We’re coming to the end of 2023, which also (and more importantly) means I’m coming to the end of my bullet journal. In fact, I only have 2 double-page spreads (well technically, 1 and a half- but we’ll talk about that later) left. Usually, by this time of year, I’m feeling burnt out with my bullet journal and am entirely focused on setting up my next one. This year, I was determined to finish off the year properly, so I’ve finally made the ‘review’ spread that I always mean to set up every year and never do. This year, I was so determined that I actually ended up setting up 3 separate spreads: my Spotify Wrapped page, my 2023 Tennis Awards page and, finally, my overall 2023 Review spread.

This setup is only for 2 double-page spreads, like I mentioned, so this will be a shorter post than my usual bullet journal content, but I hope that it will still give you some inspiration and ideas anyway!

Table of Contents

• Theme
• Equipment + Supplies
• Spotify Wrapped
• 2023 Tennis Awards
• 2023 Review
• Final Thoughts

Theme

My theme for the initial pages of this July-December bullet journal was a very minimal, black and white theme with a classic lettering style. You can read about that setup here. I wanted to continue on with that theme for these spreads, so that I could tie the whole journal together. There will be a few splashes of colour because I plan to include little thumbnail images on my Spotify Wrapped page, which will slightly undermine the whole monochrome vibe, but I think they will look SO cute.

You’ll notice on the final double-page spread, I’ve switched things up a little and used a black background, then written on that in white pen. I’ve kept the style the same, but I haven’t used a black background anywhere else within this theme. My main reason for doing this is that I really only had one blank page on this double-page spread- I use the back of my bullet journal for swatching/notes, so I did have a few things jotted down on the right-hand page. I had a look through them and decided that they were all pretty irrelevant now, so I thought I would just… cover them up? I kind of like it though- it makes my 2023 Review spread stand out and it means I have enough space for all of the spreads that I wanted to include in this journal, so really it was a win-win!

Equipment + Supplies

Because of the minimal colour scheme and style of these spreads, they don’t require lots of specialist supplies. All I used is:

• Muji 0.38mm pen, black. 
• Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pen, Hard Tip, black.
• Tombow Dual Brush Pen, black (N15).
• Sakura Gelly Roll, 10 Bold, white. 
• Black paper.
• Pencil.
• Ruler.
• Eraser.
• Glue stick.
• Scissors.

Spotify Wrapped

First up, we have my Spotify Wrapped spread. I love seeing all the statistics and info from Spotify’s Wrapped feature- I always look forward to it coming out and I always mourn the loss of it when all of that delicious data disappears forever.

For this spread, I did a super simple border and split the two words of the title across the top and the bottom of the page. I then divided the rest of the page into 4: there’s one section for my Top 5 songs, one for my Top 5 artists, one for my Top 5 genres and one for some of the other statistics/numbers. For my song/artist sections, I plan to add in little thumbnails of the album/artist covers- a bit like how they appear on Spotify Wrapped. For the genre section, I just made a little column on the left out of black paper for the numbers 1-5, so I can list the genres out in order.

2023 Tennis Awards

It’s Tennis Award season and, since 2023 has been my first full year following the ATP and WTA tours, I wanted to commemorate it in my bullet journal. For this one, I used a strip of black paper across the centre of the page, on which I wrote the header using my white Sakura Gelly Roll. I used the same minimal frame style to section off the areas above and below the title area and dedicated the top section to the ATP Awards and the bottom section to the WTA Awards. The awards are in the process of being announced, so I’ll be filling them in as the winners are released.

2023 Review

As I mentioned, I started off this double-page spread by sticking in some black paper for the background. I then drew out the whole spread, again using my white Gelly Roll pen. I have spaces for recording any big moments/favourite memories from the year, some reflection on my 2023 goals/some thoughts for the upcoming year, a list of my 2023 bullet journal themes AND a polaroid from New Year’s Eve (it wouldn’t be a review page of mine without a space for a polaroid, but I have no plans for any New Year’s Eve partying- so that image might end up being a little depressing).

Final Thoughts

I’m actually really happy with how these spreads turned out- I know they are very simple, and there’s only a few of them, but I always mean to make these spreads and never do, so I feel very proud that I actually got around to it this year. I do go back and reference my old bullet journals from time to time, so it will be nice to have all these facts, figures and happy memories at the ready for referencing and reflecting.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about these spreads. I’ll see you tomorrow for Day 14!

Gemma

xxx

Today is Day 1 and we’re kicking things off with my December 2023 Bullet Journal setup. To be honest, I absolutely meantto post this setup a week ago, but it ended up taking a lot longer than I originally planned- not so much the actual making of it, but deciding how to get what was in my head onto the paper. Sometimes, I guess, bullet journalling is just like that. Anyway, it all works out, because it just means I can post it now for Blogmas At Home!

Christmas is my favourite time of year, so I knew I wanted a festive theme for my bullet journal setup this month. I ended up using one of my favourite Christmas films, Klaus, as inspiration and I really love how it turned out! 

Table of Contents

• Inspiration
• Equipment
• Cover Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Blog Planning + Daily Sunshine
• TV Schedule + Christmas Countdown
• Weeklies
  • Week 1
  • Week 2
  • Week 3
  • Week 4
  • Week 5
• December Review
• Final Thoughts

Inspiration

Klaus is one of my favourite Christmas films. It’s kind of… weird…? at the start, but by the end it is so warm and festive and uplifting. It’s essentially an origin story for Father Christmas, but it’s not your average origin story. There’s a postman, warring clans and Margu 🥹🥹 (more on her later).

I knew I wanted to give my setup a really Christmass-y feel, so I made sure to include lots of gold in my colour palette, which was otherwise mainly blue and red (inspired by the outfits of the Sami characters in the film). I also experimented with some different art styles and techniques, in an attempt to capture the animated nature of the film. I used two main fonts throughout this setup: the first is the font used in the title of the film- it’s a pretty detailed golden lettering with a red outline. For the other font, I did a basic sans-serif, lowercase font, which I wrote in a sort of uneven, scattered way- children learning to write (and writing letters…) plays a big part in the film, so I wanted this font to seem like it had been written by a little kid.

I really wanted this setup to have a sense of childhood nostalgia and innocence about it- so I tried really hard not to worry about being too perfect. I used a ruler for a couple of things, here and there, but most of the time I drew the lines freehand and didn’t worry if they were a bit wobbly. It was a bit hard for me- I love my ruler, but I do think it was the right move for the theme!

Equipment

For this setup, I used the following equipment:

• Muji 0.38mm pen, black.
• Tombow ABT Dual Brush Pens: Warm Grey 1 (N89), Light Sand (990), Cool Grey 12 (N35), Cool Grey 10 (N45), Cool Grey 5 (N65), Chinese Red (856), Cobalt Blue (535), Process Blue (452).
• Crayola SuperTips: light brown, dark brown and 4 shades of green.
• STAEDTLER Metallic Marker pens: gold and silver.
• Faber-Castell PITT Artist Brush Pen, Indian Red (192).
• Sakura Gelly Roll, 10 Bold, white.
• Colouring pencils: red, blue, brown, gold and peach.
• Brown kraft (printer-friendly) paper, along with various other shades of brown paper.
• Parchment-coloured paper.
• Red and blue coloured paper.
• Gold glitter paper.
• Scissors.
• Glue stick.
• Glue pen (optional- I like to use this for more detailed pieces, but you can just use a glue stick if you prefer).
• Ruler.
• Pencil.
• Eraser.
• Tracing program + compatible device (I used Procreate on my iPad and used an Apple Pencil for added precision).
• Printer.

I know this list is loooonnngggg, but this setup is one of my more involved ones! You don’t need all of this equipment- for example, you could easily trace the images the old-fashioned way with tracing paper, or even draw them freehand. This is just what I used to achieve these spreads.

Cover Page

For my Cover Page, I wanted to include the ‘family tree’ from the film. I would have loved to include all of the little figurines that go onto it too, but I just couldn’t figure out how best to represent them. To make the tree, I tried a new technique of cutting out the different elements from different shades of brown paper, then sticking them all together like a puzzle. I sketched out the tree to begin with, then traced each of the individual elements to make the pieces. I really love how this turned out- I think it definitely fits the animated vibe I was going for, but it did take a while!

For the December header, I recreated the Klaus font, using my dark red Faber-Castell, gold STAEDTLER and red Tombow pens. I added some strips of coloured paper (red and gold glitter), then added some little sparkly doodles around the tree with my gold STAEDTLER pen.

For my Quote Page, I opted to use a quote from a song that is featured in the film: ‘Invisible’ by Zara Larsson. I LOVE the scene in which this song is used, so every time I hear it I can’t help but smile. I also thought it was a particularly fitting quote for this time of year.

I wrote the quote onto some parchment coloured paper, in the simpler of the two fonts, using my Tombow N35 and gold STAEDTLER pens. To decorate the page behind the quote, I tried to recreate the magical ‘breeze’ that features throughout the film. For this, I used my Tombow N89 to draw some swirling lines, then added some little brown leaf doodles (using my Crayola SuperTips), as well as some envelopes (using my Tombow 990) and silver sparkles (using my silver STAEDTLER).

Monthly Calendar

For my Monthly Calendar spread, I opted to use my typical grid-style layout (this time with 6×7-sized boxes). I drew the grid freehand, with my Tombow N45, then used my red and blue Tombows, along with my gold STAEDTLER pen, to draw a little bauble in each box, for the date. I drew a little string and bow on each one with my Muji pen, then used the same pen to write the date over the top.

To decorate this page, I recreated the December header from my cover page down the right-hand side and added some more gold sparkles. In the space along the top, I tried yet another art style: using an assortment of grey Tombow pens to make a super minimal drawing of one of the shots in the film. I think it worked pretty well and it was much quicker to create than the paper tree on the cover page (though I still have a soft spot for my puzzle tree).

Blog Planning + Daily Sunshine

I’ve been using both of these spreads for a good while now, and I’m been really enjoying them. On the left-hand page, I have my Blog Planning spread (unfortunately titled GaH, for Gemma at Home, because I did not realise the initials of this blog spelt out ‘gah’ until I created it). It looks a little different here, because I had to tailor it to Blogmas at Home, but I have a checklist for each post (with some messy scribbles because I, apparently, cannot count), spaces for notes and a little space to look forward to January posts.

On the right-hand page, I have my Daily Sunshine spread. I kept this one pretty simple- just a large box for noting down one happy memory per day. I coloured each row in on the right hand side, rotating the 4 colours I’ve used throughout the setup- it’s giving… scarf? For the header, I made a little garland using my green Crayola SuperTips.

I also went a bit crazy on this double-page spread with highlighting and drop-shadowing. It’s kind of… clashy? But I love a drop shadow, so I’ll forgive it.

TV Schedule + Christmas Countdown

Now we have my December/Christmas-specific spreads: a TV Schedule and Christmas Countdown. I used to love getting the Christmas edition of the Radio Times every year and finding out when all of the Christmas specials were on TV. I created my TV Schedule to keep track of all of the things I want to watch/catch up on- Christmas TV is so fun and nostalgic for me, so I definitely don’t want to miss anything!

The right-hand page might just be my favourite design in this whole setup: my Christmas Countdown! I modelled this one after Jesper’s letter tracker in the film (which is why it goes from 0-6000 instead of 1-24). Every day, I’m going to colour in 1/4 of a section, so that, on Christmas Eve, I’ll have coloured in the whole thing and it will be CHRISTMAS TOMORROW! It’s basically like a less exciting (read: less chocolatey) advent calendar, but it’s just a little bit of festive fun, really.

Weeklies

As always, I’ve used tabs to separate out my weekly spreads. I used my beloved glue pen to cover each tab in coloured paper, alternating between blue and red. I also stuck in two strips of gold glitter paper, one on the far left of the first weekly spread and one on the far right of the December Review page, so that the tabs would stand out more (but also to add an extra bit of Christmassy sparkle to the setup).

I kept my weeklies pretty consistent in terms of style/decoration- just switching up the layout of the boxes for each week. I drew all the boxes freehand, using my Tombow N45 and wrote the headers using my Tombow N35, with my simpler font, decorated with more golden sparkles. For the daily lists, I used more bauble doodles for the dates, then wrote the day of the week along the top using my Muji pen. For the note and task boxes, I highlighted every other line with my Tombow 990, then used my red and blue Tombows to highlight the header. Finally, I added two little gold dots on either end of each header.

