Today’s post isn’t particularly Christmassy, but, seeing as we’re in the last month of the year now, it’s time to finish off my 2024 bullet journal so that I can start a new one for 2025. In today’s post, I’ll be chatting about the final two spreads in my journal: my 2024 Review spreads! You might remember that I did this kind of thing in my journal last year, but I went in a slightly different direction this year.

Attending the Eras Tour was the biggest highlight of my year, so I used it as the theme for these spreads. I actually did a whole monthly setup with an Eras Tour theme back in June, which was one of my favourite setups I’ve ever done, so I used that as inspiration for these spreads!

Table of Contents

• Equipment
• 2024 Memories
• 2024: Spotify Wrapped

Equipment

To make these spreads, I used the following equipment:

• Uni Pin Fine Line pen: 0.5, sepia.
• Coloured pencils.
• Pencil.
• Eraser.

I wanted to keep these spreads soft and colourful, so I opted to use a brown fineliner, instead of my usual black one. Otherwise, the equipment list for this one is pretty basic!

2024 Memories

This year has been a strange one for me, so I didn’t really fancy doing a super in-depth review spread this time around. Instead, I thought it would be nice to make a more visual spread, full of memories from the year gone by.

I decided to use the same friendship bracelet doodle decoration as my June setup, with little round, heart & star-shaped ‘beads’, in all of the colours associated with Taylor Swift’s album eras. As with my monthly setup, I used the following shades of coloured pencils to correspond with each era:

• Taylor Swift – pale green
• Fearless – gold/deep yellow
• Speak Now – lilac
• Red – red (astounding, I know)
• 1989 – pale blue
• Reputation – dark grey
• Lover – pale pink
• Folklore – grey
• Evermore – beige
• Midnights – dark blue
• The Tortured Poets Department – black

I had the idea to fill this spread with one massive friendship bracelet, fitted with multiple ‘charms’ that represent significant memories for me this year. I’m not the best at drawing/doodling, so I was a bit nervous about drawing the charms, but I just went in with a pencil and eraser first, before inking over the lines, to take the pressure off.

I won’t go into detail on every charm, because I’d like to keep some memories just for me, but here’s what a few of my charms symbolise:

• Pink disco ball: This was the charm I chose to represent the Eras Tour! I wore a sparkly pink dress (that I made myself!), Taylor swift has a song called mirrorball and I danced a lot, so it felt fitting.
• #1 red & green tennis ball: My favourite tennis player, Jannik Sinner, reached #1 in the world this year, so this charm is to commemorate that and how much fun I had watching all the matches over the past season! Sinner is Italian, so I used red and green for the colours of the ball (though, now that I think about it, I feel blue might have been a better fit here, because the Italian players wear blue in the Billie Jean King/Davis Cups (which, coincidentally, Italy also won!).
• Pig in blanket: Ever since last Christmas, I’ve been in a major Pig in Blanket era, which is kind of random, but obviously had to be commemorated.
• Ball of yarn: I’ve been really getting back into my knitting this year, particularly with my Project Knitwear series, so I wanted to draw a charm to reflect that. However, I also wanted to commemorate the Paris Olympics that took place this summer (and forgot to give it a charm of its own), so I opted to use the colours of the Olympic rings for this yarn ball charm. I think this worked out pretty perfectly, because my biggest yarn-y project this year was my Grace Blanket, which I made while watching the Olympics.
• Golden bee: I couldn’t summarise my 2024 without a reference to Bridgerton, after the release of Season 3 and my Bridgerton Watch Party series here on the blog. The bee is a classic symbol of the show and I chose to make it gold to reflect the green & gold colour scheme of the promo material for Season 3.
• Aurora borealis: I would forgive you for not knowing what this one was, because my artistic skills leave much to be desired, but I actually managed to see the aurora borealis on two (!) separate occasions this month, right on my doorstep, which was very magical.
• Ink pot & quill: With my Taylor Swift theme, I couldn’t leave out the latest album/era: The Tortured Poets Department. It’s not my most favourite era, but I still love it (and I just got an Anthology vinyl, which is SO exciting!).

In the centre of the page, I also sketched out the numbers in ‘2024’. The aim was to make these also look like charms, so the whole thing is one, big, ‘2024’ charm bracelet. My skills at 3D-ifying things are evidently still a work in progress, but I still like the effect here.

After I’d sketched everything out, inked all the lines, coloured in all of the charms and added in the smaller beads, the spread was basically finished. However, there was a little space in both the bottom left and the top right, so I couldn’t help myself from adding in one of my favourite Taylor Swift lyrics (which is always very fitting for these types of spreads): “Hold on to the memories they will hold on to you” from New Year’s Day (which Taylor Swift JUST sang as one of the surprise songs at the last ever Eras Tour show in Vancouver so… it’s kind of meant to be!).

2024: Spotify Wrapped

Let’s be real: Spotify Wrapped this year was… kind of a let down. However, I wait all year to have my listening habits broken down into fun statistics, so I still wanted to pay homage to it here. I love to look back over my Spotify Wrapped from years gone by and see how my likes/dislikes have changed (though, let’s be real, Taylor Swift is always my #1 artist). I figured where better to store this info than in my bullet journal, so I made a spread for it here.

Again, I’m keeping with that same friendship bracelet, Eras Tour theme, using my brown fineliner to keep everything soft and light. I wrote the heading for this spread on little alphabet ‘beads’ (i.e. circles that I drew with the fineliner). I then drew little corner frames for each section and filled the rest of the space with coloured pencil doodles (with varying degrees of success: my TTPD space ship looks more like a Picasso eye and my guitar has a slight lyre vibe to it…).

My music listening this year has definitely taken a bit of a hit— honestly, most of the songs in my Wrapped playlist are the ones I listen to to fall asleep! I very much enjoyed seeing my April phase though (Royalcore String Quarter Classical Pop): you can tell how excited I was for Bridgerton Season 3 coming out in May! My biggest listening day being the day before my Eras Tour show was also very fitting. I’ll have to work on my Swiftie credentials though— I’ve dropped from being in the top 1% of Taylor Swift listeners a couple of years ago to the top 3%! Sigh.

Anyway, those are my Eras Tour-themed, 2024 Review pages in my bullet journal. Now, it’s time to start on my new, 2025 bullet journal! Watch this space!

Gemma

xxx

That’s right: 24 days, 24 posts— the Gemma At Home Advent Calendar, if you will. I have so many fun and festive posts planned this year and I can’t wait to share them with you in the run up to my favourite holiday.

Just like last year, the first post of Blogmas At Home is my festive, December setup in my bullet journal. For my theme this year, I decided to pay homage to one of the most iconic Christmas treats: gingerbread cookies!

Table of Contents

• Equipment
• Making the ‘Gingerbread Cookies’
• Cover + Quote Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Blog + Advent Memories
• Weeklies
  • Week 1
  • Week 2
  • Week 3
  • Week 4
• December Review
• Final Thoughts

Equipment

To make this setup, I used the following equipment:

• Sakura Gelly Roll: 10 Bold, white.
• Brown craft paper.
• Uni Pin Fine Line pen: 0.5, sepia.
• Sakura Quickie Glue pen.
• Corner rounder.
• Pencil.
• Ruler.
• Scissors.

Making the ‘Gingerbread Cookies’

Before I started setting up the spreads for this month, I made all of the ‘gingerbread cookies’ that I would need to decorate the pages. To do that, I started by sketching out a variety of festive shapes on the back of my brown craft paper (my craft paper has a rough side and a smooth side, so the ‘back’ was the rough side). I tried to cut out as many shapes as I could think of, including:

• Hearts
• Stars
• Circles
• Christmas trees
• Gingerbread houses
• Candy canes
• Gingerbread men
• 6-pointed stars (to be decorated like snowflakes)

I filled a whole piece of A4 paper with the shapes, then (rather painstakingly, I admit) cut them all out. I then flipped them over (so the pencil marks were on the back) and used my white Gelly Roll pen to decorate them, as if they were gingerbread cookies and the white ink was icing.

I just had fun with the decorating, trying out different designs and patterns so that I had a whole variety of ‘cookies’. For the most part, I tried to outline each shape with my pen, to make them feel extra cookie-ish, but sometimes (particularly with the snowflakes), I skipped that.

Once I had all my decorated ‘cookies’, I set them aside to dry completely (so I didn’t have to worry about the ink smudging!) before using them in my spreads. I stuck them into the spreads with my Quickie Glue Pen, laying them out on each page first to check that I was happy with the position.

