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