On each of my weeklies, I have included a little ”drawing’ of a scene/character from the film. I really wanted to include depictions of my favourite character (Margu 🥹🥹🥹 she’s SO ADORABLE) but… my drawing skills are very, very limited (read: nonexistent). Usually, if I want to include a drawing from a reference, I will trace it. I do this by printing the mirror image of the reference image, tracing it with a pencil onto tracing paper, then flipping the paper over and going over the whole thing again, to transfer the original pencil lines. Then, I go over the lines with my Muji pen and THEN I can finally add colour. Honestly, it’s a lot of work. It’s really effective and I do like it as a method, but, considering I wanted 5 (super small and intricate) drawings for this setup, it just seemed like a ridiculous amount of work. Instead, I traced the reference images digitally (I used the Procreate app on an iPad, with an Apple Pencil, for extra precision). When I was done, I turned off the background layer, then exported my drawings as PNG files (this file type preserves the transparency of the background). I resized the images on Pages, then printed them directly onto my brown kraft paper. I then cut around each image, coloured them in with coloured pencils and stuck them into my bullet journal. I also drew a little frame around each image with my gold STAEDTLER, just to help tie them into the setup a little more. I really liked this method- it was definitely a much quicker way of doing it and I liked that it gave my setup a kind of colouring book-vibe.

Week 1

There are only 3 days in the first week of December, so I could make extra large boxes. I meant to use two separate boxes for the notes and tasks lists, but I got confused and ended up using one box for both! To fill in the extra space, I added a space for any events that might be coming up in the next week.

This week’s drawing is of the titular character, Klaus, when he tries on his Sami outfit for the first time- it’s one of my favourite scenes! I decorated it with a simple, curved frame.

Week 2

For Week 2, I opted for my favourite vertical layout, with the rightmost column used for tasks and a little box at the bottom for notes.

This week’s image is of Jesper and Alva, when they’re painting a toy carousel. The frame for this one is very simple- just a thin outline with some swirls on the corners.

Week 3

For this week, I placed the daily list boxes down the centre of the page, with the task and notes boxes in the bottom right. I have absolutely no idea why one of my bauble dates is on the left when all the rest are on the right, but we’ll just embrace it!

Finally, a Margu sighting! This week’s drawing is her in her first appearance and her cuteness makes me want to CRY. For this frame, I went for a simple outline with a scalloped edge.

Week 4

Week 4 is where my boxes really started going a bit all over the place- this is why I like using a ruler! I’m not crazy about this layout- it just feels a bit… scattered to me? No matter, I have all the sections I need so it will still be very useful.

The drawing for this week is Margu sailing on her sledge/boat/ski thing, which makes me so happy. Again, just another simple frame, with a swirly top.

Week 5

For the final weekly (which, funnily enough, is actually a full week, which means we’re ending 2024 on a Sunday, which feels so satisfying), I used vertical columns again, but alternated between putting the date at the top and the bottom of each column, to shake it up a little.

The drawing for this week is Jesper and Margu chatting on the pier, which is such a sweet scene. I did a chunkier frame for this one, with little spikes.

December Review

For my December Review page, I stuck with the same layout that I have used for the past couple of months. On the left-hand page, I have 3 boxes along the top: 2 are for the ATP and WTA year-end top 10, while the one on the right-hand side is for my favourite memory from the month. I made the headers for these boxes in the same way as my notes/tasks boxes from my weekly spreads. I also used my Tombow 990 to highlight all of these boxes.

Below those boxes, I have my December Playlist. For the header, I wrote each of the letters of ‘December’ on individual baubles, then wrote ‘playlist’ underneath in the simple font that I have used throughout the setup. Like the past two months, my playlist box for December has 6 little spaces for my top 6 songs of the month.

As always, the right-hand page will house a polaroid from the month. Sometimes I make a frame, but I thought it would tie this whole setup together nicely to repeat that magical ‘breeze’ that I drew on the quote page, instead. I’ll stick the polaroid over the top of this, so it will look kind of like the breeze is carrying the memory. For the header, I used the film font for ‘December’, then the simpler font underneath for ‘review’. Finally, I added in a little nod to the carved sleigh from the film, with ‘Jesper’ and ‘Klaus’ etched into it- I used brown kraft paper and a brown Crayola SuperTip to make this, then stuck it into the bottom of the page.

Final Thoughts

Honestly, this setup was a labour of love. I found it really hard to translate the ideas I had in my head and the magic of the film into the pages of my bullet journal. It took me a long time, partly because it involved a lot of work, but partly because I just kept getting stumped! However, I am really happy with how it turned out! It’s not perfect, but I think it’s so fun and festive and it has that almost childish vibe that I really wanted to achieve (while still looking polished and put together and intentional). I’m really proud of myself for all the problem-solving I did while making this setup and I think my hard work really paid off! I’m so excited to use it this month and feel the magic of Klaus every single day.

Let me know if you’ve seen Klaus in the comments below- I feel like it’s kind of a niche Christmas film, but it really is one of my favourites (did I possibly mention that?) so I’m on a personal mission to convince everyone to watch it.

So! That was it! Day 1 of Blogmas At Home. I hope you enjoyed it- if everything goes according to plan, I’ll be back tomorrow with another festive post. See you then!

Gemma

xxx

I knew that it was important for me to ensure that my November setup was as quick and easy to create as possible- a super complex, labour-intensive setup, at this point, would only serve to make bullet journalling feel even less approachable to me. Therefore, I made this month’s setup with ease and accessibility in mind. I needed spreads that maintained the usefulness and clarity of my previous setups, but nothing that took hours and hours to create, just to help myself get back into the swing of things. Because of this, I opted to take a couple of shortcuts. I decided on an autumnal, maple leaf theme. For the decoration of the theme, I relied upon these pre-made maple leaf post-it notes– yes, it felt a little like cheating, but that is okay! There are no rules with bullet journalling and this method got me maximum prettiness with minimum effort, so I am here for it. The post-it notes come with 2 sizes- 20x the smaller size and 40x the larger size- they both fit in my journal perfectly. They are a little on the pricey side, but honestly, the ease of them made the price tag worth it for me! I kept the rest of the decoration purposefully simple and organic-looking, to further minimise the time and effort required.

With all of that, let’s get into how I created this low-effort setup, page-by-page.

Table of Contents

• Equipment
• Cover Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Blog Planning + Daily Sunshine
• Christmas Planning
• Weeklies
  • Weekly 1
  • Weekly 2
  • Weekly 3
  • Weekly 4
  • Weekly 5
• November Review
• Final Thoughts

Equipment

For this setup, I used the following equipment:

• Muji 0.38mm pen, black.
• Uni-ball Eye Fine UB-157 pen, black.
• Coloured markers: I used Crayola SuperTips (in red, orange, yellow and brown shades- the exact pens that I used are from a combination of this pastel pack and this assorted pack) and one Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen Brush (in India Red 192), but you could use any pens you have to hand.
• Tombow ABT Dual Brush Pen, 990 Light Sand.
• Brown kraft paper (I used this brand).
• Parchment-style paper
• Maple leaf post-it notes.
• Glue stick and glue pen (I like to use a glue pen for more intricate items, like the post-it notes, but you could use the glue stick for everything if you prefer!).
• Ruler.
• Pencil.
• Eraser.
• Scissors.

Cover Page

My Cover Page this month was super easy to create. The great thing about using post-it notes is that you can temporarily stick them down and move them around to finalise the layout of each page before you stick them in permanently. Once I was happy with the positioning of them, I marked where I wanted each leaf to go with pencil, then used my glue pen to stick them down. I found using the glue pen was the easiest method because the leaves have such small points/edges, but you could use a glue stick if you prefer. For the monthly header, I just used some torn paper. I wrote the header using my black Uni-ball pen and a simple lowercase font.

For my Quote Page this month, I spent a little while researching some fun autumnal quotes, to fit my theme. I settled on this quote from Winnie the Pooh (admittedly, not from A. A. Milne’s original novels but, I believe, from the Disney film ‘Pooh’s Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin’). I just felt it really fit, both with how I personally see autumn (which is my favourite month!) and my theme for the month. I wrote the quote on another torn piece of kraft paper, using a combination of my black Muji and Uni-ball pens, with a combination of a simple uppercase and a thicker cursive font.

Monthly Calendar

Another simple calendar layout this month- just a standard grid of 6×6 boxes. For the dates, I used my 5 coloured markers to make scribbled patches of colour, which I then wrote on top of using my black Uni-ball. If I were to make this spread again, I would have used my black Muji pen instead of the Uni-ball here, because I found that the Uni-ball bled a little when used on top of the markers. In fact, later on in the setup, you’ll see that I started using the Muji pen instead when writing over the markers because of this! I also added a little strip of colour with my Tombow 990 along the bottom of each grid box- just to tie this spread in with the rest of the setup, where I use that pen a lot!

For the header, I used that same lowercase font, written in my black Uni-ball on some more torn kraft paper. I added some more post-it note leaves (which I trimmed a little, so that I could position them over the edges of the page) and some torn paper strips, just to fill the extra space.

Blog Planning + Daily Sunshine

As with my recent setups, I’m including a space for individual task lists for upcoming blog posts. For this, I created 4 boxes using my black Muji pen. For the headers, I created more scribbled patches with my coloured markers. I also added a vertical stripe of colour using my Tombow 990, where I can tick off each task as I go.

For my Daily Sunshine spread, I created a large box (30 lines high), to house one happy memory for each day. I highlighted every other line with my Tombow 990, then used more patches of colour down the left-hand side for the dates. As you can see, I opted to use my Muji pen for writing on top of the markers, instead of my Uni-ball, and I think it looks much neater.

Christmas Planning

A new spread for this month- my Christmas Planning pages! November is always such a busy month in terms of getting things ready for Christmas, so I really wanted a space to collate my thoughts and keep on top of things. On the left-hand page, I have a gift tracker: a simple grid with a column for the recipient, the gift and the price of the gift, as well as checkboxes for when I have purchased the gift, when the gift has been delivered and when I have wrapped it. I also put the header for this spread on the left-hand page and I added a little bit of Christmassy flair with some doodled sparkles.

I divided the right-hand page up into 3 sections for other planning categories: stockings, general tasks and Blogmas (!!!). While I don’t have kids, I do live at home with my parents and I do like to get a few little things for each of their stockings, so I have a space here for ideas for each of them. Next to that, I have a space for general Christmas-related tasks. Finally, I have a… Blogmas checklist! That’s right- this year, I’m planning to participate in Blogmas! That’s one post a day (!) from 1st-24th December- my own little Gemma At Home advent. I mean… we’ll see how it goes. Obviously, it takes a lot of planning, work and effort- so I’ve made this checklist for my posts so I can try to keep on top of things as I start creating them and getting ahead in November. Admittedly, I also have a lot of other planning resources scattered throughout various notebooks and documents on my computer, so this is very much only the tip of the iceberg! I think this will be such a fun challenge for me- hopefully, it will also bring a little extra magic to what is undoubtedly my favourite time of year!

Weeklies

As always, I have used tabs to separate out my weekly spreads. I like doing this because I find it really helps me to navigate through my bullet journal and it adds a little extra decoration to all of my weekly spreads. This month, I used the 5 coloured markers that I have used throughout the setup and coloured one tab with each colour. I stuck in some torn kraft paper on the far left of the first weekly, and the far right of my November Review page, just to add some separation and help those coloured tabs stand out. Full disclosure here: I did actually use the parchment-style paper to start with (I stuck it in and everything!) but it just… wasn’t sitting right with me? The parchment paper is quite yellow-toned, so I think it just clashed a little bit. Anyway, I just stuck the kraft paper over the top and hoped for best- my journal’s a little thicker in those places now, obviously, but it worked fine.

In general, I kept my weekly setups very consistent in terms of style and design. I made sure to incorporate a post-it note maple leaf on each one, made the header using a combination of torn kraft and parchment paper, used my black Muji pen to draw out some boxes, made the subheadings with my Muji pen over the top of scribbled, coloured patches and highlighted everything with my Tombow 990. Honestly, these spreads came together so quickly- they were such a joy to make!

Weekly 1

The first ‘week’ of November spans 5 days, from Wednesday to Sunday, so I only needed 5 daily task list boxes. As always, I accidentally started on a Monday, so, if you can see my little scribbled mistake on the first box… no you can’t. I opted to use square boxes for my daily lists and notes boxes for this spread. I just divided each page into 3 vertically and 2 horizontally and went from there. For my task list, I just used the remaining space (i.e. 2 boxes’ worth) to make one taller box.

Weekly 2

For my second weekly (the first full week of November!) I opted to use horizontal boxes for my daily lists. Admittedly, horizontal boxes aren’t my favourite to use, but I always seem to end up using them anyway. I guess there are only so many layout options!

Weekly 3

For my third weekly, I went for one of my favourite layouts, which is the vertical column layout. Each daily list has a vertical column, with the final column used for the master task list. I find this layout provides me with lots of space to write everything out and works really well.

Weekly 4

Back to the square(ish) boxes for this weekly- very similar to my first weekly, just with a slightly different placement of the header.