Cover + Quote Page

Aside from the rather elaborate ‘cookies’, I really wanted to keep the rest of these spreads super minimal, so that the gingerbread cookies were the main focus, so I only used the Uni Pen Fine Line pen for all of the writing/line work throughout the whole setup. I also opted to keep the fonts super simple: I just used a quick, messy cursive and a simple block capital style.

For the Cover Page, I wrote the heading in the middle of the page, then stuck in some of my favourite ‘cookies’ around it.

For the Quote Page, I opted to use a quote from one of my favourite Christmas films: The Santa Clause. The line “Seeing isn’t believing, believing is seeing” is spoken by Judy the Elf, who is an absolute icon (I nearly went for “Thanks, but I’m seeing someone in wrapping.”, which is also said by Judy and is one of my favourite lines in the whole film, but I felt it wasn’t very pertinent to this spread/my life right now, as I am not, in fact, seeing someone in wrapping). Again, I added more ‘cookies’ to this page, including a gingerbread house cookie (with an artful candy cane hiding behind it).

Monthly Calendar

For my Monthly Calendar spread, I just drew out a really simple grid (6×6 grid squares per day). I wrote in the dates in the top right-hand corner of each box (let’s not discuss the extra ‘1’ in the first box… I changed my mind with the placement) and wrote the name of the month at the bottom. Then, I went wild with the ‘cookies’ and stuck them absolutely anywhere I could find space. It was fun.

Blog + Advent Memories

These spreads are a little different this month, because December is such a funny month in general, but I know they’ll be really useful.

On the left-hand page, I have my Blog Planning spread, which I usually include, but this one is actually for my January posts, not my December posts! That’s because I’ve been keeping track of my Blogmas At Home 2024 posts digitally (there’s a lot to keep track of), so I don’t need the space here and I figured I might as well use it to give myself a bit of a head start going into the new year.

On the right-hand page, we have my Advent Memories spread, where I plan to write down the fun, festive things I do each day in the run up to Christmas. I haven’t been including Daily Sunshine spreads in my monthly setups lately (where I write down one positive thing that happened each day), because I just haven’t been keeping up with them, but I think a list of all the things I got up to during Advent would be a lovely thing to look back on in the future.

Weeklies

Into my weekly spreads now and I’ve gone for the same layout that I’ve been using for the past couple of months: trimmed down pages in the middle that house my daily task lists, with the spaces on either side used for my general task lists. I’ve been finding this layout really useful, so I’m continuing on with it this month.

As always, I’ve covered the cut edges of the journal paper with folded pieces of the brown craft paper, because I have an (irrational?) fear of paper cuts. This time around, though, I also used a corner rounder to round out the cut corners too, to add a little softness to the spread.

I plan to use the space on the left to keep track of any Blogmas At Home-related tasks I may have, and the space on the right for any other, more general tasks I need to complete.

Week 1

The first day of December falls on a Sunday, so I opted to include it in my first weekly spread and make an 8-day ‘week’, instead of setting up a whole spread for a single day! Again, let’s just not discuss how I accidentally wrote ‘MONDAY’ for the 1st of the month and then tried (and failed) to change it to ‘SUNDAY’ (I swear, I do this EVERY. SINGLE. MONTH.)

Week 2

The second weekly spread was a regular ol’ 7-day week, so I opted for my standard, 2×4 layout (with a couple of ‘cookies’, where I could squeeze them in, to decorate).

Week 3

The third weekly spread is exactly the same as the second, but I switched up the position of the heading section (and, of course, started out by writing the wrong date… again). I managed to fit more ‘cookies’ on this one, though, so let’s just look at the positives!

Week 4

For the final weekly, I opted to squish in the final two days of December (which fall on a Monday and a Tuesday) and make a massive, 9-day week (I was feeling lazy).

December Review

Finally, we have my December Review page. I’ve kept this one very similar to its previous iterations: on the right-hand page, I have the heading and a space to stick in a polaroid from the month gone by (along with a copious amount of ‘cookies’, including a gingerbread house street along the bottom!).

On the left-hand page, I have my usual sections (ATP & WTA Top 10, #1 Memory and Monthly Playlist), but I’ve changed up the layout a bit this time around (100% so I could maximise the space for more ‘cookies’). Also, because the tennis season has officially finished now, these ranking lists will be for the year-end Top 10s. For the playlist section, I’ve included 6 spaces to write down 6 of my favourite songs from December (and I am fully expecting all 6 of them to be festive tunes!).

Final Thoughts

Overall, I’m SO happy with how this setup turned out. I admit, cutting out all of the ‘cookies’ was a bit of a task, but I just put the TV on, went about my cutting mission and, honestly, it went by much more quickly than I expected! I had a lot of fun decorating the ‘cookies’: I’m not the best at piping, so it was nice to mimic the effect without the need for, you know, actual piping.

I also think this spread is really festive, even though the colour scheme is pretty muted. It has a chic, but also kind of cutesy, vibe, which I really love and perfectly encompasses how I’m feeling about the Christmas season this year, so this one’s an all-round win for me.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this setup! What’s your December theme this year?

Gemma

xxx

Ultimately, I fell back on my classic craft paper vibe for this setup, adding in some autumnal washi tape for a quick and easy pop of colour/pattern, and some leafy doodles (because leaves are, to be perfectly honest, the extent of my drawing capabilities).

Table of Contents

• Equipment
• Quote + Cover Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Blog Planning
• Christmas Planning
• Weeklies
  • Week 1
  • Week 2
  • Week 3
  • Week 4
• November Review
• Final Thoughts

Equipment

To make this setup, I used the following equipment:

• Tombow ABT Dual Brush Pen, N35 Cool Grey 12.
• Sakura Gelly Roll, 10 Bold, white.
• Brown craft paper.
• Autumnal washi tape (mine was from this pack).
• Glue stick.
• Scissors.

Quote + Cover Page

Throughout this setup, I used a simple, lowercase font for all of my headings/subheadings, written with the fine tip of my N35 Tombow. For the Cover Page, I wrote the header in the middle of a piece of torn craft paper, then filled the space around it with white leaf doodles, drawn with my Gelly Roll. I also added a couple of pieces of washi tape, to give the page a scrapbook-y kind of feel.

I wasn’t quite sure what quote to use for my Quote Page, so I fell back on an autumnal classic— a line from All Too Well (Taylor’s Version, of course). It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Taylor Swift, and this line about autumn leaves felt very fitting to my theme, so it worked out well! I wrote the quote across multiple pieces of torn craft paper, stuck them in, added some washi tape in the bottom-left corner, then filled the remaining space with more leaf doodles (this time drawn with the N35 Tombow). I also used the white Gelly Roll to add little corner ‘frames’ to the written sections, to add some brightness and extra decoration.

Monthly Calendar

Onto my Monthly Calendar now, and I went for a super simple grid format with rounded corners. I drew the grid and wrote in the dates using that same N35 Tombow. I stuck the header, created in the same way as the Cover Page, in on top of a long piece of the washi tape, then added more washi tape and more pieces of craft paper with white leaf doodles, into the bottom-right corner. Finally, I filled the remaining space with grey leaf doodles.

Blog Planning

Next up is my Blog Planning section, where I keep track of my content for the month ahead (and, in this case, the month after that!).

On the left-hand page, I’ll be keeping track of the posts I’m creating for November. In the top box, I opted to use a table format to track the progress of each individual post. The name of the post goes in the far-left column, then the subsequent columns are for when the item is made (m), the photos have been taken (p), the post has been written (w), the text has been edited (e), the photos have been edited (ep), the pin has been made (p) and, finally, a tick in the final column for when the post is completely finished. In the space below, I have 4 separate boxes, to house 4 lots of post-specific to-do lists.

On the right-hand page is my Blogmas At Home 2024 planning section! The format for this one is exactly the same as the table on the left-hand page, but it is much bigger, so I have space to keep track of more posts!

Christmas Planning

I like to get ahead of the game and get my Christmas presents completely sorted by the end of November, so I can fully enjoy the festive season. Therefore, just like last year, I have a Christmas Planning section in my November setup. However! This is not the most extensive Christmas Planner in the whole world, because I have recently created a cute & festive Digital Christmas Planner, which I will be using this year for all of my planning needs, both before & during the festive season. You can buy the planner for yourself, if you fancy, on Etsy. It would mean the absolute WORLD to me if you checked it out!

Back to this spread, though, and, on the right-hand page, I have a big space for any jobs I’d like to do in anticipation of the festive season, as well as a space for notes. On the left-hand page, I have my gift planning section, which I’ve obscured with makeshift ‘doors’ (in case I accidentally leave my bullet journal open and my family members catch a sneaky glimpse!). To make each door, I just tore a large piece of craft paper (making sure it was big enough to conceal the boxes that I had drawn below), and used a piece of washi tape to create a sort of ‘hinge’ on the left-hand side. I then used another, smaller piece of washi tape to keep the door closed— when I want to open it, I’ll just gently peel this piece away from the journal page, use the spread below, then stick the washi tape back down afterwards to ‘shut’ the door.

