 2024. I recently purchased some journals from Coral and Ink, one of my favourite UK-based stationery shops, so I had a few options to choose from! I actually purchased these journals as part of the company’s B-Grade journal sale, where they sell any journals with slight imperfections at a lower cost. It’s a great way to save money and still get a beautiful, perfectly useable journal (honestly, the imperfections on mine are barely even noticeable)!
Anyway, I selected this lilac bullet journal to use for the second half of 2024. It has a cute, gold polaroid and sunflower motif on the front, plus gilded edges, two ribbon bookmarks, a back pocket, a pen holder AND an elastic closure. I mean, what more could you want?
Inspiration
For my initial pages in a new journal, I always like to choose a theme that reflects the design of the journal itself. Unsurprisingly, then, I went with a sunflower theme this time around, using a purple and yellow colour scheme (that’s right- I know all about the colour wheel). I think it’s a really cheery theme, and the colours remind me a little of Tangled (my favourite Disney film!) which makes the whole thing even more perfect.
Because I was already so behind with my journal, it was really important to me that this setup be quick and easy to create. I decided to go down the doodle-y, ‘perfectly imperfect’ route, so the majority of the spreads are created with coloured pencils only. I know, I know- no ruler? Blasphemous. But it really sped up the whole process, which was exactly what I needed. I did also use a fineliner pen to write in some of the smaller headings and details, like the numbers, but I opted to use a brown shade, instead of my usual black, to keep things soft and a little more natural-looking. Also in the interest of keeping this setup simple and quick to make, I opted to forego my usual tab sections and scale down the number of spreads I had to create.
Equipment
As I mentioned, I kept my equipment list super minimal for this setup (no, like, for real this time). The only materials I used were:
- Coloured pencils (3 shades of yellow, 3 shades of purple and 1 shade of brown).
- Uni Pin fineliner pen, brown.
- Scissors.
That’s it! See- I can be minimal sometimes!
Cover + Quote Page
To decorate my Cover Page, I doodled some quick sunflowers, alongside some two-tone purple branches, which I scattered all over both pages. I wrote both the quote and the heading in my darkest purple pencil, in an intentionally messy, block capital font.
Future Log
The Future Log is a vital part of my bullet journal. I find that this particular layout works the best for me: I have a mini calendar for each month along the top, so that I can see the ‘shape’ of each month at a glance, then I have vertical calendars beneath them, where I can write in any appointments, plans or events. I’ve highlighted the weekend dates on my vertical calendar in a different colour, to give myself a clearer idea of which day I’m on.
I’ve actually included two double-page spreads for this Future Log: the first runs from July-December (i.e. the months covered in this bullet journal), then the second (pictured above) covers the first 6 months of 2025. I like to include a spread for these months, too, because I sometimes have appointments that are made a long way in advance and I need to be able to keep track of them too!
Tennis Calendar
Next up, we have my beloved, if slightly over-the-top, Tennis Calendar. I use a whole 6 pages for this spread, but it’s soooo worth it. I love being able to whip out my calendar and let everyone know (whether they care or not) what tournaments are coming up next.
I followed the same layout for this calendar as I’ve done in my last 2 setups: the middle two pages are trimmed down and house the heading, along with some decoration (in this case, more sunflowers and branches).
The remaining pages house the calendar itself, which I separate into months, then weeks, with ATP tournaments on the left-hand side and WTA tournaments on the right. I include the start dates of each tournament and use a little symbol to indicate what level of tournament they are: a full circle indicates a Grand Slam, a 3/4 circle indicates a Masters 1000, a semi-circle indicates a 500 event, a 1/4 circle indicates a 250 event and a star indicates a group or other event (such as, in the case of this year, the Paris Olympics!). I also have space on each side of the table to fill in the winners of each tournament.
Okay, okay, I messed up this side of the calendar a little bit. I don’t know how it happened, but my October weeks got out of sync and… I just have to make my peace with that. Still, that mistake gave me space to add some fun sections to the bottom of the page: I’ve included sections to write in the qualifiers for each of the ATP, WTA and Next Gen Finals, as well as the Year-End #1 players for both the ATP and WTA tour.