Weekly 5

The last 4 days of November fall in a new week, so I included a 5th weekly spread, with space to write down important events in the first 3 days of December. The November daily boxes are on the left-hand page, each box taking up one quarter of the page. On the right-hand page, I have the header, as well as a section for notes, my task list and the first 3 days of December.

November Review

As always, the final spread in my monthly setup is my Monthly Review page. I changed the layout of this spread a little bit for October and I really liked it, so I’ve kept those changes this time around. On the left-hand page, I have 3 boxes along the top: one each for the WTA and ATP Top 10, then one for my favourite memory from the month. Below that, I have a larger space for my top 6 songs of the month: my November playlist.

I’ve kept the right-hand page the same as it has always been- the header, again written on a torn piece of kraft paper, using a combination of a simple, lowercase and a cursive font, is at the top. Below that is a space for a polaroid from the month. I usually make a decorative ‘frame’ for the polaroid here, but this month I opted to go simple- I just stuck in two of the maple leaf post-it notes, over the top of which I will stick in the polaroid.

Final Thoughts

I think this setup was exactly what I needed for the month ahead- it was simple to make, but it’s not necessarily simple to look at- it definitely gives off the warm and cosy autumnal vibes that I was looking for. I know I said that using the post-it notes felt like cheating, but honestly, I’m not even mad about it- sometimes you just have to what is right for you and, this month, this setup was definitely right for me. Besides, I got to reunite with my beloved kraft paper, so, honestly, I couldn’t be happier.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my November setup- I’d love to hear what you think of it in the comments below!

Gemma

xxx

I am… undecided on how I feel about Halloween. I LOVE a wholesome, pumpkin pie, crafty, trick-or-treating Halloween. A copious-amounts-of-chocolate Halloween. However, I do NOT vibe with things that are actually scary- I have watched a grand total of one horror film in my lifetime and, honestly, that was one too many. So, while I like some aspects of Halloween, I’m definitely not a hardcore, spooky Halloween-lover. Nevertheless, I love an occasion and I will take any opportunity for some themed creativity, so, here we are.

All this to say- my October 2023 bullet journal has a Halloween theme. Specifically, it has a cute & gentle Halloween theme, to match my preferred Halloween vibe. This month’s theme is… Trick-Or-Treating Cats, because what is more wholesome than a cartoon cat in a costume? I, for one, can’t think of anything.

This setup is very straightforward- it’s really just a lot of cat doodles and freehand lines. I coloured all my doodles in with colouring pencils, to make it feel even more playful & childlike (read: even less spooky). Honestly, I had so much fun making this setup- it’s not my usual style (I was very inspired by the more doodle-y style of AmandaRachLee!), so I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the process.

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

Table of Contents

• Inspiration
• Equipment
• Cover Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Blog Planning + Daily Sunshine
• Weeklies
  • Weekly 1
  • Weekly 2
  • Weekly 3
  • Weekly 4
• October Review
• Final Thoughts

Inspiration

The cat on my cover page was inspired by a crochet pattern I came across on Pinterest, by Medaami. You can find the pattern here (you can also check out my Pinterest here!). If I have time over the course of this month, I might give the crochet pattern a try, because it’s SO cute! When it came to dreaming up a theme for my October bullet journal, I just couldn’t shake the image from my head. I figured it would be pretty easy to doodle, even with my (very limited) doodling abilities, so I went for it. I’m so happy I did! I think this theme turned out so well- it’s very Halloween-y and it’s super adorable, so it ticks all my boxes for this month.

Equipment

For this setup, I used the following equipment:

• Muji 0.38mm pen, black.
• Uni-ball Eye Fine UB-157 pen, black.
• Tombow ABT Dual Brush Pens: N15 (black) and N89 (warm grey 1).
• Colouring pencils.
• Sakura Gelly Roll, 10 Bold, white.
• Black paper.
• Glue stick.
• Scissors.
• Ruler.
• Pencil.
• Eraser.

Cover Page

The right-hand side of my Cover Page for this month is super simple- it’s just a doodle of the inspiration cat (which is just a cat in a ghost costume with a pumpkin bag) and the ‘October’ heading. I drew the outline of the cat with my Muji 0.38mm black pen, then coloured it in with colouring pencils. For the heading, I used my black Uni-ball pen (which has a thicker nib than the Muji pen) and a simple, lowercase font.

On the left-hand page, I opted to include a Taylor Swift quote (because, obviously). I drew some bunting along the top, which I coloured in with the 4 main colours that will be used throughout this theme: orange, green, purple and yellow (very Halloween-y colours, no?), before writing the letters of ‘karma‘ on top with my Uni-ball pen. I found the Muji pen did not write very well on top of coloured pencils, but the Uni-ball pen worked perfectly, so I used that. I drew another cat (dressed up as a witch this time) and tried to make it look like the cat was casting a spell with the final word of the quote. It looks a little bit smudged here because I made the mistake of trying to erase my pencil sketchings after I added the coloured pencils. Don’t be like me. Erase the pencil first.

At the bottom of the left-hand page, I added some black paper, decorated with some, what I have fondly coined, cat-fetti. I used this decorated paper throughout the setup and it was very easy to make- I just took my white Sakura Gelly Roll pen and drew an assortment of confetti doodles all over a piece of black paper. To make it into cat-fetti, I added some tiny, cat-shaped confetti pieces, which were basically just large dots with two little pointy ears. Super simple, but I think it really elevated the setup!

Monthly Calendar

I think this Monthly Calendar might be my favourite spread in this whole setup- just LOOK at those little cat pumpkins :’). Again, this was a super simple spread to make- I just used the fine tip of my black Tombow to draw a grid of 6×6 boxes, rounding off the outer corners. Then, I outlined the cat pumpkins with my Muji pen, before colouring them in. I used the same 4 colours as the bunting on the previous page to draw little dots in the grid for the dates, which I wrote in with my Uni-ball pen. I used the same Uni-ball pen to write in the ‘October’ heading, then stuck in some more cat-fetti paper to fill in the space on the left-hand side.

Blog Planning + Daily Sunshine

On the left-hand page of this double-page spread, I have a space for planning my blog content. Last month, I tried out this layout of 4 boxes- 1 per blog post, in which I can write down specific to-do lists for each post. I found it very useful last month, so I’m using it again! I drew each box using my black Tombow pen, then coloured in the bars across the top, following my colour scheme. This page’s cat is dressed as a bat (a bat cat?), so I gave it bat wings and pointy fangs.

On the right-hand page, I have my Daily Sunshine page, where I write down one positive thing that happened each day. Again, I drew the box with my black Tombow pen, then drew little dots with my colouring pencils for the dates, which I wrote in using my Uni-ball pen. I also highlighted every other row with my N89 Tombow pen, just because the box felt a little empty. This page’s cat has a pumpkin hat on- I like to think it is the baby of the group.

Weeklies

Because of how October falls this year, I decided to merge the dates a little within my weeklies (so, I suppose, they aren’t even technically Weeklies…), so I wouldn’t have to set up whole spreads for weeks that just had one or two days of October in them. As always, I used tabs to separate out my weeklies. This month, I coloured in the tabs using the coloured pencils (following the colour scheme, of course), and stuck some more cat-fetti paper on the left-hand side of my first weekly and the right-hand side of my October review page, to make the tabs really stand out.

I kept the style of each weekly very consistent- the only real differences between the 4 spreads is the costume of the cat doodle and the layout of the boxes- otherwise, I drew all of the boxes using the fine tip of my black Tombow pen (just like the rest of the setup), coloured in the header bars in the colour scheme and wrote the days of the week/dates over the top, using my Uni-ball pen. As always, each weekly spread has spaces for my daily to-do lists, a master task list and some notes.

Weekly 1

My first weekly spread spans 1st-8th October. I used two square grids for my daily to-do lists, then put the boxes for notes and tasks in the top right. This weekly’s cat is dressed like a vampire, so it has a red-lined cape and, like the bat cat, some pointy fangs.

Weekly 2

The second weekly is actually a weekly because it spans 7 days: 9th-15th October. For this weekly, I placed the header across the middle of the spread and put the daily to-do list boxes along the top and bottom. I also merged my tasks and notes boxes on this spread. This weekly’s cat is a Franken-Cat (Frankenstein’s Feline Monster?), which has some green face paint, drawn-on scars and a neck bolt.

Weekly 3

For the third weekly, I went for one of my favourite layouts- 8 vertical boxes, with a horizontal space for notes at the top. This week’s cat is a Devil-cat- he has horns, a pointy tail and a pitchfork, ready for all of his devilish endeavours.

Weekly 4

The final ‘weekly’ spans 23rd-31st October- a week plus two days. I also made a little space for the first 5 days of November, which fall in the same calendar week as the last two days of October, just so I can keep better track of my dates. This weekly’s cat is an Anti-Hero-inspired Ghost Cat, with the iconic sunglasses. Unfortunately, this cat is kind of giving… chihuahua? Sigh. It’s not my favourite.

October Review

For the first time in FOREVER, I have decided to switch up the left-hand page of my October Review! I just felt like my favourites section was getting a bit stale and I was finding it particularly hard to choose just one song to write down every month. I’ve replaced the old favourites section with a larger ‘October Playlist’, with spaces for 6 of my favourite songs. I’m really looking forward to filling this in! Other than that, the three other sections: WTA Top 10, ATP Top 10 and #1 Memory, have all remained the same.

Another thing I have kept the same is the space for a polaroid on the right-hand page. This month, instead of a typical frame, I opted for another magical cat casting a spell (except here the cat is a wizard, not a witch). This time, I remembered to erase my pencil sketchings before I went in with the coloured pencils, so it was a lot neater and less smudgy!

Final Thoughts

I wasn’t sure how I would feel about this setup- it was very much a last-minute (as you can probably tell from the fact that we are already into October when I’m posting this!), quick and easy setup- much simpler than my usual themes and very different style! However, having started using it already, I really love it! I think the cats are SO cute, the colours give me such Halloween vibes and I think the functionality of the spreads will be really helpful for the month ahead. Making this setup has really put me in a Halloween-y mood, so I’m really looking forward to the rest of the month!

I’d love to hear what you think of this theme- let me know in the comments below!

Gemma

xxx

After much (much) deliberation, I ultimately settled on this cityscape theme for this year. I just love the contrast of the rustic, torn kraft paper and the sharp, black silhouette- it feels simultaneously comforting and dramatic, which I am very much for.

Table of Contents

• Inspiration
• Equipment
• Cover Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Blog Planning + Daily Sunshine
• Weeklies
  • Week 1-2
  • Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• September Review
• Final Thoughts

Inspiration

I took inspiration from a multitude of places (pun… kind of intended?) for this month’s bullet journal setup. First and foremost, as I mentioned, I wanted to work some kraft paper into whatever theme I ended up using, so that was my starting place. With the US Open approaching, as the not-so-subtle tennis fan that I am, my initial idea was to do something with the New York City skyline. While I’m very much a small-town girl (living in a lonely world…?), I have always loved a city skyline. I even have a picture of the London skyline on my bedroom wall! I did a bit of research, but ultimately I decided that I just didn’t have enough knowledge of the architecture in New York to make a whole journal setup inspired by it- I just think it would have felt a bit…superficial? I still liked the idea of a city skyline, but there just isn’t a city that I feel strongly enough connected to to make a whole setup about it. Then, I realised: it doesn’t have to be a full city skyline! I can just take elements of cityscapes from around the world that I like, or that I think would look cool, and place them next to each other for my own, personalised city scape.

Initially, I planned to create my cityscape using a black fineliner and a ruler to make a line art cityscape. When it came down to it though, I just didn’t think I would do a neat enough job to achieve the look I wanted. In the end, I decided to use black paper and a craft knife to cut out a cityscape. It took a little bit of patience, but I think it looks super clean and dramatic- exactly what I wanted!

Equipment

• Kraft paper (I used this brand).
• Black paper.
• Sakura Gelly Roll, 10 Bold, white.
• Muji 0.38mm pen, black.
• Tombow ABT Dual Brush pen, N15 black.
• Glue pen (I used this brand) + a regular glue stick.
• Craft knife + cutting mat.
• Alphabet stamps + ink pad.
• Hole punch.
• Scissors.
• Ruler.
• Pencil.
• Eraser.

Cover Page

I went all out with my cityscape for my cover page. It definitely took me the longest of any of the decorations in this setup, but I didn’t mind putting a little extra effort into this one to make sure it really set the scene for the rest of the setup! I included landmarks from several different cities in this setup: there’s the London Eye and the Shard (both buildings in, as the name of the former suggests, London), then I have the Empire State Building (from New York), the Golden Gate Bridge (from San Francisco) and the Eiffel Tower (from Paris). I chose these structures because they are pretty recognisable (even in a simplified form!) and there is a good array of shapes in there, which gives my cityscape a bit more dimension.