Underneath the doors, I have a space for keeping track of the main presents I plan to get my friends and family, as well as a space for stocking presents below. For the main present section, I have used a table format: the first column is for the recipient, then I’ll write the gift I’ll be getting them, then the price of said gift, then I have three checkbox columns, where I can keep track of whether or not I’ve ordered, received and wrapped each present. For the stocking section, I just have two simple boxes. I’ll write the name of the recipient at the top of the box, then use the rest of the space to note down stocking present ideas/plans.

Weeklies

Finally, we come to the Weekly Spreads! Last month, I trialled a new layout for my weeklies, which involved cutting the pages right down and using the space before and after them for task lists, and I found it really useful, so I’ve decided to go down that route again, this time around.

Week 1

Because I was under a bit of time pressure, I opted to merge the first 3 days of November in with the first full week and make a spread for 10 days, rather than 7, as my first ‘weekly’ spread. To fit in all of the days, I used a 3-up/4-across layout, using the 2 final spaces for the heading.

As you can see, this time around, I’ve decided to keep the left-hand space of my Weekly Spreads for generic tasks, but reserved the right-hand space for blog-related tasks. I naturally started doing this last month anyway, so it just felt right to make it official with the subheadings! To soften the sharp edges of the cut paper (I have a fear of paper cuts, naturally) and to add a bit of decoration, I folded long lengths of the washi tape over the edges of the pages I cut down.

Week 2

Back to a regular, 7-day week for the second weekly, so I’ve gone for a standard 2-up/4-across layout, using the first space for the heading.

Week 3

The third weekly is another full week, so I used the same layout, but switched up where I put the heading.

Week 4

The final week technically only contains 6 days of November, but I opted to included the whole week anyway, so that I can see any events on 1st December at a glance.

November Review

Finally, we have my November Review spread. Content-wise, this spread is pretty identical to my previous review spreads: on the left-hand page, I have spaces to note down the ATP & WTA Top 10 at the end of the month, as well as my #1 memory from, and top 6 songs in, November. I opted against drawing little squares to house the album art of the songs this month, simply because it’s always a bit of a faff and I just face it this month!

On the right-hand page, I have the heading (created in the same way as the Cover Page, washi tape and all) and a space to stick in my favourite photo from the month. I added a little more washi tape, along with a couple of leaf doodles, just to add some decoration to the spread.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I’m really happy with how this spread turned out. It was quick and easy to set up, but it still feels very autumnal and fun, so I think it ticks all of my boxes in terms of what I set out to do. I continue to struggle with drawing boxes with rounded corners freehand (they get progressively worse and worse as the spreads go on, and I lose my will to live more and more), but perhaps it’s time I just accept they aren’t my calling (realistically, I won’t be doing this… I’m a sucker for a round-cornered box, even if I’m useless at drawing them).

I hope you’ve enjoyed this November setup! I think it’s going to be so perfect for keeping me on track this month and getting me prepared for the busy festive season! On that note, again, if you’re interested, you can find my new DIGITAL CHRISTMAS PLANNER on Etsy here.

Gemma

xxx

Table of Contents

• Equipment
• Cover + Quote Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Project + Post Planning
• Weeklies
• October Review
• Final Thoughts

Equipment

To create this spooky bullet journal setup, I used the following materials:

• Sakura Pigma Micron black fineliners: 05, 08 and 10.
• Tombow ABT Dual Brush Pen, N15 Black.
• Sakura Gelly Roll, 10 Bold, white.
• Sakura Quickie Glue pen.
• Alphabet stamps.
• Black paper.
• Ink pad, black.
• Hole punch.
• Ruler.
• Scissors.
• Pencil.
• Eraser.

Cover + Quote Page

I kept things super minimal for my Cover + Quote Page this month- I used my alphabet stamps to create the ‘October’ heading, then added some quick bat doodles alongside it using my Tombow N15 pen. For the Quote Page, I tore two rectangles of black paper and stuck them onto the page using my Sakura Quickie Glue pen (I love using this pen for glueing smaller pieces of paper- it’s so much less messy!). I used my white Sakura Gelly Roll to write ‘HAPPY’ and ‘SEASON’ on the rectangles, in simple block capitals, then used the alphabet stamps again to write ‘spooky’ in the space between- giving me a simple, yet striking, quote (though is it even really a quote? I’m not sure…) page that reads: ‘Happy Spooky Season’.

Monthly Calendar

I recently saw a super cool bullet journal spread on Pinterest that had used this black and white cobweb design, so I thought my Monthly Calendar spread would be the perfect place to give it a go myself! I stuck pieces of torn black paper into two of the corners, then used my white Sakura Gelly Roll to draw the cobweb pattern on top of them. I then used my size 10, black Sakura Pigma Micron to extend the cobwebs past the black paper, like in the original design.

For the calendar itself, I used my size 08 Pigma Micron to draw a simple grid (following the dot grid of the journal, each individual box was 6×6). I then used a hole punch to cut lots of little circles from the black paper, which I stuck in using the Quickie Glue pen and wrote the dates on using the white Gelly Roll. To help the calendar stand out from the cobweb decoration, I outlined the whole grid with a thick, black line using my Tombow N15. Finally, to finish off the spread, I used my alphabet stamps again to make the ‘October’ heading, then added a couple more bat doodles in the bottom left-hand corner for good measure.

Project + Post Planning

Last month, I introduced a new spread to my monthly setup for keeping track of my Projects + Posts. I really loved using that spread throughout September and found it really useful for keeping on top of all my various creative endeavours, so I decided to keep that spread in my monthly setup this time around. This time, though, I’ve split the spread into 4 sections (as opposed to just 2): one for keeping track of my Projects, one for my Posts, one for any Blogmas Posts I’ve been working on and, finally, one for any notes. Each of the post/project trackers is set out in a simple table format: for larger subheadings, I used a torn strip of black paper. For smaller subheadings, I used hole-punched paper circles.

In my Project table, the far-left column is labelled ‘c’ for the type of craft (e.g. knitting, crochet, baking etc.). Then, there’s a space to write the name of the project itself, followed by columns for the start and end date, before the final ‘checklist’ column that I will place a tick in when I’ve finished each project.

Both of the Post tables have the exact same format, but I did want to keep my current posts separate from the posts I’m working on in advance for Blogmas At Home 2024, just to help me keep things straight in my head! For both tables then, there’s a larger column for the post title, followed by 7 ‘checklist’ columns, for when I’ve made the item (M), taken photos of the item (P), written the post (W), edited the post (E), edited the photos (EP), proofread the post (P) and, finally, for when the post is all done and ready to go live.

I didn’t have much room in this spread for any extra decoration, but I did manage to squeeze a couple more bat doodles into the ‘Notes’ section in the bottom left!

Weeklies

I decided to try something a little new with my Weeklies this month, because I’ve been struggling recently with my weekly task lists. I LOVE having a ‘master’ task list within my weeklies, because it allows me to keep track of the tasks that I need to do without having to assign them to a particular day or keep carrying them over in my daily logs. However, over the past couple of months, I’ve been finding that tasks have been slipping through the cracks when I start a new week. This month, then, I opted to trim down my weekly spread pages and use the blank space on the far-left and right of the whole weekly section for my ‘master task lists’, so that, no matter which weekly I’m on, I can see my task lists and keep them going throughout the month. I’ll see how this works for me as the month goes on.

I set up each weekly spread in the exact same way by dividing each spread into a 4×2 ‘grid’ of boxes, using seven boxes for the daily logs and one for the weekly subheading. I used my size 08 Pigma Micron pen to draw the boxes, leaving the tops open and sticking in a small, torn rectangle of black paper for the headers.

In the eighth space, I used my alphabet stamps to write out the weekly subheading and added some more bat doodles for decoration.

To decorate the pages even more, I added a strip of black paper to the edge of the first and last spreads, next to the task sections. I kept the side of the paper closest to the weekly section straight and tore the other side, to tie it into the torn paper accents I’d used throughout the setup..

I also added thinner strips of paper (not torn, this time) to the cut edges of each of the weeklies, both to add some decoration and to soften up (quite literally) the edges (to help prevent paper cuts!). To make these, I cut strips of paper that were double the width of the ‘stripe’ that I wanted on each spread, then folded them lengthwise and stuck them over the edge of the paper, so they covered the sharp cut edge but still added a bit of decoration to both sides of the paper. This was a little time consuming and finicky to do, but I’m really happy with the finished result!