Medical Notes + Prescriptions
Next up, we have my Healthcare spreads. On the left-hand page, I have a space for any notes from my appointments- I like to jot a couple of things down to keep track of what’s happening and what my doctors are saying. You know, responsible stuff like that.
On the right-hand page, I have my typical Prescription Tracker. This is an essential page for me, because it helps me keep on top of my prescriptions and make sure I know when to reorder them from my local pharmacy, so I never run out! Whenever I get a new delivery of medicines, I count them all up and fill in this table, which helps me to work out when they will run out and, by extension, when I will need to reorder them.
Blog Planning
I’ve created a much more condensed version of my Blog Planning section this time around, using only a single, double-page spread for it. On the left-hand page, I have spaces to track my monthly growth on Instagram, keep a note of my colour Hex codes and record my intended Blogmas At Home projects.
On the right-hand page, I have a larger space to keep track of what I have posted on the blog, along with when I posted it.
Ideas
Typically, I like to separate my Ideas spread up into sections, so I can keep everything organised and accessible. This time, however, I’ve opted for more of a mind map/brain dump style page, with a simple heading in the middle and plenty of blank space around the edges of the spread to jot down any ideas.
Bullet Journal Theme Ideas + Wishlist
Admittedly, these two spreads are completely unrelated, so it’s kind of weird that they’re next to each other, but they’re both super useful pages to have! On the left-hand side, my Bullet Journal Theme Ideas page has a space at the bottom to jot down any generic theme ideas, as well as a more structured space in the top right to note down any theme ideas I have that I would like to attempt for a particular month, or are month-specific.
For my Wishlist, I decided to keep it separated into sections as usual, but tried to keep the amount of sections to a minimum. In the end, I created 6 sections: Hair & Skin (meaning, of course hair products, skincare and makeup- NOT anything Hannibal-y, I swear), Clothes, Stationery, Entertainment, Home and Accessories. I haven’t quite found the perfect Wishlist spread that works for my needs yet, so I’ll see how this setup suits me this time around!
Finance + Knit & Crochet Tracker
Again, two pretty unrelated spreads (though maybe the finance tracker will prevent me from buying copious amounts of yarn on a whim? I’m unsure…) here, but, again, both very useful in their own way! On the left-hand side, my Finance Tracker is where I weigh my costs vs my income and calculate my savings each month, to keep myself (and my expensive taste) in check. At the bottom of the spread, I have a space to jot down my income streams for each month, so I can see where my money is coming from.
On the right-hand page, I have my Knit & Crochet Tracker. I love using Ravelry, but I’m a bit useless at filling it in as I go along, so I’m hoping this spread will help me to remember when I started a project, even if I don’t log it on Ravelry until I’ve finished!
TV + Reading Tracker
Finally, two spreads that have… something in common! Welcome to the abbreviated version of my Media section. On the left-hand page I have my TV Tracker. On this spread, I write out the title of the series I’m watching, along with a little circle for each season of the show. As I finish each season, I fill in the circle. I like doing this in my journal, not so much to track my watching habits, but because I like to look back and remember all the things I’ve watched (it also means, when my dad bemoans the fact I am watching something for the 500th time, I can remind him how long it’s been since I last watched it and feel vindicated).
Finally, we have my Reading Tracker. Here, I keep track of how many books I’ve read so far this year, which books I’m reading and when I’ve read them. I’ve recently got back into reading after a pretty drastic slump, so I’m really looking forward to using this spread again!
Final Thoughts
I really love how this spread turned out- it was so quick and easy to create, which was exactly what I wanted (and needed!) this month, but I don’t feel like I had to compromise on the design side of things to achieve that. These spreads feel cheery and happy, but still kind of… tasteful, I guess? I went into creating this setup without a lot of planning and no sketching AT ALL, which was kind of scary, but kind of freeing as well? There are mistakes, of course (RIP my Tennis Calendar), but I usually make mistakes even when I plan, so I don’t think I can blame the lack of planning for that one!
I hope you love this setup as much as I do! I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
Gemma
xxx