I started out by sketching the cityscape onto some black paper. This will be the back of your cityscape, so remember to draw your buildings back-to-front if they are not symmetrical! After that, I placed the paper onto a cutting mat and used a craft knife to cut along the top of the skyline. From there, I could move the piece about more easily, which made cutting out the intricate details much more straightforward. I cut out the details, working slowly and carefully to make sure I didn’t rip the paper (though I did cut through it a couple of times! No matter though, you can just line the two edges up when you stick the cityscape into your journal). To add extra definition, I added some very fine cut-outs, both where two buildings met each other and within some of the more simply-shaped buildings. This got a little bit tricky where I had the Shard behind the London Eye, but it wasn’t too bad overall!

Once I had my cityscape, I just glued some torn kraft paper into the bottom right-hand corner, then used a glue pen to stick down the cityscape on top of that. I used a glue pen because this cityscape is very fine- if you use a glue stick, you might end up tearing it and ruining all of your hard work! I’ve never actually used a glue pen before, but I have been wanting to try one for ages and I thought this was the perfect excuse. Honestly, I loved it! I hate using glue sticks- I always end up covered in glue no matter how hard I try. The glue pen makes the whole process so much less messy. You have to work speedily, because the adhesive does dry quite quickly and it is surprisingly strong, so you can’t manoeuvre the paper around as much as you can with a glue stick, but, once you get used to it, it’s magical. 10/10, would recommend. I did cut my cityscape in half vertically before sticking it in, so that I could stick it more seamlessly over the seam between the two pages, but that probably isn’t super necessary. After that, all that was left to do was to add the ‘September’ heading, which I made using the capital letter stamps in my alphabet stamp set. And there you have it, my September cover page!

Monthly Calendar

As always, I like to use a full double-page spread for my monthly calendar, so that I have plenty of space to write in all the important dates for the month. I started by decorating the page with another (more simplified) cityscape, so that the cityscape would lie behind the calendar, almost as if it is in the distance. To make this cityscape, I followed the same process that I used for the cover page cityscape, but kept all the buildings as basic rectangles. I tried to vary the size, shape and position of the windows to add some intrigue, and, as with the first cityscape, I cut small incisions between each building to add definition. Again, I used my glue pen to stick down the cityscape.

For the calendar, I stuck two rectangles of kraft paper onto the spread. I wanted to get a rustic, torn look, but I still wanted the rectangles to be quite neat (i.e., not ripped all over the place and looking more like triangles!). To do this, I drew out my rectangle, making sure to place it about 5mm in from the edges of the paper. Then, I lightly scored along each of the lines (you can do this by placing a ruler on the line, then gently dragging a craft knife/open pair of scissors along the ruler), before tearing along each scored line. This method will help you to achieve a more even tear, so that your kraft paper looks rustic, but intentionally rustic.

On top of each kraft paper box, I drew a grid of 25x25mm boxes using my Muji 0.38mm pen. For the dates, I used a hole punch and some black paper to make lots of little black dots, which I then stuck into the bottom right-hand corner of each box using a small dot of glue from my glue pen. Once they were all stuck down, I wrote the dates on each dot using my white Sakura Gelly Roll. After that, I just stamped out the September heading with the same capital letter alphabet stamps as the cover page.

Blog Planning + Daily Sunshine

Next up, we have the page that I use for planning my blog content. If you’ve been here for a little while, you might have seen this spread evolving over the past few months, as I have been rearranging, reworking and renaming it on a monthly basis, trying to create a spread that suits my needs. Last month, I trialled some mini to-do lists, one for each post, in this spread and I found it really helpful. This month, I’ve decided to make the to-do lists a little less ‘mini’ and dedicate the whole page to them! As a result, this spread is comprised of 4 kraft paper boxes (made using the same scoring + tearing technique as the calendar on the previous spread), one for each post. Like my calendar spread, I used the black dots from the hole punch and a white pen for the labels. The heading was made using the same capital letter alphabet stamps and I kept the decoration on this page very minimal, with just two little skyscraper silhouettes.

As always with my Daily Sunshine page, I like to leave as much space as possible for myself to write out my happy memories & positive thoughts, so I only had a small amount of space to play around with in terms of decoration. In the end, I went for another cityscape running along the top of the page, above the heading, which I stamped onto a kraft paper strip. To spice things up a little bit, I also added two black lines, one thick and one thin, which I drew using my Tombow N15 and Muji 0.38mm pen, respectively. I used the same Tombow to draw out a rectangle, 30 lines tall (one per day), for writing down my happy notes, then stuck a strip of black paper down the left-hand side, onto which I wrote out the dates for the month in my white Sakura Gelly Roll.

Weeklies

As always, I’m using tabs to separate my weekly spreads in this setup. I like to do this so that I can easily navigate between the pages, but I also like the way it creates some distinction between my weekly spreads and the rest of the monthly pages. This month, I opted to use slightly longer tabs than usual, because I knew I wanted to fit the month into 4 spreads, instead of the typical 5. I covered both sides of the tabs with black paper, then stuck a strip of kraft paper onto both the left-hand side of the very first weekly and the right-hand side of my September Review page, so that the tabs would lie against the kraft paper, no matter how you looked at them.

I kept each of the 4 weeklies pretty consistent in terms of setup/decoration. Much like the rest of this setup, every heading is made with the capital letter alphabet stamps, which I also used to indicate the day of the week for each daily task list. All of the daily task lists, notes boxes and master task lists are made with kraft paper boxes, while all of the dates are made from the same black dot/white pen combination that I have used throughout the setup. For the longer subheadings, I used a small strip of black paper (about 5mm thick) and used the same white pen to write the heading in a simple, lowercase font. To decorate the pages, I stuck a simplified cityscape along the bottom of each weekly spread, so that, as you turn the page, the skyline just seems to keep going and going!

Week 1-2

Because there are only 3 days in the first week of September, I opted to combine them with the second week and make a single spread for the first 10 days of the month. To do this, I created a 5×2 grid of kraft paper boxes, starting from the bottom left of the spread, for my daily task lists. I used the remaining room at the top of the right-hand page for a notes section, then the remaining space on the right for a master task list. I placed the header in the space in the top left.

Week 3

The second weekly spread spanned a single week, so it was much more straightforward to create. I opted to use square kraft boxes for my daily task lists, then filled the remaining space on the left-hand page with an elongated box for my master task lists and a smaller box for notes. On this spread, I put the header in the bottom right.

Week 4

I went back to basics with the third weekly spread and used my favourite long & thin boxes for my daily/master task lists. My box for notes went at the top of the right-hand page, opposite the header.

Week 5

I have to admit, I don’t really like using horizontal boxes in my weeklies, but I always seem to end up making at least one spread with horizontal daily task lists. Sigh. It’s a curse. The final day of September falls on a Saturday this year, but, as always, I like to be able to see my whole week at a glance, so I did include the first day of October in this spread as well. I placed my notes box on the far left and my task box on the far right, while the daily task lists are all in the centre, with the heading in the bottom left.

September Review

Nothing all that new with my Review page this month- I still have a space for a polaroid on the right-hand page and 4 sections for monthly roundups on the left-hand page (as always, there’s one box each for the WTA/ATP Top 10, one for my monthly favourites and one for my #1 memory). I continued on with the same decoration as my weeklies, with the skyline placed across the bottom and the kraft paper boxes, black paper subheadings and stamped header.

Final Thoughts

I am IN LOVE with this setup. I’ve been doing some more doodle-y themes over the past few months, which, while they’re fun and cute, just aren’t really my forte. I feel much more at home doing these slightly more dramatic, collage-based themes.

As an added bonus, I feel so much more confident with a craft knife after making this setup, which I think is a good skill to have! While it took a little bit of time to make all of the cityscapes for this setup, I think that the technique has such a high payoff in terms of impact.

Also, two important things to take away from this post:

1. Kraft paper is love, kraft paper is life.
2. Glue pens are magical and I love them.

I hope you like this cityscape bullet journal setup! Have you been to any of the cities featured on my cover page? I’ve only been to London and San Francisco, but I’d love to go to New York and Paris as well one day!

Gemma

xxx

Anyway, let’s get into it, shall we?

Table of Contents

• Inspiration
• Equipment
• Cover Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Projects + Daily Sunshine
• Weeklies
  • Week 1
  • Week 2
  • Week 3
  • Week 4
  • Week 5
• August Review
• Final Thoughts

Inspiration

Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) has a very romantic, fairytale-esque vibe, so I tried to reflect that in my setup this month. I tried to incorporate some more ornate elements, as well as some slightly more detailed doodles to really reflect my source material. As usual, I completely overestimated my artistic abilities. My drawing are… not perfect (cursed hand, I’m looking at you), but I think they still convey the right vibe! Also, this setup is a veritable explosion of purple. In my defence, Speak Now has always been Swift’s ‘purple’ album, so I just had to do it, really.

A couple of (slightly more niche) sub-inspirations (is that a word? Probably not, but it will have to do): I have recently begun a collection of Taylor Swift vinyls (because, well, take my money, Taylor), so I did refer to my new Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) vinyl (I got the Orchid colourway) for some extra inspiration! One of the recurring elements in this setup, the torn purple paper, is inspired by the inside cover, as shown above.

At the time of writing, Swift has released one music video for the new album, for the song I Can See You (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault). The music video doesn’t necessarily fit the vibe I had in my head for this setup (it has a heist storyline- not really the flowery, purple fairytale I was rolling), but there was one thing that caught my eye: the gold picture frame. In fact, a gold frame was also featured in the promotional content for the album, posted by Taylor Nation, on Instagram. I think the latter may have been an Easter egg for the music video, but no matter- I knew I just had to include a gold frame in my setup. In fact, I ended up including 2! They’re not the same shape/style as the one in the video, because I wanted a slightly more romantic, fanciful vibe, but I think they are still a fun nod to the video.

As I mentioned before, I waited until I’d heard the ‘Vault’ tracks on the album before sketching out this setup (side note: I think these might be my favourite ‘Vault’ tracks, out of the three albums Swift has re-released- I found the others a little hit-or-miss, but these are all firmly hits for me!). Most of the doodles, therefore, are inspired by the 6 new song- with a couple of exceptions, here and there.

In terms of fonts, the back cover of the album includes two very distinct fonts: there is the ‘Speak Now’ cursive font, which is pretty similar to Swift’s handwriting, and the standard ‘Taylor’s Version’ font, which is a fine, block capital font with slightly thicker down strokes. I made use of both of these fonts within my setup. On the whole, I use the cursive font for headings/titles and the block capitals for subheadings and quotes.

Anyway, enough chit-chat. Let’s look at the equipment you’ll need to recreate this setup in your own bullet journal.

Equipment

• Muji 0.38mm pen, black.
• Uni-ball Signo Broad, gold.
• Tombow ABT Dual Brush pens: 623 (Purple Sage), 606 (Violet), 990 (Light Sand) and a selection of grey shades, from this pack.
• Crayola SuperTips: mainly purple shades (purple, plum, wisteria & heather), but also some other rainbow shades for the fireworks. (SuperTips don’t have ‘names’, so these are my best estimations of the shades. The exact pens that I used are from a combination of this pastel pack and this assorted pack).
• Kuretake clean colour dot pens, mild colors (for this setup, I only used the purple shade from this pack).
• Gold glitter paper (this stuff is great– it doesn’t shed and it’s easy to cut. The back of each piece of paper is white, so you can easily sketch out your designs before cutting, and it’s not as thick as regular card, so it’s great for bullet journalling!).
• Purple lined paper.
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Scissors

Cover Page

Like in my May 2023, Bridgerton-inspired bullet journal setup, I wanted to use a whole double-page spread for my cover page this month. Usually, I opt for putting my cover page on the right-hand side and a quote page on the left, but I had a vision for this setup.

This is one of two pages that feature a gold frame. To make the frame, I used the gold glitter paper and sketched out a scalloped frame on the back, before cutting it out. Within the frame, I drew (my best attempt at) a castle (partly crumbling, of course), with some dragons (an ode to Long Live) and some fireworks (an ode to both Sparks Fly and Dear John). I used a variety of grey shades from the grey Tombow pack for the castle/dragons and a selection of rainbow colours from my two SuperTips packs for the fireworks. I really wanted this drawing to have lots of little references to songs from the album, but also to convey that magical, almost childlike, fairytale vibe. I also added some torn purple paper, for extra decoration. For the monthly header, I tried to mimic the font used for the title on the album’s back cover, using two different shades of purple (I used the fine tip of my 606 and 623 Tombow pens), and added some little heart/star/twinkle doodles around it, almost like confetti, using my plum and wisteria SuperTips.

If I’m being honest, I feel like this cover page doesn’t quite live up to the rest of the setup. I don’t know if it’s just because there’s less purple on it, or because of my lack of drawing ability, but it’s just not my favourite? On the bright side, all the little Speak Now references do make my heart very happy, so it’s not all bad!