October Review

Finally, we have my October Review page. The content of this spread is exactly the same as my usual, monthly review spreads: on the left-hand page, I have space to note down the ATP & WTA Top 10, my #1 memory and my 6 favourite songs from the month. On the right-hand page, I have the ‘October Review’ heading and space to stick in a polaroid of my favourite photo from the month.

I switched up the layout of the left-hand page ever so slightly, cutting down the size of my playlist section so that I had room for a few final bat doodles (and a super spooky ‘boo.’). Like the rest of the setup, I used my size 08 Pigma Micron to draw the boxes, then made the subheadings using torn black paper and my white Gelly Roll. For the ‘Playlist’ section, I added the smaller squares (for the album covers) and lines using the size 05 Pigma Micron.

For the right-hand page, I opted to create another black-and-white cobweb design, instead of a frame. If I stick the polaroid on the page centrally, I should still be able to see lots of cobweb peeking out from behind it, giving the page some decoration. I stamped in the word ‘October’ using my alphabet stamps, then wrote ‘REVIEW’ using my Gelly Roll on another torn piece of paper, just to tie in all of the design elements that I’ve used throughout this setup.

Final Thoughts

I really love how this spread turned out- I did struggle a bit with inspiration for this month, so this setup was very much born out of a combination of desperation and necessity, which I find doesn’t usually yield the best results, but seemed to work out for me this time around! I love the simple, minimal vibe of the setup, paired with the occasional, rather un-minimal cobweb design (which I had so much fun recreating after seeing on Pinterest!), and I really like the classic, black-and-white colour scheme. I was also super happy to return to my paper-ripping roots, after a long time away from the style in favour of quicker, more doodle-y spreads.

Overall, I think this spread is going to be perfect for the spooky month ahead, without feeling overly garish- I feel like it’s Halloween-y, but not too Halloween-y, if that makes sense! As always, though, I’d love to hear what you think in the comments below!

Gemma

xxx

Table of Contents

• Equipment
• Cover + Quote Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Projects + Blog Posts
• Weekly Spreads
  • Week 1
  • Week 2
  • Week 3
  • Week 4
• September Review
• Final Thoughts

Equipment

To create this setup, I used the following equipment:

• Crayola SuperTips: brown and dark brown (from this basic pack).
• Tombow ABT Dual Brush Pen: 990 Light Sand.
• Sakura Gelly Roll, 10 Bold, white.
• Uni Pin fineliner pen, brown.

Cover + Quote Page

For both the ‘September’ title and the quote, I used the darker brown SuperTip marker and a bubble lettering style. I also used my white Gelly Roll to add some definition to each letter. I filled the rest of the spread with little croissant doodles, which I drew using the lighter shade of brown and the Tombow pen. To draw the croissants, I started with the centre ‘segment’ of each one, then worked my way outwards, alternating between the two shades of brown, to give the croissants definition.

For my quote this month, I wanted something croissant-themed, but, unsurprisingly, croissant quotes are a little hard to come by. In the end, I found this quote: ‘When in doubt, add more butter’, which was possibly said by Ina Garten- the Barefoot Contessa (and OG Butter Lover), but I can’t find a definitive source for that claim… (100% something she would say though). Anyway, the quote felt fitting, both for my bullet journal theme and my life at the moment (I too love butter), so I went with it.

Monthly Calendar

I love the soft, playful vibe of rounded boxes, but I am terrible at drawing rounded corners. Last month, I drew out each rounded box individually for my Monthly Calendar, but this month I decided to give myself a break and drew the calendar as two grids, one on each page, rather than a series of individual boxes. It was much quicker, much easier and only required 10 rounded corners (as opposed to 124…). I drew the grid using the lighter brown marker, then used the Tombow pen to add a drop shadow (hello, my old friend) to each grid, as well as a little spot of colour in each grid square for the dates. I wrote in the dates using my brown fineliner, staying true to my shades-of-brown colour scheme. I added the header along the top, in the same dark brown bubble font, then filled in the rest of the space with, you guessed it, more croissants.

Projects + Blog Posts

I always end up with a lot of projects this time of year (it’s COZY season- it’s not my fault!), but I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed with them lately. I decided to dedicate a couple of spreads in this setup to helping myself stay on top of what I’m working on and where I’m at with each project.

On the left-hand page, I have my Project Tracker. This is just a basic grid, drawn in the same way as the calendar grid, but with a header row at the top that I highlighted using my Tombow pen. On the far-left, there’s a column titled ‘c’ for ‘Craft’. Here, I’ll write in which craft each project is: knitting, crochet, baking, sewing etc. Then, there’s the biggest column, for the name of the project. I highlighted every other line in this column with my Tombow pen, to make the table easier to use (and to add some more colour to the page). Then, there’s 5 more columns for checking off my progress on each project: ‘m’ for materials (acquired), ‘c’ for created and ‘f’ for finished, as well as ‘s’ for start date and ‘e’ for end date.

On the right-hand page, I have my Blog Post Tracker. This is a simplified version of the Kanban Board that I had in my previous bullet journals for a while there, but I’m hopeful that it will help me to keep track of the multiple posts I’m working on at the moment. The table is created in exactly the same way as the Project Tracker, but the columns this time are: ‘m’ for made, ‘p’ for photos, ‘w’ for written, ‘e’ for edited, ‘ep’ for edited photos, ‘p’ for pin and the final column, with the tick, is for when the post is ready to go live.

Weekly Spreads

Into the Weekly Spreads now and, as usual, I’ve kept the basic elements the same for each weekly, but varied the layout for each one. This month, each weekly features croissant doodles and a bubble font-header, as well as boxes for my master and daily task lists. I added drop shadows to all of my boxes, as well as little rounded oblongs in each box to write in the subheading/date, with my Tombow pen. I also added some highlighting to the task boxes on each page, just to help differentiate those boxes from the daily boxes.

Week 1

The first day of September is a Sunday this year, so I opted to merge it with the first full week in the month and create an 8-day spread for the first ‘weekly’. I used a simple layout of 2×2 grids, with a horizontal box in the top right for my master task list.

Week 2

For the second weekly spread, I used this asymmetrical layout, with a vertical task box down the far right, which left me with plenty of space on the left for croissant doodles.

Week 3

For the third weekly, I used my favourite vertical layout, where each page is divided into 4 columns, 7 of which are used for my daily task lists and 1 of which is used for my master task list.

Week 4

The last day of September is a Monday, so, like with my first weekly spread, I opted to merge my weeks and create another 8-day spread for the final ‘weekly’. I also tried out this new ‘L-shaped’ layout, which I actually really love!

September Review

Finally, as always, we have my Monthly Review page. The content of this one is exactly the same as my usual monthly review pages- on the left-hand page, there are 4 sections: 1 each for writing down the ATP & WTA Top 10, 1 for writing down my favourite memory and 1 for my favourite songs from the month gone by. I like to give myself space to jot down 6 different songs because I am chronically indecisive. I really like the effect here of using the darker brown marker to doodle in these super simple ‘scrapbook-style’ corners for the album covers!

On the right-hand page, I have the ‘September Review’ heading, which I wrote in that same bubble font, as well as copious croissant doodles. I’ll stick my polaroid of the month on top of the croissants on the page, so there will still be a few peeking out around the edges.

Final Thoughts

This spread was super quick and easy to create, and I really love how it turned out. The croissant doodles are by no means realistic, but I think they still give a good croissant impression. Overall, this setup has all the cozy, almost-autumn vibes I was craving, and I can’t wait to start using it and counting down the days to autumn!

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my bullet journal setup for September- I’d love to hear what you think in the comments below!

Gemma

xxx

Table of Contents

• Inspiration
• Equipment
• Cover Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Paris 2024
• Weekly Spreads
• August Review
• Final Thoughts

Inspiration

The 2024 Olympic Games kicked off in Paris on Friday and I am THRILLED. The Olympics are my favourite sporting event to watch and, because they only come once every 4 years, they always feel extra special. I wanted to do an Olympic-themed setup this month in honour of the games, but I also wanted to keep things simple because my energy levels are still a bit on the low side after being ill.

I decided to use the iconic Olympic Rings logo as my main source of inspiration for this setup. However, I have an irrational aversion to primary colours, so I opted to use slightly more muted versions of all of the colours. Furthermore, instead of drawing the rings in the classic 5-ring orientation of the logo, I just used random clusters of circle shapes to decorate the pages in the setup. I used both solid circles and rings to add a little more drama, while still keeping the essence of the Olympic rings.

As a final nod to the games, I used the official Paris Olympics font for my August headings (though I did draw the line at replicating this font on each of my weekly spreads- it would have looked great, but I just did not have the will power to do it!).

