Gemma 
For my September bullet journal setup, I went for this super easy croissant theme. I wanted something quick, simple and cute, but also something that gave the setup a bit of an autumnal vibe- because we’ll be entering autumn in September (here in the UK, at least) and it’s my absolute favourite season! I’m so excited for all the spiced bakes, cozy evenings and pretty leaves. It’s going to be dreamy. While I admit that croissants can be enjoyed year-round and are not necessarily an autumnal snack, there’s just something so cozy and warm about a buttery, golden baked good, so it felt fitting.
Table of Contents
- Equipment
- Cover + Quote Page
- Monthly Calendar
- Projects + Blog Posts
- Weekly Spreads
- September Review
- Final Thoughts
Equipment
To create this setup, I used the following equipment:
- Crayola SuperTips: brown and dark brown (from this basic pack).
- Tombow ABT Dual Brush Pen: 990 Light Sand.
- Sakura Gelly Roll, 10 Bold, white.
- Uni Pin fineliner pen, brown.
Cover + Quote Page
For both the ‘September’ title and the quote, I used the darker brown SuperTip marker and a bubble lettering style. I also used my white Gelly Roll to add some definition to each letter. I filled the rest of the spread with little croissant doodles, which I drew using the lighter shade of brown and the Tombow pen. To draw the croissants, I started with the centre ‘segment’ of each one, then worked my way outwards, alternating between the two shades of brown, to give the croissants definition.
For my quote this month, I wanted something croissant-themed, but, unsurprisingly, croissant quotes are a little hard to come by. In the end, I found this quote: ‘When in doubt, add more butter’, which was possibly said by Ina Garten- the Barefoot Contessa (and OG Butter Lover), but I can’t find a definitive source for that claim… (100% something she would say though). Anyway, the quote felt fitting, both for my bullet journal theme and my life at the moment (I too love butter), so I went with it.
Monthly Calendar
I love the soft, playful vibe of rounded boxes, but I am terrible at drawing rounded corners. Last month, I drew out each rounded box individually for my Monthly Calendar, but this month I decided to give myself a break and drew the calendar as two grids, one on each page, rather than a series of individual boxes. It was much quicker, much easier and only required 10 rounded corners (as opposed to 124…). I drew the grid using the lighter brown marker, then used the Tombow pen to add a drop shadow (hello, my old friend) to each grid, as well as a little spot of colour in each grid square for the dates. I wrote in the dates using my brown fineliner, staying true to my shades-of-brown colour scheme. I added the header along the top, in the same dark brown bubble font, then filled in the rest of the space with, you guessed it, more croissants.
Projects + Blog Posts
I always end up with a lot of projects this time of year (it’s COZY season- it’s not my fault!), but I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed with them lately. I decided to dedicate a couple of spreads in this setup to helping myself stay on top of what I’m working on and where I’m at with each project.
On the left-hand page, I have my Project Tracker. This is just a basic grid, drawn in the same way as the calendar grid, but with a header row at the top that I highlighted using my Tombow pen. On the far-left, there’s a column titled ‘c’ for ‘Craft’. Here, I’ll write in which craft each project is: knitting, crochet, baking, sewing etc. Then, there’s the biggest column, for the name of the project. I highlighted every other line in this column with my Tombow pen, to make the table easier to use (and to add some more colour to the page). Then, there’s 5 more columns for checking off my progress on each project: ‘m’ for materials (acquired), ‘c’ for created and ‘f’ for finished, as well as ‘s’ for start date and ‘e’ for end date.
On the right-hand page, I have my Blog Post Tracker. This is a simplified version of the Kanban Board that I had in my previous bullet journals for a while there, but I’m hopeful that it will help me to keep track of the multiple posts I’m working on at the moment. The table is created in exactly the same way as the Project Tracker, but the columns this time are: ‘m’ for made, ‘p’ for photos, ‘w’ for written, ‘e’ for edited, ‘ep’ for edited photos, ‘p’ for pin and the final column, with the tick, is for when the post is ready to go live.
Weekly Spreads
Into the Weekly Spreads now and, as usual, I’ve kept the basic elements the same for each weekly, but varied the layout for each one. This month, each weekly features croissant doodles and a bubble font-header, as well as boxes for my master and daily task lists. I added drop shadows to all of my boxes, as well as little rounded oblongs in each box to write in the subheading/date, with my Tombow pen. I also added some highlighting to the task boxes on each page, just to help differentiate those boxes from the daily boxes.
Week 1
The first day of September is a Sunday this year, so I opted to merge it with the first full week in the month and create an 8-day spread for the first ‘weekly’. I used a simple layout of 2×2 grids, with a horizontal box in the top right for my master task list.
Week 2
For the second weekly spread, I used this asymmetrical layout, with a vertical task box down the far right, which left me with plenty of space on the left for croissant doodles.
Week 3
For the third weekly, I used my favourite vertical layout, where each page is divided into 4 columns, 7 of which are used for my daily task lists and 1 of which is used for my master task list.
Week 4
The last day of September is a Monday, so, like with my first weekly spread, I opted to merge my weeks and create another 8-day spread for the final ‘weekly’. I also tried out this new ‘L-shaped’ layout, which I actually really love!
September Review
Finally, as always, we have my Monthly Review page. The content of this one is exactly the same as my usual monthly review pages- on the left-hand page, there are 4 sections: 1 each for writing down the ATP & WTA Top 10, 1 for writing down my favourite memory and 1 for my favourite songs from the month gone by. I like to give myself space to jot down 6 different songs because I am chronically indecisive. I really like the effect here of using the darker brown marker to doodle in these super simple ‘scrapbook-style’ corners for the album covers!
On the right-hand page, I have the ‘September Review’ heading, which I wrote in that same bubble font, as well as copious croissant doodles. I’ll stick my polaroid of the month on top of the croissants on the page, so there will still be a few peeking out around the edges.
Final Thoughts
This spread was super quick and easy to create, and I really love how it turned out. The croissant doodles are by no means realistic, but I think they still give a good croissant impression. Overall, this setup has all the cozy, almost-autumn vibes I was craving, and I can’t wait to start using it and counting down the days to autumn!
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my bullet journal setup for September- I’d love to hear what you think in the comments below!
Gemma
xxx