Monthly Calendar

Time is a major theme throughout the album, so I knew that I wanted to incorporate some clocks into this spread (I mean, one of the ‘Vault’ songs is literally called Timeless). I opted to use a traditional, pocket watch style for my clocks, and created a cascade of them, using my Uni-ball gold pen, going down the side of my monthly calendar. I even made sure to have some clocks pointing to specific times that are referenced in the album’s lyrics!

Aside from the clock cascade, this monthly calendar was pretty simple: I opted for my typical calendar grid, with a 6×6 box for each day. I used my purple Kuretake dot pen for the dates. For the title, I used the same two-tone style as my cover page, along with the little confetti doodles.

Projects + Daily Sunshine

Last month, I included a ‘hub’ spread in my journal for the first time. I liked it, but I’m still tinkering with it to make sure it is as useful to me as possible. This month, we have a slightly adapted version of the ‘hub’, which I have called ‘projects’ (even though it is really just my notes for this blog!). One of the ‘Vault’ songs in the album has an antique shop as its setting, so I decided to channel that vibe into this spread. I used my heather SuperTip and Uni-ball gold pen to make an ornate, shop sign-style header at the top. Speak Now also contains a lot of references to books (both directly and indirectly), so I figured this antique shop spread would be a good place to include some little easter eggs for those. In terms of content, I have a space for my scheduled posts for August, as well as any notes. I then have a larger space at the bottom, where I can fill in any specific tasks I need to do for each post. I’m hoping this will help me stay ahead of my tasks and not leave them until the last minute! For each of these boxes, I used a more traditional style for the boxes, with inverted corners, in which I drew a little gold heart.

Moving on to the Daily Sunshine spread. I must confess, it’s not… my favourite? Similarly to the cover page, I just don’t feel like it fits in very well with the rest of the setup. Nevertheless, it is one of my most used spreads every month, so I’ll have to get over it. Serendipitously, the lined paper I had been using for decoration throughout the setup had exactly 31 lines on it, the same number of days in July, so I decided to just use a sheet of that for this spread. The lines on the paper are slightly thinner than those in my bullet journal, so I had more space for my header, which, you guessed it, I made in that same two-tone style, with confetti doodles around it.

Weeklies

As always, I am using tabs to separate my weekly spreads. For the tabs, I used the 5 main purple pens that I have used throughout this setup (4x SuperTips and 1x Tombow (623)), one for each tab, arranging them in a gradient. I usually like to place something in front and behind the tabs, so they really pop, but I thought they looked nice against the white, so I just left the spaces blank instead.

For all of my weeklies, I included a little doodle with a song lyric from the album. Other than that, and the differing layouts, all the weeklies are pretty similar: they all include a cursive header that reads ‘August’, with the ‘Taylor’s Version’ font for the dates/subheadings. Pretty much all of the boxes have inverted corners with gold hearts and the subheadings for the boxes are written along purple ribbons (I used my Tombow 623 for this). Each main header is also decorated with some torn paper and more confetti doodles.

Week 1

The first week of August only has 6 days, so I had space for a larger header. For this page, I included a doodle of a phone, because telephones and phone calls pop up a lot in the album’s lyrics! Admittedly, most of the lyrics that refer to phones are a little depressing, so I opted to include the nicest one, from the ‘Vault’ song, When Emma Falls In Love.

Week 2

I can’t help but laugh when I look at this setup and that is because of one thing and one thing only: the CURSED HAND IN THE TOP RIGHT CORNER. I mean… look at it. I think I must have been labouring under some false sense of confidence when I decided that I, with my next-to-no drawing skills, was capable of drawing a hand and now we all have to live with the consequences. Anyway, I left it in because a) it makes me laugh and b) I’m not even sure I could do it any better. Anyway, this week’s quote is from another ‘Vault’ song from the album, Electric Touch (which features Fall Out Boy- random, huh?).

Week 3

I shook things up a little for Week 3 and used larger purple ‘sparkles’ for my dates. Because these naturally have inverted corners, I felt that using the same corners for the boxes alongside them might be a bit too much, so I opted for plain rectangles. I did, however, bring back the heart corners for my note and task boxes! The doodle for this week was definitely the easiest one to create: it’s just a super simple US-style mailbox, an ode to the ‘Vault’ song Foolish One.

Week 4

For Week 4, I returned to the heart corner boxes for all of my sections. I ended up having a much larger space for decoration at the bottom of the right-hand page, so I braved a moth drawing. I was pretty proud of my moth, but then, of course, I coloured it purple and now it just feels like a butterfly. Also, I gave it creepy legs. Sigh. Anyway, this drawing was inspired by the new line in Better than Revenge (which is randomly controversial, but I really like it!). I also added a little nod to Dear John on the match box.

Week 5

The final week in this setup contains the last 4 days in August and the first 3 days in September. As always, I like to include a little space for each of the days in the upcoming month, just so I can always see the whole week at a glance. For this spread, I kept the August days on the left-hand page and put the September days on the right-hand page, along with my task and note boxes. For decoration, I included a doodle ode to the numerous references throughout the album to letters, love letters and notes. For the note, I used my Tombow 990, to achieve that parchment-y kind of vibe.

August Review

I think this spread might just be my favourite in the whole setup! As I mentioned earlier, I left a blank space on the right for the tabs, but the rest is very standard in terms of my typical review spread. On the left-hand page, I have spaces for my monthly favourites, my #1 memory from the month and the ATP/WTA top 10. On the right-hand page, I have space for a polaroid in the gold frame, which I made in exactly the same way as the larger one on the cover page. I doodled some roses along the bottom, as an ode to Back to December, and coloured them in with my plum and wisteria SuperTips. For the header, I used the same cursive font for ‘August’, over the top of the torn paper, then the ‘Taylor’s Version’ font for ‘review’.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I think this setup really conveys the romantic, nostalgic, fairytale that I was aiming for. I have to admit, the cover and daily sunshine pages aren’t my favourite, but I really love my weeklies and review page, in particular. I really did challenge myself with all the drawn elements in this setup (the HAND, I am truly sorry), so I’m proud of that, but I definitely think that I’ll be going for a much less drawing-heavy theme for September!

Have you listened to Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) yet? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Gemma

xxx

Anyway, let’s get into it, shall we?

Table of Contents

• Inspiration
• Equipment
• Cover + Quote Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Hub + Daily Sunshine
• Weeklies
  • Week 1
  • Week 2
  • Week 3
  • Week 4
• July Review
• Final Thoughts

Inspiration

If you’ve been following the blog for a while now, you’ll know that one of my great loves in this life is tennis (watching it, not playing). It was inevitable, therefore, that a tennis-themed setup would eventually work its way into my bullet journal and I’m thrilled to announce that the time has finally come. With Wimbledon coming up next month, it seemed only right to make my July bullet journal setup Wimbledon-themed.

I am IN LOVE with the official poster for Wimbledon 2023. It was created by illustrator Eric van den Boom and, not to be dramatic, but I think it might be one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. I mean, the greenery, the purple highlights, all the little Wimbledon references (though I can’t quite figure out the bird in the top right- any guesses?)- it’s brilliant. I knew I wanted to use this poster as inspiration for my setup, but I also knew that a recreation would be wayyyy past my artistic capabilities. I settled for taking some key elements of the poster (the strawberries, roses, tennis balls, foliage and plaque-style header) and running with that purple/green Wimbledon theme, with a couple of gold touches here and there. The result is a super simplified, much more doodle-y, very distant cousin of the above artwork, but I really love how it turned out. It’s cheery, fun and super summer-y, while still being very Wimbledon.

There’s also a couple of doodles throughout the setup that might seem a bit out of place, but I couldn’t resist dropping in a few tributes to my favourite player. Can you spot them and guess who it is?

Equipment

• Muji 0.38mm pen, black.
• Sakura Gelly Roll, 10 Bold, white.
• Uni-ball Signo Broad, gold.
• Tombow ABT Dual Brush pens: N45 (cool grey 10), N89 (warm grey 1) and 990 (light sand).
• Crayola SuperTips: red, orange, yellow, lime green, sage green, bottle green, khaki, lilac. (The exact shades I use are from a combination of this pastel pack and this assorted pack).
• Ruler
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Eraser

Cover + Quote Page

I kept it simple with my Cover Page this month- just a couple of Wimbledon-themed doodles, inspired by the 2023 poster, adorning a purple plaque. The same four doodles are used throughout this setup. All the outlines are done with a Muji 0.38 pen. I coloured the strawberry in with my red & khaki SuperTips, then used with the gold Uni-ball pen for the seeds. For the tennis ball, I used my yellow SuperTip. For the tennis racket, I used my N45 Tombow. Finally, for the rose, I coloured in the petals using my 990 Tombow and used my sage green SuperTip for the leaves. I used the gold Uni-ball pen for the header on the purple plaque. I also added drop shadows to the letters, using my white Sakura gelly roll, to help them stand out.

My quote for this month is lifted directly from the Centre Court Players’ Entrance at Wimbledon and is an excerpt from Rudyard Kipling’s poem, If. I wrote the quote in block capitals using my Muji 0.38 pen, then decorated the page with a gold border and some ivy, again, drawing on the foliage of the 2023 poster. For the ivy, I used my sage green SuperTip, then highlighted each leaf with the bottle green SuperTip.

Monthly Calendar

A simple calendar grid this month of 6×6 squares, which I made with my Muji 0.38 pen. I replicated the plaque-style header from my cover page for the July title, then used a slightly simplified version of that purple plaque to list the days of the week along the top.. I also included some more Wimbledon doodles down the left-hand side. For the dates, I alternated between green and purple dots, with the date written on top in my Muji 0.38 pen.

Would it be my bullet journal if I didn’t make a mistake? You can probably see the extra 2 boxes at the end of my calendar grid- I lost track of my lines! I opted to fill them in with my N89 Tombow (which, unfortunately, is running out of ink), to remind myself that there are not, in fact, 33 days in July. Sigh. It was a bit of a comedy of errors, to be honest!

Hub + Daily Sunshine

My Hub page is a new spread I am trialling this month. I included my usual Kanban Board in my Mid-Year Setup at the start of this journal, which eliminated the need for the two-page spread every month. However, I do like having a place to list my content/projects for the month, so I created this ‘Hub’. For this spread, I drew a (rough) outline of a tennis court, using my lime green Crayola SuperTip and used 3 of the sections within the court to house 3 categories: Projects, Posts & Notes. The subheadings are a little hard to read, but luckily I know what they are! If I were to make this spread again, I think I would just use my Muji 0.38 pen to write out the headers in block capitals on top of the purple boxes.

My Daily Sunshine spread is a staple in my bullet journal: every day I note down something positive that happened. It’s a great way to end each day, reflecting on the good moments rather than ruminating on the bad. Similarly to my monthly calendar spread, I alternated between green and purple dots for the dates down the right hand side. I also defined every other line with my N89 Tombow, to add a little more dimension.

Weeklies

As always, I’ve used tabs to split up my weekly spreads. I coloured each tab in using my purple and sage green SuperTips, alternating the colours.

Week 1

July starts on a Saturday this year, so I decided to merge the first 2 days of July with the 1st full week in my bullet journal. As a result, 9 of the 12 boxes on the right-hand side are taken up by my daily to-do lists. The other 3 boxes are for notes, tasks and events next week.

Week 2

I used 8 vertical boxes for this weekly spread, using the final box for my task list. I also learnt from my earlier mistakes here and used my Muji 0.38 pen to write my smaller subheadings, instead of the Uni-ball gold.

Week 3

I really ran with the ivy in my third weekly- it’s everywhere! To make it stand out more, I outlined it with white anywhere that it crossed either the purple or dark grey.

Week 4

A slightly simpler layout for the final week (+ 1 day) of July. As usual, I’ve left some space for filling in dates coming up in August, just to help myself to look ahead.

July Review

My July Review layout follows the exact same pattern as my other monthly setups: I have space for a polaroid photo on the right-hand page, then 4 sections on the left-hand page for my monthly favourites, the ATP & WTA Top 10 and my #1 memory from the month. Much like my ‘Hub’ page, I used a vague tennis court-shape to divide up the right-hand page. For my polaroid frame, I combined all the decorative elements I have used throughout this setup into a kind of overgrown-looking, intentional mess. I really love how it turned out!

Final Thoughts

As I mentioned at the start, this setup is a strange hybrid of simple and complex: there’s a lot of doodling, but the doodles themselves are pretty simple. I also feel a little like my cover page started out super tasteful and subtle and then the spreads got progressively more decorative and over the top, but I don’t hate that! There are a couple of things I would change/do differently if I were to do this spread again, but, overall, it gives me major fun & summer-y Wimbledon vibes and that’s really all I need!

Let me know what you think! Will you be watching Wimbledon this year? Let me know- we can be tennis friends!