Equipment

To create this setup, I used the following equipment:

• Crayola SuperTips: dark pink and green (the exact shades I used were from this pastel pack).
• Tombow ABT Dual Brush Pen: 062 Pale Yellow, 452 Process Blue, N65 Cool Grey 5 and N45 Cool Grey 10.
• Sakura Gelly Roll, 10 Bold, white.
• Circle stencil.
• Pencil.
• Eraser.

Cover Page

For my Cover Page, I really went to town with the circle decoration and covered the whole double-page spread in an assortment of circles and rings. I placed the ‘August’ heading in the centre of the right-hand page.

For the circles, I used a circle stencil to lightly map out the circle shapes in pencil, then filled the shapes in with the coloured pens before erasing the pencil marks. I’m ridiculously bad at drawing circles freehand, so this felt like a much safer option for me!

Monthly Calendar

For my Monthly Calendar, I used the same coloured markers that I used for the circles to draw a grid of 5×5 boxes with rounded corners. I drew the boxes freehand, to make the process quicker and to tie this spread into the playful, doodle-y vibe I was going for. I added little circles of colour in the bottom right of each box, on top of which I wrote the dates (using my white Gelly Roll), as well as bigger circles at the top of each column, on which I wrote the initial of each day of the week. I put the ‘August’ heading in the top left, then filled the extra space with more circle/ring doodles.

Paris 2024

Seeing as this setup is celebrating the 2024 Olympic Games, it felt only fitting to create a spread to document some of the exciting moments of the games! On this spread, I have spaces to write down all of the gold, silver and bronze medals earned by Team GB, plus (the top section of) the overall Medal Table, which I’ll fill in at the end of the games.

Weekly Spreads

To keep things simple this month, I opted to forego my usual tabs. I also used the exact same layout for each of my weekly spreads (bar the first one, where I accidentally put my task list in a different place than I meant to), so that I could set them up super quickly (and with little mental effort).

Like with my Monthly Calendar, I drew all of the boxes for my daily task lists freehand, with rounded corners, using my coloured pens. I placed these down the centre of the page. In the top-left corner of each daily box, I added a little circle of colour, over the top of which I wrote the day of the week and the date, again using my white Gelly Roll.

For the most part, I put my master task list down the right-hand side of each spread by drawing another freehand box in a taller, thinner rectangle shape (though it’s a horizontal rectangle at the bottom of the page on the first weekly spread). For the subheading on this section, I drew a rectangle of colour and used my white Gelly Roll to write ‘TASKS’ on top in block capitals.

I added the weekly heading to the space on the right-hand page. If I had more energy (and determination), I would have continued using the official Paris Olympics font for these headings, but I just didn’t have it in me this month! Instead I opted to use my white Gelly Roll on top of my darker Tombow pen. It’s not quite as impactful, but it does the job!

Finally, I decorated all of my weekly spreads with even more circle doodles, placing them down the left-hand side and on the right-hand page, around the heading.

August Review

Last up, as always, is my Monthly Review page. I’ve kept the basic layout the same for this spread- on the right-hand page, there’s the ‘August Review’ heading and space for my favourite photo from the month. I added some more circle decorations here, some of which will still be visible around the polaroid, once I’ve stuck it in!

On the left-hand page, I have my usual sections along the top for the ATP & WTA Top 10 players, plus a space to write down my favourite memory from the month. Below those, I have a larger space to write down my top 6 songs of the month. To decorate this section, I used my coloured pens to draw these thicker rings that kind of remind me of vinyl records, which I thought was a fun way to tie the theme into this musical section!

Final Thoughts

Okay so, overall, this isn’t my favourite setup… I’m not sure if it’s just that the doodle-y vibe isn’t really working for me this month, or just that I found it really hard work to create (not in a sense of effort required- it only took a few hours to setup! I just couldn’t get into the swing of it like I usually do with my setups). Having said that, the colours are cheery and I know all of the spreads will be functional, so it will be perfect for getting back into the swing of using a monthly journal again.

I’d love to hear what you think in the comments below! Have you been watching the Olympics? My favourite sports to watch at the Olympics are definitely the gymnastics and the diving, so I’ve been loving following along with those.

Gemma

xxx

Today’s post is all about my Mid-Year Bullet Journal Setup! Every time I start a new journal, I have to re-setup all of the initial pages- things like my Future Log, Media Trackers and Tennis Calendar. This new journal will cover July through to December (though, seeing as July is already nearly over, I won’t be making a July setup this year- we’ll just skip straight to August instead, and that post should be coming soon!).

A quick note as well for anyone waiting for the 6th and final instalment of my Bridgerton House Baby Blanket Pattern: it’s on its way! Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten- I’ll be getting that post, as well as the Ravelry pattern page, out as soon as possible.

Table of Contents

• Journal
• Inspiration
• Equipment
• Cover + Quote Page
• Future Log
• Tennis Calendar
• Medical Notes + Prescriptions
• Blog Planning
• Ideas
• Bullet Journal Theme Ideas + Wishlist
• Finance + Knit & Crochet Tracker
• TV + Reading Tracker
• Final Thoughts

Journal

As I mentioned, I’ve started a new journal for the rest of 2024. I recently purchased some journals from Coral and Ink, one of my favourite UK-based stationery shops, so I had a few options to choose from! I actually purchased these journals as part of the company’s B-Grade journal sale, where they sell any journals with slight imperfections at a lower cost. It’s a great way to save money and still get a beautiful, perfectly useable journal (honestly, the imperfections on mine are barely even noticeable)!

Anyway, I selected this lilac bullet journal to use for the second half of 2024. It has a cute, gold polaroid and sunflower motif on the front, plus gilded edges, two ribbon bookmarks, a back pocket, a pen holder AND an elastic closure. I mean, what more could you want?

Inspiration

For my initial pages in a new journal, I always like to choose a theme that reflects the design of the journal itself. Unsurprisingly, then, I went with a sunflower theme this time around, using a purple and yellow colour scheme (that’s right- I know all about the colour wheel). I think it’s a really cheery theme, and the colours remind me a little of Tangled (my favourite Disney film!) which makes the whole thing even more perfect.

Because I was already so behind with my journal, it was really important to me that this setup be quick and easy to create. I decided to go down the doodle-y, ‘perfectly imperfect’ route, so the majority of the spreads are created with coloured pencils only. I know, I know- no ruler? Blasphemous. But it really sped up the whole process, which was exactly what I needed. I did also use a fineliner pen to write in some of the smaller headings and details, like the numbers, but I opted to use a brown shade, instead of my usual black, to keep things soft and a little more natural-looking. Also in the interest of keeping this setup simple and quick to make, I opted to forego my usual tab sections and scale down the number of spreads I had to create.

Equipment

As I mentioned, I kept my equipment list super minimal for this setup (no, like, for real this time). The only materials I used were:

• Coloured pencils (3 shades of yellow, 3 shades of purple and 1 shade of brown).
• Uni Pin fineliner pen, brown.
• Scissors.

That’s it! See- I can be minimal sometimes!

Cover + Quote Page

To decorate my Cover Page, I doodled some quick sunflowers, alongside some two-tone purple branches, which I scattered all over both pages. I wrote both the quote and the heading in my darkest purple pencil, in an intentionally messy, block capital font.

Future Log

The Future Log is a vital part of my bullet journal. I find that this particular layout works the best for me: I have a mini calendar for each month along the top, so that I can see the ‘shape’ of each month at a glance, then I have vertical calendars beneath them, where I can write in any appointments, plans or events. I’ve highlighted the weekend dates on my vertical calendar in a different colour, to give myself a clearer idea of which day I’m on.

I’ve actually included two double-page spreads for this Future Log: the first runs from July-December (i.e. the months covered in this bullet journal), then the second (pictured above) covers the first 6 months of 2025. I like to include a spread for these months, too, because I sometimes have appointments that are made a long way in advance and I need to be able to keep track of them too!

Tennis Calendar

Next up, we have my beloved, if slightly over-the-top, Tennis Calendar. I use a whole 6 pages for this spread, but it’s soooo worth it. I love being able to whip out my calendar and let everyone know (whether they care or not) what tournaments are coming up next.

I followed the same layout for this calendar as I’ve done in my last 2 setups: the middle two pages are trimmed down and house the heading, along with some decoration (in this case, more sunflowers and branches).

The remaining pages house the calendar itself, which I separate into months, then weeks, with ATP tournaments on the left-hand side and WTA tournaments on the right. I include the start dates of each tournament and use a little symbol to indicate what level of tournament they are: a full circle indicates a Grand Slam, a 3/4 circle indicates a Masters 1000, a semi-circle indicates a 500 event, a 1/4 circle indicates a 250 event and a star indicates a group or other event (such as, in the case of this year, the Paris Olympics!). I also have space on each side of the table to fill in the winners of each tournament.

Okay, okay, I messed up this side of the calendar a little bit. I don’t know how it happened, but my October weeks got out of sync and… I just have to make my peace with that. Still, that mistake gave me space to add some fun sections to the bottom of the page: I’ve included sections to write in the qualifiers for each of the ATP, WTA and Next Gen Finals, as well as the Year-End #1 players for both the ATP and WTA tour.

Medical Notes + Prescriptions

Next up, we have my Healthcare spreads. On the left-hand page, I have a space for any notes from my appointments- I like to jot a couple of things down to keep track of what’s happening and what my doctors are saying. You know, responsible stuff like that.

On the right-hand page, I have my typical Prescription Tracker. This is an essential page for me, because it helps me keep on top of my prescriptions and make sure I know when to reorder them from my local pharmacy, so I never run out! Whenever I get a new delivery of medicines, I count them all up and fill in this table, which helps me to work out when they will run out and, by extension, when I will need to reorder them.

Blog Planning

I’ve created a much more condensed version of my Blog Planning section this time around, using only a single, double-page spread for it. On the left-hand page, I have spaces to track my monthly growth on Instagram, keep a note of my colour Hex codes and record my intended Blogmas At Home projects.

On the right-hand page, I have a larger space to keep track of what I have posted on the blog, along with when I posted it.

Ideas

Typically, I like to separate my Ideas spread up into sections, so I can keep everything organised and accessible. This time, however, I’ve opted for more of a mind map/brain dump style page, with a simple heading in the middle and plenty of blank space around the edges of the spread to jot down any ideas.

Bullet Journal Theme Ideas + Wishlist

Admittedly, these two spreads are completely unrelated, so it’s kind of weird that they’re next to each other, but they’re both super useful pages to have! On the left-hand side, my Bullet Journal Theme Ideas page has a space at the bottom to jot down any generic theme ideas, as well as a more structured space in the top right to note down any theme ideas I have that I would like to attempt for a particular month, or are month-specific.

For my Wishlist, I decided to keep it separated into sections as usual, but tried to keep the amount of sections to a minimum. In the end, I created 6 sections: Hair & Skin (meaning, of course hair products, skincare and makeup- NOT anything Hannibal-y, I swear), Clothes, Stationery, Entertainment, Home and Accessories. I haven’t quite found the perfect Wishlist spread that works for my needs yet, so I’ll see how this setup suits me this time around!

Finance + Knit & Crochet Tracker

Again, two pretty unrelated spreads (though maybe the finance tracker will prevent me from buying copious amounts of yarn on a whim? I’m unsure…) here, but, again, both very useful in their own way! On the left-hand side, my Finance Tracker is where I weigh my costs vs my income and calculate my savings each month, to keep myself (and my expensive taste) in check. At the bottom of the spread, I have a space to jot down my income streams for each month, so I can see where my money is coming from.

On the right-hand page, I have my Knit & Crochet Tracker. I love using Ravelry, but I’m a bit useless at filling it in as I go along, so I’m hoping this spread will help me to remember when I started a project, even if I don’t log it on Ravelry until I’ve finished!

TV + Reading Tracker

Finally, two spreads that have… something in common! Welcome to the abbreviated version of my Media section. On the left-hand page I have my TV Tracker. On this spread, I write out the title of the series I’m watching, along with a little circle for each season of the show. As I finish each season, I fill in the circle. I like doing this in my journal, not so much to track my watching habits, but because I like to look back and remember all the things I’ve watched (it also means, when my dad bemoans the fact I am watching something for the 500th time, I can remind him how long it’s been since I last watched it and feel vindicated).

Finally, we have my Reading Tracker. Here, I keep track of how many books I’ve read so far this year, which books I’m reading and when I’ve read them. I’ve recently got back into reading after a pretty drastic slump, so I’m really looking forward to using this spread again!

Final Thoughts

I really love how this spread turned out- it was so quick and easy to create, which was exactly what I wanted (and needed!) this month, but I don’t feel like I had to compromise on the design side of things to achieve that. These spreads feel cheery and happy, but still kind of… tasteful, I guess? I went into creating this setup without a lot of planning and no sketching AT ALL, which was kind of scary, but kind of freeing as well? There are mistakes, of course (RIP my Tennis Calendar), but I usually make mistakes even when I plan, so I don’t think I can blame the lack of planning for that one!

I hope you love this setup as much as I do! I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Gemma

xxx

Let’s get into the setup, shall we?

Table of Contents

• Inspiration
• Equipment
• Cover + Quote Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Eras Tour Memories
• Weekly Spreads
  • Week 1
  • Week 2
  • Week 3
  • Week 4
• June Review
• Final Thoughts

Inspiration

For this setup, I was really inspired by The Eras Tour poster (which has recently been updated to include Swift’s new album: The Tortured Poets Department) and the friendship bracelets that are famously swapped between fans at the event.

Each of Swift’s albums (or ‘eras’) tends to be associated with a specific colour, as demonstrated by the poster. Following the poster, the album colours are as follows:

• Taylor Swift – pale green
• Fearless – gold/deep yellow
• Speak Now – lilac
• Red – red (astounding, I know)
• 1989 – pale blue
• Reputation – dark grey
• Lover – pale pink
• Folklore – grey
• Evermore – beige
• Midnights – dark blue
• The Tortured Poets Department – black

For each album, I tried to find both a coloured pencil and coloured paper in the right shade. I was pretty successful with the pencils- less so with the coloured paper. I purchased this pack of origami paper to use so that I would have lots of options, but I still ran into some problems, particularly with the grey shades! I feel my Reputation grey is more of a Folklore grey, and my Folklore grey is more of an Evermore beige, but, alas, what can you do?

Equipment

• Sakura Pigma Micron pens (01, 05, 08, 10 and Graphic 1) (I purchased mine in this set).
• Sakura Gelly Roll 10, Bright White.
• Coloured pencils.
• Coloured origami paper (I used colours from this pack).
• Scissors.
• Ruler.
• Pencil.
• Eraser.

Cover + Quote Page

For my Cover Page, I wanted to recreate the graphic from the poster in a minimal (read: achievable) style. I opted to cut out the colour blocks for each album from origami paper and glue them into my journal, a bit like a hyper-organised collage. To finish off the right-hand page, I wrote ‘June’ below my collage in the iconic font from the poster. To recreate the font (which, if you’re interested, is Pistilli Roman), I sketched it out in pencil first, then drew around the outline of each letter with my 05 Sakura pen, before filled them in with the Graphic 1 pen.

For the Quote Page, I wanted to use the opening line from the introduction to the Eras Tour, which is a lyric from Swift’s song Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince. ‘It’s been a long time coming’ just feels very fitting for me! I decided to create a ‘friendship bracelet’ of era-coloured beads, interspersed with alphabet letter beads, on which I wrote the quote. To make this, I sketched a wavy line in pencil, then used my 01 Sakura pen to draw the circles for each alphabet bead. I added an assortment of round, heart and star-shaped beads, using my coloured pencils. Finally, I used my 10 Sakura pen to write in the quote, one letter per bead. I used this friendship bracelet effect throughout the setup, for both quotes and headings (though I didn’t keep the star-shaped beads in my bracelet doodles moving forward, because I just wasn’t… loving them?)!

Monthly Calendar

I think my Monthly Calendar spread might just be my favourite spread in the whole setup- I feel like it came together so perfectly! I went for my typical 6×6 grid for the calendar and used the same poster font to write the ‘June’ heading along the top. I used my coloured pencils to make bars of colour at the top of grid box, on top of which I wrote the dates. Finally, I decorated the space along the bottom and right-hand side with one long friendship bracelet (friendship necklace?), with another Taylor Swift lyric (from Long Live, which I LOVE and has, much to my dismay, recently been cut from the tour set list 🙁 …). This lyric one of my other options for the main quote page, so it felt right to give it this cool spot!

Eras Tour Memories

If you’ve been here before, you might have been expecting my Blog Planning/Daily Sunshine spreads around this point, but I’ve gone for something a little different this time around. I have been struggling to keep up with those spreads over the past few months, so I figured that a month off might allow me to reset, so that I can (hopefully!) get back into using them next month!

Instead of those pages, then, I decided to make a spread to fill with all of my memories from my Eras Tour experience. I’ve left the spread pretty empty, so I have lots of space to stick in photos, note down memories and just make myself a fun scrapbook-style spread to remind myself of the night. All I did was write ‘Eras Tour’ in the bottom right, in that same poster font, and add a small friendship bracelet doodle along the top left, with the date of the show written on the beads.