Gemma

xxx

Table of Contents

• Basics
  • New Journal for July-December
  • Inspiration + Concept
  • Layout
• Equipment
• Initial Pages
  • Inside Cover: Master To-Do List + Name Plate
  • Goals + Cover Page
  • Future Log
  • 2024 at a Glance
  • Tennis Schedule
• Health Section
  • Year in Pixels + Health Cover Page
  • Exercise + Prescription Trackers
  • Medical Timeline + Appointment Notes
  • Challenges
  • Routine
  • Self-Reflection
• Blog Section
  • Hub + Blog Cover Page
  • Post Tracker + Schedule
  • Kanban Board
  • Projects
• Finance Section
  • Financial Plan + Finance Cover Page
  • Savings + Income Streams
  • Wish List
• Books & TV Section
  • 2023 Reading Stats + Books & TV Cover Page
  • TV Show + Reading Trackers
  • To Watch, Read + Buy
• Final Thoughts

Basics

New Journal for July-December

For the last 6 months, I’ve been using the Sakura Polaroid A5 Dot Grid Journal from Coral & Ink, a small business that specialises in kawaii stationery, which is based here in the UK. You can read more about that journal in my 2023 Bullet Journal Setup post, but, in short, I really loved it! The gilded edges are so pretty and the paper is really high quality- I used watercolour paint, markers and pens in my setups over the last 6 months and didn’t experience any bleeding through the pages (which is a big win in my books!). I also had a lovely customer experience with the company. My only slight problem with the journal was that I had to stop using the ribbon bookmarks, because they started to unravel after just a little while of use.

For the next 6 months, I’ll be using the Jungle at Night Journal, from Scribble and Dot. I’m a big fan of the Scribble and Dot journals- in fact, the majority of the journals I have used in my time bullet journalling have been from the brand! One thing to note about the Scribble and Dot journals though- I have noticed a discrepancy in the paper among the journals. The paper in my first journal (the pale blue dachshund journal– which I think may have been discontinued from their website? So sad- it was so cute!) had a much more off-white tone, whereas the Jungle at Night Journal (and indeed the yellow honey bee journal, which I have used twice!) have bright white paper. This isn’t a major problem, but it is definitely something to bear in mind. Nevertheless, this new journal is so pretty. It’s a different style to the journals I usually prefer, but it’s cheery in a subtle, sophisticated kind of way and I’m very excited to start using it!

Inspiration + Concept

If you saw my 2023 Bullet Journal Setup, you’ll know that I like to include a large number of spreads at the start of each of my bullet journals. There are two main reasons for this: firstly, I use my bullet journal to keep track of multiple different areas of my life. As a result, I need lots of different, targeted spreads to make my bullet journal fit my specific needs. Secondly, I prefer to keep the contents of my monthly setups as limited as possible. When I have a large number of varied spreads at the start of each journal, I need fewer spreads in my individual monthlies. My energy levels throughout the year are super inconsistent, so having more flexibility with my monthly setups helps to alleviate some of the pressure that comes with setting up a bullet journal. If my energy levels are particularly low one month, I can create a super simple, limited setup that preserves the functionality of my journal, without wearing me out. If my energy levels are higher, I can channel that extra energy into the theme for the month and unleash my creativity, instead of using it up on the contents.

Because my mid-year bullet journal setup is so extensive, then, I decided to utilise a much more minimal design for my new journal. I was particularly inspired by this setup by @journalspiration on Instagram, as well as the exclusively black & white spreads by @supermassiveblackink on Instagram. For my design, I used a bold, traditional font (which I loosely based on Didot– if you’re interested in that kind of thing), using only the lowercase letters for a softer feel. Throughout the setup, as you’ll see, the headings serve as the main decorative element. For non-header text, I used a simple lowercase print, either using my Muji 0.38mm or my white Sakura Gelly Roll on top of my black Tombow Fudenosuke. The white Gelly Roll won’t write super well on top of all pens (including the Tombow Dual Brush pens, as I found out), but I found that I could write on top of the Fudenosuke with it perfectly- the white ink was still opaque and defined.

Layout

Because I have so many spreads within my new bullet journal setups, I like to split them into sections. At the start of the journal, I have a number of general spreads: mainly calendars, for keeping track of dates, appointments and tennis (obviously), with a couple of goals/master to-do lists as well. I then split the rest of the spreads into 4 sections: Health (both mental and physical), Blog (where I plan/organise my content for this blog!), Finance and, finally, Books & TV. Each section has a mini ‘cover page’ and the pages within each section are split up by tabs. I like to use tabs in my setups to divide up the pages and make it more easy to access certain spreads. This time around, I used my standard tab shape and coloured each tab black, using my Tombow Fudenosuke Pen.

Now we’ve covered all the basics, we can get into the setup itself, starting with the equipment I used…

Equipment

• Muji 0.38mm pen, black.
• Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pen, Hard Tip, black.
• Tombow Dual Brush Pen, black (N15).
• Sakura Gelly Roll, 10 Bold, white.
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Eraser
• Scissors

Initial Pages

As I mentioned previously, my initial pages are mainly a selection of calendars, which I use to track upcoming dates, appointments and, most importantly, tennis matches (more on that later). I also have a cover page (this is not only for aesthetic reasons- it also makes it easier for me to reference previous events in my old journals if I can quickly see which dates each journal contains. Finally, I have a Master To-Do List and a space to write out some goals for the next 6 months.

Inside Cover: Master To-Do List + Name Plate

Most journals come with a space to write your name on the very first page, and this one from Scribble and Dot is no different- I wrote my name in the font that I use throughout the setup.

I didn’t want to waste the space on the inside cover, so I decided to put my Master To-Do List there. This is a new spread for me- I intend to use it to jot down bigger tasks that don’t necessarily need to be done immediately, but that I would like to do at some point (things like sorting through my wardrobe or organising my bookshelves).

Goals + Cover Page

For my Cover Page, I tried to mimic the layout of the cover page in my previous bullet journal, just using the more minimal design of this setup. Doing this ties the two journals together, so, even though a new journal always signifies a fresh start to me, it still feels like the journals form two halves of one year.

Opposite my Cover Page, I put a space for Goals. I like to include this spread in my journals to keep me on track and feeling motivated, but I often find that my goals end up being unhelpfully vague. This time around, I’ve made 4 defined sections, which I will fill with 4 defined, attainable goals. I’m hoping that limiting myself in this way will make me more productive in my attempts to achieve those goals.

Future Log

The next double-page spread is my Future Log– essentially a detailed calendar for the next 6 months. The mini calendars at the top allow me to visualise each month and the vertical columns underneath provide me with space to write down important dates/appointments. When it comes to filling in my larger, monthly calendars in my monthly setups, this spread is my first point of reference. I also find that this spread is particularly helpful for booking doctor’s appointments in advance, because I can see all my dates for the next 6 months super easily.

2024 at a Glance

As we enter the final months of the year, appointments and bookings inevitably start to drift into the new year. It’s important for me to have a space to note these down so that I don’t feel completely lost by the time January comes around and, god forbid, accidentally miss an appointment. Enter: my 2024 at a Glance spread. Again, this spread includes mini calendars for each month, so that I can visualise the months at a glance, as well as small spaces for important events. I don’t need a lot of space per month here, because I only need to note down a couple of appointments every now and then.

If the bottom of this spread looks a bit funny to you- it’s because it is a bit funny. I have this thing where I always seem to miss out September when I am writing out the months of the year (???) and that happened on this spread. To fix it, I just removed a page from the back of the journal, cut off the bottom part and stuck it over the top using double-sided tape. No bullet journal is perfect- but it’s all about finding ways of fixing (or embracing!) your mistakes!

Tennis Schedule

Now we come to the part of my bullet journal that outs me as the obsessive fangirl that I really am… my Tennis Schedule. This is a spread I introduced into my last bullet journal and I LOVED IT. I like to be able to whip my schedule out when my brother asks me what tournaments are on next week, to see at a glance who has won what tournament and to be able to count down the weeks until the next Grand Slam. It brings me joy, so, naturally, I dedicate 4 pages of my bullet journal to it. #noregrets.

Also, no, I do not play tennis (I’m not even sure I could get the ball over the net), but yes, I am always watching it. I use this spread more often than any sane person could possibly imagine.

In a similar setup to my last bullet journal, I used two Dutch Doors to give myself more space. Essentially, this spread uses a table format to record all the information: the numbers down the middle represent the weeks, then the right-hand side contains information about the ATP tour (men’s tennis), while the left-hand side contains information about the WTA tour (women’s tennis). Each side contains 3 columns: one for the winner of the tournament (to be filled in after each tournament concludes), one for the location/name of the tournament and one for the date on which it starts. Last year, I used a colour-coding system to indicate the level of each tournament, but I wanted to keep this setup black and white, so I had to get a bit creative with my code: 250 tournaments are represented by a circle with 1/4 filled in black, 500 tournaments are represented by a circle with 1/2 filled in with black, 1000 tournaments are represented by a circle 3/4 filled in with black and Grand Slams are represented by an entirely black circle. Group tournaments and tour finals are represented by a star.

Health Section

Now we come to the first separate section in my bullet journal setup: Health. As someone with a chronic illness, this section is particularly important for me- it allows me to keep track of my appointments, my wellbeing and my medication.

Year in Pixels + Health Cover Page

My cover page for this section (and, indeed, all of the others too) is super minimal- just the title of the section, written in the font I use throughout the setup. The cover page (and subsequent pages- until the last subsection) is cut into a slight Dutch Door to make room for the tabs.

I decided to place my Year in Pixels page opposite my cover page. This is a spread that I love to include in my bullet journals, as it allows me to keep an eye on how I’m feeling, both mentally and physically. I find this is particularly helpful for tracking things like periods of low mood/anxiety and fatigue (I often reference this spread when evaluating my medications with my doctors), but it can also be encouraging to see the more positive periods, when they come. I have always used a colour-coded system with this spread, and, even though it pains me to mar the black and white minimalism of this setup, I think I will have to continue with that in this journal. The best thing about this spread is that you can see patterns at a quick glance- without the colours, not only would my recordings have to be less specific/varied, but it would be much harder to see those all-important trends.

Exercise + Prescription Trackers

The Exercise Tracker is not a new addition to my bullet journal, but I have adapted it slightly to make it more fit for purpose. I have replaced the weekly sections I used in my last journal with more mini calendars- I am hoping this will make it easier to spot days when I have forgotten to fill it in! I have also introduced a more specific key, so that I can track my exercise in more detail.

My Prescription Tracker is exactly the same as its previous iteration. The black column on the left is for the date, then I have space to track the number of tablets that I have (on that date) of 8 different medicines (one per column), along with how many days that equates to and, finally, when that means my medication supply will run out. I fill this in whenever I receive a new lot of medicine from my chemist and, once I know when it will run out, I put a note in my Future Log, 2 weeks before that date, to order more. I tend to count all of my medications anytime I receive a new prescription- that way, if I have miscounted or misplaced a packet/tablet, I can sort the problem as soon as possible. A top tip if you decide to try this method: you can search online for ’60 days from today’ (or even ’60 days from [a specific date]) and the magic of the internet will tell you when your medicine runs out. This is much quicker and more accurate than counting the days yourself (like I did for a good long while, until I realised I am a modern woman who lives in the digital age…).

Medical Timeline + Appointment Notes

Often when you talk to doctors, they will ask you when you had a certain procedure, infusion or appointment. It can often feel a bit like a pop quiz- one you are pretty much doomed to fail because, hello, who remembers the exact dates of appointments from a year ago? Definitely NOT me. Enter my Medical Timeline spread. I have 2 sections: 2023 and Important. In the 2023 section, I will write down significant events that have happened this year. In the Important section, I will write down the particularly important events that have happened prior to this year. That way, when a doctor springs a request for some spurious date on me, I’ll be ready.

Opposite my medical timeline, I have a space for Appointment Notes. I often find that I forget what has been said in my appointments after a month or so, so I have created a space here to note down when the appointment was and the key points that were discussed during it. Hopefully, this will minimise the stress of trying to remember specific instructions/discussions later on.

Challenges

Something I struggle with a lot is feeling very anxious and letting that worry stop me from doing scary things. In my last journal, I included a 123 Challenges in 2023 spread, in which I recorded the things I did even though they scared me. Initially, I set this up to encourage myself to do more scary things, but it became a lot more than that. It was great for encouraging myself, but it was also great for giving myself a sense of pride after doing the thing. I even added in some challenges after I did them, so I could look back and see all the scary things I ended up doing. Anyway, I ended up racing through my 123 challenges, so I decided to set the spread up again in this journal, with 123 more challenges. When I complete each challenge, I will colour the bullet point next to it black.