Weekly Spreads

Week 1

Because June begins with a weekend, I opted to just merge the first 2 days of the month in with the next week and make one big, 9-day spread. This ‘weekly’ spread, therefore, runs from 1st-9th June, so I needed 10 boxes, one for each day, plus one for my task list. I used my coloured pencils to add coloured bars to the top of each box, onto which I wrote the day of the week and the date, using my 08 Sakura pen. I used another friendship bracelet doodle for the heading, so I wrote ‘June first to ninth’ on the alphabet beads.

I’ve made no secret about my love for using tabs to separate out my Weekly Spreads, but something about it this month just felt like… urgh… a lot of work? However, not doing it felt wrong. I contemplated so many ideas and options, but none seemed to fit a) the vibe and b) my energy levels. Eventually, I had this wacky idea to make these diagonal, waterfall tabs in the lower corner and… I kind of love it? I decorated each tab with a strip of coloured paper, to help them stand out, then replicated the same design on the opposite, tab-less corner for, you know, consistency (I’m lying- it was absolutely so that I could incorporate more colours and, by extension, more Eras. This is an Eras Tour set up, after all!).

Week 2

I kept all of the design elements the same throughout my weekly spreads, but changed up the layout for each one. This layout is fairly similar to the previous one, but, because I only needed space for 7 days, I was able to make my task box a little larger.

Week 3

For the third weekly spread, I opted for my favourite, vertical box layout, with the heading along the bottom.

Week 4

For the final weekly, I really went to town with the friendship bracelet decoration.

June Review

Finally, we come to my June Review spread! As always, I’ve used the right-hand page to house the ‘June Review’ heading and a favourite polaroid photo from the month. I haven’t bothered with a frame for the polaroid, or really much decoration at all, because I wanted to keep this side of the spread pretty simple. I did however, add a little friendship bracelet decoration along the top left of the page, with the (quite fitting, I think) title of one of my favourite Taylor Swift songs: The Best Day.

On the left-hand page, I typically include spaces to note down the ATP & WTA Top 10, my favourite songs from the month and my favourite memory from the month. I’ve opted to leave off the memory section for this month, because I’m pretty sure I know what it will be (and it already has a double-page spread dedicated to it!). To create this page, I created the same minimalist, block colour version of the Eras Tour poster that I did on my cover page, but just a little larger here. I used the 6 boxes along the top and bottom to house my favourite songs from the month, then used the 2 boxes down each side for the tennis top 10s. To finish it off, I decorated the centre, black panel with little musical and sparkle doodles, just to really drive the whole concert theme home. To keep this spread nice and light, I opted to use my white Sakura Gelly Roll for all of the subheadings/doodles, instead of my usual black pen.

Final Thoughts

I’m really happy with how this spread turned out- I love how colourful it is, without being too ‘in-your-face’ and I love how much it really feels like an Eras Tour-themed spread! I also love that it was pretty quick and easy to setup, which was just what I needed this month. I really think I’m going to enjoy using it over the next month and I’m hoping that it will help to get me in the mood ahead of the concert (and help me relive all the fun memories afterwards!).

I hope you’ve enjoyed this Eras Tour-inspired bullet journal setup! I’d love to hear what you think about it in the comments below!

Gemma

xxx

My theme for this month is, of course, Bridgerton (I swear, I swear, there will be some non-Bridgerton-themed posts coming SOON… alongside a couple more Bridgerton-themed ones (#sorrynotsorry)…). With Season 3 coming out this month (in 6 days, to be precise!), I didn’t really have a choice in the matter- I just had to honour the occasion with a bullet journal theme. I did actually do a Bridgerton theme for my May setup last year, as well, but I’ve gone for a very different vibe/colour scheme this time around, so it doesn’t feel too similar!

Table of Contents

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

Inspiration

As I mentioned, my theme for this month was Bridgerton– specifically, Bridgerton Season 3, the first half of which is set to be released on 16th May. I wanted to go in a completely different direction to my previous Bridgerton-themed bullet journal setup, so I really tried to focus on some of the themes and colours associated with the upcoming series.

Firstly, I went for a dark green and gold colour scheme. This was inspired by the new logo that the Bridgerton social media accounts have been using, in honour of the upcoming season. I opted to use POSCA Paint Pens for this, to get deep, opaque colours without risk of bleeding or ghosting. It did mean my spreads took a little bit longer to create, because I had to wait for each layer of paint to dry (and the pages did curl up a little bit, too), but, all in all, I think it’s made for a really successful setup.

I also took inspiration from several other themes/symbols from the show. These include:

• Wallflowers

The tagline for the upcoming season of the show is ‘Even a wallflower can bloom‘, which, of course, refers to the leading lady of Bridgerton Season 3 (and OG wallflower): Penelope Featherington. It’s clear that the concept of the wallflower will be integral to the plot of the upcoming season, so I really wanted to incorporate it into my setup somehow. In the end, I opted to create these green ‘brick wall’ backgrounds, then layered over some golden flower doodles, as if they were ‘growing’ up the walls.

• Mirrors

The so-called ‘mirror scene’ from the books has been all any Bridgerton fan can talk about in the run-up to this new season, so the mirror has, of course, become an iconic symbol that has been used throughout the promotional content. Because of this, I wanted to incorporate some mirrors into my setup, so I gave drawing a couple of ornate, golden mirrors a go!

• Bees

Bees are a running motif throughout the Bridgerton series, so it felt only right to include them in my setup. Every now and then, I’ve included a little, golden, bee doodle as a nod to that.

• Lady Whistledown’s Society Papers

The gossipmonger Lady Whistledown is a central character throughout the series, but will (for obvious reasons, if you’ve seen the first two series) really come to the forefront in the upcoming season. While I do have a whole page inspired by the iconic scandal sheets, I also reused the decorative border from those sheets in my weekly setups, to link my spreads together and give Lady Whistledown the recognition she deserves!

Equipment

Despite being quite an involved, ornate setup, I kept the equipment that I used for this setup fairly minimal:

• POSCA PC-5M Paint Pen, English Green.
• POSCA PC-3M Paint Pen, Gold.
• Sakura Pigma Micron, black (sizes: 01, 05, 08, 10 and Graphic 1- I bought mine in this pack).
• Ruler.
• Scissors.
• Pencil.
• Eraser.

Cover + Quote Page

For my Cover Page, I really ran with the wallflower design and created a whole page of bricks and golden flowers. I put the ‘May’ heading in the centre of the page, written in a block capital font (as my little nod to the classic, minimal font used in the show).

For my Quote Page, I created a green and gold border, then drew an ornate hand mirror in the centre of the page, using my gold pen. Inside the mirror, I wrote ‘Dearest Gentlereader’ (though I could not for the life of me decide whether it should be Gentlereader (one word) or Gentle Reader (two words)- everywhere online seems to use two words, but surely if it’s a play on gentlemen, it should just be one?! I just don’t know). To further decorate the page, I added my first little bee doodle, along with some swirly corner frames, inspired by the promotional content for Bridgerton Season 3.

Monthly Calendar

As always, I like to use a double-page spread for my Monthly Calendar, because I like to have plenty of space to write in any events/notes. For this spread, I used that same wallflower-inspired background, but, instead of doodling the wallflowers randomly across the background, I drew the flowers around the calendar grid. I placed the ‘May’ header in the top left, using the same, golden block capital font, and added another bee doodle in the bottom right.

Also, let’s absolutely not discuss the fact that I just… completely missed off 1st May in my calendar…? I have no idea how it happened, but I truly did not even notice until I was writing in the dates after I’d decorated the whole spread. Whole thing. Luckily, because I’m so late with my journal this month, it won’t affect me anyway!

Blog Planning + Daily Sunshine

Another spread that uses my wallflower-inspired background, my Blog Planning page has 4 boxes down the left-hand side, for any quick notes on my upcoming posts. I have also included a larger, more detailed box for a super fun, upcoming project I have planned, so keep your eyes peeled for that one! To keep a sense of ✨mystery✨, I haven’t added the subheading for this section yet, but I will be writing that in with a black fineliner.

For my Daily Sunshine page, I opted to forgo the wallflower background and instead tried my best to replicate the design of the Lady Whistledown scandal sheet, as seen in the show, using just my Sakura Pigma Micron pens. The layout does mean that I’ll have limited space to note down my happy memories from this month, but I think it’s worth it (I can always write super small, anyway!).

Weeklies

I typically use tabs to separate out my Weekly Spreads, but, recently, I’ve been experimenting a little with different methods/styles of doing this. Back in January, I tried out waterfall-style tabs, where you cut away the whole edge of each page, increasing the width of the pages as you go to get a staggered effect. I decided to do something similar for this setup, but I alternated between wavy floral and straight dark green edges, to achieve a pretty, striped effect. So that my spreads looked fully-decorated no matter what page I was on, I decorated the left-hand side of the first page with more of my green brick pattern.