Routine

Maintaining a good routine is something that is so important for both my physical and mental health, but it is something I personally struggle with a great deal. I have introduced this Routine spread in my bullet journal to try and encourage and support myself as I try to incorporate a healthy level of routine into my life. On the left-hand page, I have a space for listing tasks that I would like to do on a weekly basis, on a set day. Beside that, I have a space for routine tasks I would ideally like to do in the morning and tasks I would like to do in the evening.

Knowing that I struggle with routine as I do, I knew that if I set a super-ambitious routine for myself, I would inevitably let it slip and struggle to get back into it, rendering this spread useless pretty quickly. Because of this, I decided to use the right-hand page as a place to re-evaluate and reset my expectations of my routine each month. This way, if I decide that one element of my routine isn’t working, I can use this space to adapt it, trial that new approach for a month and, as the months go on, I will hopefully get closer and closer to a sustainable, achievable routine that works for me.

Self-Reflection

This spread is another new addition to my bullet journal this time around. So much has gone on over the past few years, both globally, what with the pandemic and the lockdowns, and personally, for me, that I sometimes feel a little bit lost. This spread, which I’m calling my Self-Reflection spread, is my attempt to re-evaluate what matters most to me. I’m hoping that listing out a few core principles will help me to understand myself better. Primarily, this spread is an exercise in getting to know myself, but, once I have filled it out, it will become a reference page that I can use to remind myself of who I am when things get a little bit too chaotic.

Blog Section

The second section in my setup is for planning the content for this blog. Having these spreads helps me to keep on top of the content I am creating and to organise any ideas I have.

Hub + Blog Cover Page

The cover page for this section uses the same layout as the previous section’s cover page.

Opposite the cover page is my Hub. There is a space for the Hex codes of the colours I use in my branding- I often need to refer to these when making the pins for my posts! I also have spaces to keep track of both ongoing post series (like my Taylor Swift Cupcakes series!) and my Instagram growth (you can check out my Instagram here!).

Post Tracker + Schedule

Next up, I have a space to keep track of my posts. The Post Tracker on the left-hand page follows the same format as my Exercise Tracker but, instead of exercise, I will be tracking when/on which platform I post.

My Post Schedule, on the right-hand page, is where I will note down my upcoming posts for each month, so I can look ahead to them and get started early. The first column indicates the month, the second will be used for the intended publication date and the final column will be where I write the name of the post.

Kanban Board

For the past few months, I have included a Kanban Board in each of my monthly setups (I talk more about Kanban boards in this post– if you’re interested in finding out more about the technique). Instead of making a brand new board every month, I decided to make a master spread at the start of the journal to save time. Because the Kanban Board relies on sticky tabs to function, I can just reuse this same board and introduce new tabs (for new posts!) as needed.

Projects

The final spread in this section is my Projects spread. Because I typically have a lot of creative projects on the go, I thought it would be good to have a master list of them. That list is on the left-hand page, and includes space to write the name of the project, as well as the start & end dates, and to track my progress. On the right-hand page, I have space for any ideas I may have for new projects.

Finance Section

The next section is for keeping track of my finances. Not the most glamorous of sections, but necessary for keeping on top of things!

Financial Plan + Finance Cover Page

Again, this cover page uses the same layout as the previous two sections.

The left-hand page is for my Financial Plan. I have spaces for actionable steps down the left-hand side of the page and for notes on each step down the right-hand side.

Savings + Income Streams

In my last bullet journal setup, I included a table to track my income against my outcome. I really enjoyed this spread- it really helped me to stay accountable and keep a closer eye on my finances, so I’ve included it in this bullet journal setup too. For each month, I will track my income, my outcome and how much I have saved. I have introduced a new column to my Savings table this year: cumulative savings. In this column, starting in August, I will combine my monthly savings to see how much I have saved in total. I am including this because I actually found myself noting this down on my last table anyway, so it will be nice to have a set space for it!

On the right-hand page, I have spaces to note down my Income Streams each month. This way, I will be able to see, at a glance, where my money is coming from.

Wish List

Continuing my efforts to hold myself accountable for my purchases, I decided to move my Wish List spread into my Finance section. Just like before, I’ve split my wish list into categories to help streamline it. Similarly to my Challenges spread, I will colour in the bullet next to any items that I end up buying.

Books & TV Section

The final section of my 2023 Mid-Year Bullet Journal is for Books & TV. I like to track both of these for fun, because it’s super interesting to look back and see what you were watching/reading at a particular time! I also have a more specific ‘wish list’ for my watching/reading habits in this section, which frees up a lot of space on the previous page!

2023 Reading Stats + Books & TV Cover Page

Next to my cover page (which, you guessed it, follows the same layout as the other 3 cover pages!), I have a space to put my 2023 Reading Stats. Obviously, I won’t be able to fill this in until the end of the year, but I’m really excited to fill this spread out. I use an app called StoryGraph to keep track of my reading (big thank you to my friend, Kyla, for the recommendation!), and the app provides you with LOADS of different statistics on your reading preferences/behaviour, all of which I have included in this spread. The horizontal bars will end up forming individual stacked bar graphs, while the two boxes in the bottom left will record how many books/pages I read in 2023. For the star ratings table, I will record how many books I gave 1 star, 2 stars, etc. Admittedly, I will have to round down for some of my ratings, because I am so indecisive- I am ALWAYS making use of StoryGraph’s 0.25 star function instead of giving whole ratings!

TV Show + Reading Trackers

As I said, I like to track the TV shows that I watch. I do this for 2 reasons: firstly, because it’s fun to look back and see what I was watching at any given time. Secondly, though, it’s nice to see how far I am through each show as I go. For each TV show that I watch, I will write the name of the show, then, beside the title, I will draw a circle for each season of the show. When I finish a season, I will colour in the circle. In the two left-hand columns I will record the date I started watching the show and the date I finished watching the show.

My Reading Tracker is similar, in that I like to record the title of the books I read, the date I started reading them and the date I finished them. In this table, that information will go in the first 3 columns. The fourth column is filled with circles, 5 per line, to represent the star rating I give each book. I will colour the circles in accordingly to reflect this.

To Watch, Read + Buy

The final spread in this section (and, indeed, this setup!) is my Book and TV ‘wish list’. Here, I have spaces to record the TV shows and films that I want to watch, the books I want to read and the books I would like to buy for my collection. As with my other Wish List page, if I end up watching/reading/buying an item I list here, I will colour the circle in to reflect that.

Final Thoughts

So that’s everything in my 2023 Mid-Year Bullet Journal Setup. As I said at the start of this post, I always put a lot of time and effort into setting up these spreads because I know it will save me even more time and effort in the long run. If you’re new to bullet journalling, just take things at your own pace! I have a lot of spreads in this section because it suits me, but there are lots of bullet journallers who have very few, if any, spreads in their journals, outside of their monthly setups. Bullet journalling is about doing what works best for you!

I hoped you enjoyed this setup- I’d love to hear about your mid-year setup process, if you have a bullet journal & I’ll be back soon with my July 2023 setup!

Gemma

xxx

I said this setup was loosely based on Drops of Jupiter, and I do mean loosely- my quote is from the song (obviously), but the theme itself is really just a doodle-y space theme. In fact, most of my planet doodles are actually Saturn, not Jupiter. In my defence, how would one even go about doodling Jupiter? I left some planet doodles without rings, but they still just look a bit like polka dots…

Anyway, let’s get into it.

Equipment used:

• Muji 0.38mm pen- black
• Tombow dual brush pens- N45 (cool grey 10), N65 (cool grey 5), N89 (warm grey 1) and 990 (light sand)
• Crayola SuperTips- peach, orange, yellow, green, pale blue, purple
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Eraser
• Scissors

Cover & Quote Page

My cover page this month uses a very simple & easy design, which becomes a sort of motif throughout the setup. I drew an assortment of colourful space-themed doodles- stars, moons and little Saturns (as well as some droplets, I mean, the song is called Drops of Jupiter)- hanging down from the top of the page. The individual letters of my JUNE heading also hang down from the top of the page, slightly further down than the other doodles, at different angles. All of the doodles are done using Crayola SuperTips (except for the occasional use of my 990 Tombow) and are not outlined (if you’re using SuperTips, you can sketch out your doodles in pencil, then go over with the markers and rub out the pencil underneath afterwards. This method does work with the Tombow pens, just not quite as well). I used a ruler and my Muji 0.38mm pen for the hanging threads and my N45 Tombow for the rings on the planet doodles and the JUNE header itself.

For my quote page, I drew a rectangle with rounded corners in the centre of the page (freehand- I am usually a ruler girl through and through, but, as I said, I was channeling my inner Amanda Rach Lee for this setup. The messiness is part of the doodle-y vibe of this setup), using the paler N65 Tombow and leaving the bottom right-hand corner open, so I could fill it with more space doodles. I also used my N45 Tombow again to add some little sparkle doodles, as well as the trail of a shooting star. For the quote itself, I drew a centralised bar in each of my 7 colours, one per word, with a gap for SPRING, for which I used a smaller version of my title font. I wrote the rest of my quote in with my Muji 0.38mm. The fun part about this quote page is the ‘JUNE’ on the cover page is actually the last word of the quote, which ties the two pages together.

Monthly Calendar

For my monthly calendar this month, I drew a freehand grid of 6×6 boxes across the double page spread. For the dates, I added dots of colour (in the same colour palette, of course), then wrote the date on top with my Muji 0.38mm pen. I put the header in the bottom left corner, using that same font and N45 Tombow pen, then added some more hanging decorations along the top and some bigger doodles down the left-hand side. For the days of the week along the top, I put little coloured clouds on the end of the ‘hanging threads’ and added the initial of the corresponding day with the fine tip of my N45 Tombow.

Symptom Tracker & Daily Sunshine

Last month, I introduced two new spreads to my monthly setups: a Monthly Reset Page and a Daily Sunshine page. This month, I’ve kept the Daily Sunshine page, but I’ve replaced the Reset Page with a Symptom Tracker. I have space for keeping track of 6 symptoms so, if I have a symptom on a particular day, I can mark that on the corresponding mini calendar. I’m hoping that this will provide a good reference for how I’m feeling that I can use both when assessing my own wellbeing and when talking to healthcare professionals. Obviously, if you aren’t chronically ill/need to track symptoms, this spread won’t be useful for you, but this layout could just as easily work as a Habit Tracker! A lot of bullet journallers use ‘Habit Trackers’, which allows them to keep on top of their daily habits (think flossing, working out, taking vitamins etc.). I used to use habit trackers all the time, but they just weren’t working for me (I had habit guilt :(…), so I stopped.

My Daily Sunshine page uses a selection of the basic features that repeat throughout this setup: little space doodles hang from the top of the page, the title is the same jaunty capitalised vibe, the frame is a grey, rounded rectangle with a gap for more doodles and the dates are written on top of coloured dots. The only new feature is that I used my N89 Tombow to highlight every other line, just to add a little dimension.

Project Planning

For the past two months, I’ve been including a double-page spread in my monthly setups for planning my projects/blog content. I’m still adapting it, trying to make sure that it is the most useful it can be, so there have been a couple of changes this time around. My Kanban board for my blog posts now only has 4 sections: make + photo, write, edit & post. I’m hoping this more streamlined approach will reflect my process more accurately. I’ve also renamed my ‘Projects’ section on the left-hand page as ‘Ongoing’ so that it can be a specific place to keep track of longer-term projects.

In terms of decoration, this spread uses the same elements as those that come before it, with the addition of coloured ‘bar’ headers for each of the sections.

Weeklies

As always, I use tabs to separate out my weekly spreads. This month, I used 5 of the colours from my colour scheme, one for each tab, and used my 990 Tombow to colour a thick panel on the pages both in front and behind the tabs, to help them stand out. The weeklies themselves use the same elements from the previous pages, just in varying layouts.

The first 4 days of June fall at the end of the week, so Weekly No.1 only has 4 daily task list sections. I put those on the right-hand page, while my notes and tasks sections went on the left.

For Weekly No.2, I split the page horizontally into 3, then put 6 daily lists in a 3×2 grid on the left-hand page and split the top 2/3 of the right-hand page between the box for Sunday, my task list and my notes section. The bottom 1/3 of the page was used for the header.

For Weekly No.3, I split the page horizontally into 3 again, but moved the header from the bottom of the right-hand page to the centre of the left-hand page.

For Weekly No.4, I split the page in half horizontally and used vertical boxes for my daily lists.

Weekly No.5 comprises of the last 5 days in June and the first 2 days in July, so I placed the daily boxes for Monday-Friday in the centre of the page, added smaller boxes for Saturday and Sunday to the far left, then fit the notes and task boxes around them.

June Review Page

My June Review follows my standard formulation- a polaroid on the right-hand page, with 4 sections on the left: my monthly favourites, my favourite memory of the month and the Top 10 for both WTA and ATP players. For my polaroid, I made a frame in the same style that I used throughout the setup- a rounded rectangle with a space for some larger space doodles in the bottom right-hand corner. For the 4 sections on the left, I used another freehand grid with rounded corners, coloured bars for subheadings and coloured dots for bullet points.