Although I varied the orientation of each of my Weekly Spreads, I tried to keep the style/decorative features quite consistent throughout. In general, I used the same Lady Whistledown border that I used on my Daily Sunshine spread to section up the pages, wrote the subheadings in black script and highlighted them with a line of gold, then used the same font/style for the green and gold headings (except for the first page, where I accidentally drew an extra box… oh well).

Week 1

The first 5 days of May run from Wednesday-Sunday, so I only needed 5 daily task list spaces on this spread. I used the remaining space for my task list/heading.

Week 2

I think this might be my favourite layout from all of this month’s weeklies: 4 vertical boxes along the top, 4 along the bottom and the heading right across the middle.

Week 3

For this spread, I split the right-hand page into 6 sections (a 3×2 grid). I then used the bottom of the left-hand page for the remaining daily task list and the rest of the space for the heading/task list.

Week 4

For my fourth weekly, I put the heading along the top and split the remaining space into 8 (one 2×2 grid on each page).

Week 5

As usual, with my final weekly, I like to include all the days from Monday-Sunday, regardless of whether they fall in the right month or not, just to help me visualise the whole week. To set up this spread, I divided each page in two horizontally, then used vertical boxes for the days in May and horizontal boxes for the days in June, to distinguish between them. I also included a (slightly wider) task box.

May Review

For my May Review page, I’ve included all my standard sections: places to list out the ATP & WTA Top 10, to write out my top memory for the month, to note down my top 6 songs from the month and, finally, to stick in a polaroid picture. As always, I’ve placed the polaroid section on the right-hand page, along with the header, then fit the other sections into the left-hand page.

To decorate the left-hand page, I went back to my brick background (minus the wallflowers, because a) there wasn’t enough room and b) my wallflower tab gave enough floral decoration for me!). I decided to make a ‘frame’ for the polaroid this month (for the first time in a long time) and tried to mimic an ornate, rectangular mirror with my gold pen, by using lots of swirly details. Admittedly, this could just be a picture frame, but I’ll know that it’s meant to be a mirror, so I’m happy. To finish off the spread, I added two, final, little bee doodles.

Final Thoughts

This setup brought a lot of firsts for me: it was my first time using a dramatic colour scheme like this, my first time using paint pens and my first time (attempting to) draw mirrors! Overall, I’m really happy with how it turned out- it’s a very different style for me, but it’s exactly the kind of opulent, Bridgerton-y, #polin vibe I was going for!

When it comes to the paint pens, I was really happy with how they worked here. I didn’t get any bleeding or ghosting (minus one tiny patch on one of my weeklies) and the colour is pretty opaque. I did find it could be a little patchy if I didn’t press the nib down frequently enough, but I think that’s a case of user error. It was a little bit tedious having to wait for each layer of paint to dry on each page, which is part of the reason this setup took me so long to create, but honestly, it was so worth it. If I had created this setup with regular markers/gold ink pens, the colour would absolutely have transferred to the opposite pages while I was setting it up, which I feel would have ruined the effect. Long story short, it required a little extra time and effort, but the end result was better for it!

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my May 2024, Bridgerton Season 3-inspired Bullet Journal setup! I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments- including whether or not you’ll be watching the new season of Bridgerton on 16th May!

Gemma

xxx

In the interest of getting back into my bullet journalling zone, I wanted to keep my setup for this month super minimal, with a focus on functionality over design. When life is complicated enough to interfere with my bullet journalling, I always figure that my bullet journal itself needs to be the opposite- simple. This month’s theme, therefore, is a little different to my usual style- for April, I’ve opted for a minimal, monochromatic bullet journal setup. Typically, I opt for more elaborate, decorative themes, but I had neither the time nor the headspace for that this month. I’m hoping that this simple setup will be exactly the push I need to get back into my bullet journalling rhythm!

Table of Contents

• Equipment
• Cover Page + Monthly Calendar
• Blog Planning + Daily Sunshine
• Weeklies
• April Review
• Final Thoughts

Equipment

For this setup, I used a ruler and my Sakura Pigma Micron pens (yep, you read that right- that’s it!). I used the 5 fineliners from this pack, which includes the following sizes: 01 (0.25mm), 05 (0.45mm), 08 (0.50mm), 10 (0.60mm) and 12 (0.70mm).

I have always used Muji pens for my bullet journalling, but I’ve heard great things about these Sakura pens, so I wanted to give them a go. I figured this setup would be perfect for trying them out and, I have to say, I really liked them. I only had a couple of issues with smudging/ghosting, and all of those were caused by my own impatience, rather than the pens themselves.

Cover Page + Monthly Calendar

In an attempt to reduce the number of spreads I had to set up this month, I opted to combine my Cover Page and Monthly Calendar. I drew a simple, 5×7 grid in the bottom right using the 01 pen, then used the 12 pen and a simple, block capital font for the ‘April’ heading in the top left. I added the dates to the calendar using the 05 pen.

To decorate this page (and the rest of the setup), I drew an assortment of lines, switching up the thicknesses by using the different Sakura pens.

Blog Planning + Daily Sunshine

As always, I’ve included a section in this setup for planning my blog posts. I drew the header in the top left, again using the 12 pen, then drew the individual boxes using the 01 pen. Down the left-hand side, I have spaces for any notes on individual posts. On the right-hand side, I have a space for upcoming projects next month (to help me try and get ahead a little!), plus a bigger section for a super secret special project that I’m hoping to pull off towards the end of this month- stay tuned!

Next to that Blog Planning spread, I have my Daily Sunshine page. This is a spread that I include in every monthly bullet journal setup that I create- essentially, it is just a space to write down one good/positive thing that happened every day. I drew a large box, using my 01 pen, to house all of my happy notes, then wrote the dates down the left-hand side, using my 05 pen. Also… let’s ignore the rogue diagonal lines on this spread… I don’t know what came over me, but they are not the vibe 🙁 .

Weeklies

While I typically like to use a variety of layouts for my weekly spreads in any given month, I just didn’t have the brainpower to dream up 5 different orientations for my weeklies this time around, so I only used one (and a half, I guess, because the 5th weekly, by necessity, had to be a little different). I also didn’t include my customary tabs this month, because, honestly, it just felt like so much effort. So that I don’t bore you to death, I’ve just included a photo of one weekly spread here, but rest assured that weeks 1-3 are exactly the same.

I opted to put my daily section s down the centre of the page- 4 on the left and 3 on the right (with the remaining space at the bottom used for any events that are coming up the week after- aptly subtitled ‘NW’ for ‘next week’). I used my 10 pen to write out the initials of the days of the week, along with the date, then used my 01 pen to section them off horizontally. I then used that same 01 pen to make one box on the left-hand side, for any notes, and one on the right, for my task list. Because I wasn’t using tabs, I numbered each weekly spread so that I can navigate through my journal more easily. This particularly weekly was for the fourth week in April, so I used my 12 pen to draw the outline of a big number 4 in the top left-hand corner, before filling it in for a super bold look.

Because the final weekly only contains two days of April (the rest of the week is taken up by 1st-5th May), I had to change my layout a little bit for the 5th weekly. I opted to split the left-hand daily section into two for the April days, then split the right-hand section into 5 for the May days. I kept the rest of the layout the same.

April Review

Like with my other spreads in this setup, I kept my April Review super simple- I just wrote the heading in block capitals along the top-right (using my 12 pen for the word ‘April’ and my 10 pen for the word ‘review’). I kept the boxes on the left-hand page the same as I have for the past few months- along the top, I have spaces to note down my favourite memory from the month, as well as the ATP & WTA Top 10, then, below that, I have a space to write down 6 of my favourite songs in April. As always, I like to include space for a polaroid on the right-hand page. In the interest of keeping things simple, I opted to forgo my usual ‘frame’ and just decorate the page beneath with the lining style that I have used throughout the setup, on top of which I will stick the polaroid at the end of the month.

Final Thoughts

I think this setup will be exactly what I need this month- just something simple and lowkey to help me stay organised and slowly ease myself back into bullet journalling. This isn’t my usual style, and, I just admit, it doesn’t bring me quite as much joy as my typical bullet journal themes, but it’s functional and it’s clear, so I’m happy. Also, it was insanely quick to set up, which is always a plus!

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my April 2024 Bullet Journal Setup! Hopefully I’ll get back into the swing of things in time for next month, so I can get back to creating the overly elaborate, crazy setups of my HEART.

Gemma

xxx