And that was it! This was much quicker to set up than my other monthly setups have been- mostly because of the (relative) lack of ruler (I tried to stay ruler-less, but I just had to use one for the ‘hanging threads’!) and need for glue. I usually don’t like my setups as much when I do these more doodle-style ones, but I’m actually very proud of this one! It feels very cheery, but is also very clear and easy-to-use, which will be perfect for a busy summer month! Let me know what you think!

Gemma

xxx

I am a big fan of Bridgerton. It’s unsurprising really, given that I was practically raised on Jane Austen and that I like my fictional entertainment to be at least 90% romance. Nonetheless, Bridgerton just speaks to me on a spiritual level- I mean, Julie Andrews as a narrator? Yes, please. Orchestral covers of pop songs? I have a whole playlist of them. Regency fashion with a modern spin? Ooohhh, my heart. One of my favourite things about the series, though, is just the general aesthetic: the wisteria everywhere, the flowers, the stately homes- it is all just so pretty, and so springtime. With the release of the spinoff series Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story set for 4th May, it felt like the perfect time to finally attempt a Bridgerton themed set up in my bullet journal.

One note before we get into it: I was very inspired by Journal Away on YouTube- particularly her May 2022 setup, which also had a regency-inspired theme. I’ll be sure to highlight the particular features of that setup that I drew inspiration from as I go through mine!

Equipment used:

For the setup:

• Parchment coloured paper
• White card
• Muji 0.38 pen, black
• Crayola supertips, pink (light, mid, dark), purple, green (lime, sage, bottle) and brown (from this pastel pack and this 24-pack).
• Tombow dual brush pen, N15 (black), N89 (warm grey), 990 (light sand), 623 (purple sage) and 553 (mist purple). (I got N15 and N89 together, in this pack).
• Uniball signo broad, gold
• Scissors and glue
• Craft knife and cutting board
• Pencil, ruler and eraser

For the Bridgerton House drawing:

• Printer & printer paper
• Tracing paper
• Tape (masking and cellotape)
• Coloured pencils
• Pencil, ruler and eraser
• Sketchbook paper
• Phone/scanning device

Before we get into the page-by-page walkthrough of the setup, let’s talk about a few of the individual elements. This setup looks complicated, but, at its core, it’s really just a series of pretty straightforward elements combined together in different ways. Once you know how to achieve the three main components: the handwritten paper, the wisteria and the roses, it’s just a case of incorporating those elements into basic layouts. Ultimately, you get the extravagance and detail (dare I say, fussiness?) that you want from a Regency-inspired setup, without needing to spend hours and hours on it. 

A small caveat to this: while the setup itself didn’t take long, drawing the house for the cover page definitely did. I’ll go through how I created this drawing later on, but if you’re looking for something a bit quicker and easier, you might want to consider using a printed-out image instead!

Anyway, let’s go through each of the main elements. I’ll show you how to create each one, and, once you’ve got them in your arsenal, the setup will feel much more approachable.

Handwritten paper:

The plot of Bridgerton revolves around a mysterious, Gossip Girl-style author named Lady Whistledown, who publishes pamphlets of scandalous gossip about the members of high society. As a result, the written word is a key theme throughout the series- characters write to each other, Lady Whistledown writes her pamphlets and there are quills and ink pots on every desk. I wanted to convey that aspect of the series in my journal, so I included this ‘handwritten paper’ as a decorative element. You can buy both paper and washi tape that come with cursive writing already on printed on them, but I had this parchment-coloured paper already, so I decided to just make my own. I actually watched Journal Away do this in their May setup (albeit on much thinner/more translucent paper), so I felt pretty confident that it would work out. I just used my Muji 0.38 pen to fill an entire page of the parchment-coloured paper with writing, written quickly in cursive (it doesn’t even need to be particularly legible). I actually just wrote out the lyrics to Taylor Swift’s Wildest Dreams (a fun little Easter egg, given that an instrumental version of this song is used in the first season of the show). Once you’ve filled the paper, you can tear it up and use it to decorate your spreads however you would like.

Wisteria doodles:

I feel like wisteria and Bridgerton have become pretty synonymous since the show’s release in 2020. In Bridgerton‘s London, there seems to be wisteria everywhere, including, as I mentioned earlier, on the iconic Bridgerton House. As a result, I just had to include lots of wisteria in this setup. I got pretty good at drawing these wisteria doodles- they’re super quick and easy, and it really doesn’t matter if you’re messy! I’ve made a little step-by-step guide to show you how I drew them, which you can see below:

I used two types of pen for these doodles: Crayola Supertips (green, brown and dark purple) and Tombow dual brush pens (N89 warm grey and 623 purple sage), but you can use whichever pens you have to hand.

Rose doodles:

Roses are another flower that features prominently throughout the series- multi-toned pink ones even climb up the gates in front of Bridgerton House. I tried to mimic those specific roses in my setup- again, I’ve made a little step-by-step guide:

For the roses I only used Crayola Supertips: you’ll need 3 shades of pink and 2 shades of green.

Right then, now that we’ve covered the three main elements, let’s get into a page-by-page rundown of the setup.

Cover Page:

Bridgerton House is one of the most iconic and recognisable elements of the show, with its red brick walls and wisteria. I really wanted the house to feature on my cover page, but I also wanted it to match in with the aesthetic- that is, I didn’t want to print out an image and stick it in (though you absolutely could do this to save yourself some time). I opted instead to produce a pencil crayon drawing of the house, which I could then scan, scale and print out on thinner paper to stick right into my journal. It was a bit of a… process, but I’m really happy with how it turned out in the end.

Full disclosure, I absolutely did trace the outlines of the house for my drawing (know your limits, people). To do that, I printed out a mirror-image of the house (it has to be flipped, otherwise your finished drawing will be flipped!) and stuck it to a flat surface using masking tape. I then stuck a sheet of tracing paper over the top (using cellotape this time, because the masking tape didn’t stick very well to the tracing paper). I then used a ruler and pencil to draw over all of the lines, leaving gaps for the foliage. When I was finished, I untaped everything, then stuck a fresh piece of sketchbook paper on the board, followed by the tracing paper (reversed, so that my pencil marks were touching the paper underneath) on top. I then went over all the lines in pencil, which transferred the original pencil from the other side of the tracing paper onto the sketchbook paper. When that was done, I was left with a pencil outline of the house on the sketchbook paper, ready to be used. Once I had my pencil outline, I went over all the lines with my Muji 0.38 pen, using a ruler to get crisp, straight lines. After that, I got to colouring.

When I was happy with my drawing, I scanned it into my computer, so that I could resize it to fit my journal perfectly (the house is so detailed that it was much more achievable to draw a bigger version and make it smaller than draw a small version from the start). I printed the resized version on standard printer paper, trimmed around the outline and then cut it in half down the centre, so I could stick one half on each side of the journal.

With the house done, the rest of the spread was pretty straightforward. I tore up some of my decorative handwriting paper to put on the top two corners, stuck the house in and decorated the top of the spread with wisteria doodles and the bottom with roses. For the May header, I used my Tombow N15.

Monthly Calendar:

My calendar this month utilises a very simple layout- it’s essentially a grid without any defining vertical lines. I used my Tombow 553 (the closest I could find in my stash to Bridgerton blue!) to create the horizontal lines, then wrote the dates in the top left corner of each ‘box’ with my Muji 0.38 pen.

I wanted to incorporate some sort of archway into this setup and I thought it would be perfect for this calendar spread. I sketched out a basic shape in pencil first, then doodled the wisteria along the top and the roses climbing up the columns. After that, I went over my sketch with my Muji 0.38 pen, then coloured in the archway itself with my Tombow 990. I think, if I were to do this spread again, I would use my Tombow N89 instead of this light sand colour, just because I feel that the tone of the pen clashes a bit with the colour of the decorative parchment paper I used throughout the setup.

For the header on this page I used another torn piece of my decorative paper, which I layered underneath a white card rectangle with inverted rounded corners. I typically prefer to use thinner paper in my journal, to prevent it from becoming too bulky, but the card was necessary here to ensure that the decorative paper did not show through. I drew a slightly inset border on the card, following the shape, with my Muji 0.38 pen and wrote the header ‘May’ in cursive.

May Reset and Daily Sunshine:

I have been feeling a little all over the place recently, so I decided to dedicate a page in this month’s setup to getting myself back together a little bit. I’ve called it my ‘May Reset’ and the aim is to use it as a place for notes/plans for getting back on track. I decorated this page with wisteria, which I placed along the left-hand side and the top of the page.

The Daily Sunshine spread is also new to my bullet journal this month (since I started blogging, at least). At the start of this year, I decided to cut down on the number of spreads that I included in each monthly setup to make both creating and using my bullet journal seem more approachable. For the most part, this has worked, but I have found myself particularly missing this spread. It works very much like a gratitude log or positive memory list- everyday I write down one good thing that happened, whether that is something that I am grateful for, or just something that made me happy: a little bit of sunshine every day. I find that I tend to focus on the negative things that happen, so it is nice to finish every day by forcing myself to remember something good instead! To decorate this page, I continued the wisteria from the previous page on along the top, and added some roses along the bottom and right-hand side of the page. I used more decorative paper and another card header for the title. The frame around the lines for writing out my daily sunshine lines was another element inspired by Journal Away’s May setup– I think the decorative corners really add a sense of extravagance that feels very regency. I filled mine in with my gold Uniball to add even more fanciness. I used my Tombow 553 to highlight the vertical space for the dates, and my N89 to highlight every other line, just to add a bit of definition.

While the Daily Sunshine page is mainly decorated with roses and the May Reset page is only decorated with wisteria, you see both of these elements together when you look at the double-page spread as a whole. I think this works really well, because it gives a sense of distinction between the two separate spreads, but also brings the whole double-page spread in line with the rest of theme.

Projects:

Last month, I tried out a new spread in my journal for keeping track of my projects. Within it, I had a kanban board, a space to list out projects and a space for notes (you can read more about this spread here). I found that spread really useful, so I have included one in my May setup as well. However, I have slightly adapted it to make it more functional: I’ve changed up the stages in my kanban board, I’ve included a section for my blog post schedule and I’ve also added a section for commissions (I have a couple of projects for friends/family to do in May). I’m hoping these changes will make the spread even more useful for me. As with my other spreads in this setup, these pages are decorated with the decorative paper, roses, wisteria, my ‘Bridgerton blue’ Tombow for headers and the decorative frames, inspired by Journal Away. The only new element here is that for the bullet points I opted to use little gold diamonds, as an ode to the phrase ‘Diamond of the Season’, which is used frequently throughout the series.

Weeklies:

Now we’re onto my weekly setups for May. As always, I like to use tabs to separate my weeklies and this month I chose to make my tabs rectangular with inverted rounded corners (much like the header frames used throughout the setup). Instead of covering them with coloured paper, as I usually do, I just used the pink and purple pens I used to draw the wisteria and rose doodles throughout the setup to colour each one, then added an inset border using my Muji 03.8 pen. As a backdrop for the tabs, I used more of my decorative paper.

I tried to keep my weeklies pretty consistent, so the only thing that changes really over all of the five is the layout of the boxes. Otherwise, each weekly has wisteria along the top (growing from ‘planter boxes’ the bottom left on the first weekly spread and the bottom right on my review page), daily task lists with ‘Bridgerton blue’ header bands and notes/task lists with the gold-cornered frames and rose doodles.

For my first weekly, I opted for a vertical layout for my daily task lists.

For the second weekly, I divided each page into 6, then used 7 sections for my daily task lists, 1 for my notes, 2 for my task box and the final 2 sections at the bottom for the title.

For the third weekly, I divided the page in half horizontally and used half-height vertical boxes for my daily task lists.

For the fourth weekly, I used horizontal boxes (which are still, admittedly, not my favourite for daily task lists, but I like to vary my layouts, and there are only so many different arrangements!).

For the final weekly, I divided the left-hand page into quarters and used 3 of them for the final 3 days of May. I then used the left-hand side of the right-hand page for the first 4 days of June.

May Review:

Finally, we come to my May Review, which follows the same formula as my other review pages. On the left-hand page, I have spaces for my monthly favourites, my #1 memory of the month and the ATP/WTA top 10. For these, I alternated between the decorative frames and the simple ‘Bridgerton blue’ headers. On the right-hand page, I have my title and a space for a polaroid. The wisteria from across the tops of all the weekly pages ends in another planter box in the bottom right-hand corner and I also included some rose doodles that climb across the setup.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my Bridgerton-inspired bullet journal setup. If you’re a Bridgerton fan, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the upcoming season/the Queen Charlotte spinoff in the comments!

Gemma

xxx