My November bullet journal setup started out life as my October bullet journal setup (which never actually came into existence, as a result of the aforementioned lack of enery). I had an idea for a setup inspired by one of my favourite knitting projects: my Pumpkin Strange Brew Sweater, with colouring pencil ‘colourwork’ designs and kraft paper accents. By the start of October, I’d just about managed to finish the layout & coloured patterns, but hadn’t gone beyond that and made the setup, you know… functional.

Around mid-October, I figured I’d be better off putting my energy into my November setup, rather than finishing off the October one. It seemed a waste to leave all of that colouring/effort behind, so I decided that I would just convert my October setup into a November setup: the pumpkins aren’t quite so relevant, but November’s still autumn here in the UK, so I think it still works??

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

Table of Contents

• Equipment
• Cover Page + Things to Look Forward to
• Monthly Calendar
• Autumn Bucket List + Daily Sunshine
• Weekly Spreads
• November Review
• Final Thoughts

Equipment

To create this setup, I used the following equipment:

• Uni Pin Fine Line pen: 0.5, sepia.
• Colouring pencils (brown, orange and green).
• Kraft paper.
• Scissors.
• Corner rounder.
• Glue stick.
• Sakura Quickie Glue pen.
• Alphabet stamps + ink pad.

Cover Page + Things to Look Forward to

For my Cover Page, I decided to fill the whole page with the colourwork design. Admittedly, this took a rather long time, but I think it really sets the scene for the rest of the setup. I used the alphabet stamps to write the ‘November’ heading on a piece of kraft paper and my brown fineliner to add a ‘stitched’ border around the edge (I was on a bit of a fibre-craft theme this month), then stuck that in over the top of the colourwork design. I really love how this turned out (even if it was pretty labour-intensive to make)!

Alongside my Cover Page, I included a spread that I’ve been really enjoying in recent months: my Things to Look Forward to Page. On this page, I can jot down all the fun things I have coming up throughout the month, so that I can check in on them from time to time and get re-excited all over again. Fun!

Monthly Calendar

To protect my sanity, I opted to draw just the chevron pattern from my colourwork design as the decoration on most of the other pages in this setup, and for my Monthly Calendar I opted to place it near the bottom. For the calendar itself, I stuck in little squares of kraft paper, then wrote in the dates with my brown fineliner (the alphabet stamps I was using sadly do not contain numbers). Finally, I stamped in the ‘November’ heading vertically, down the left-hand side of the page.

I had actually already set this spread up back when the setup was still in its October phase, so I had to add a few more kraft paper boxes to the end of the month to fit November’s layout (which is why there are 5 blank boxes in the top row… needs must!).

Autumn Bucket List + Daily Sunshine

Next up, we have my Autumn Bucket List and Daily Sunshine pages. I used a similar chevron pattern to decorate these spreads as the last spread (only with two stripes this time, rather than three), placing this decoration at the top of the left-hand page and the bottom of the right-hand page.

I plan to use my Autumn Bucket List page to jot down some of my favourite autumnal activities that I don’t want to miss out on before this season ends and the snowy, festive season begins! Autumn is my favourite season and I feel like I’ve missed a lot of it these past two months, so I really want to capitalise on the last of the cosy reds and golds!

My Daily Sunshine page serves exactly the same purpose as usual: each day, I write down one thing that happened that brought me joy or was just, in general, very sunshine-y. I’ve opted for a grid format this month, though I usually prefer a vertical format (it gives me more space to waffle!), so we’ll see how that goes.

Weekly Spreads

Into my Weekly Spreads now and I’ve used my classic layout again: trimmed down central pages, leaving a section on both the far left and far right exposed. In those exposed sections, I put my ‘master task lists’ (i.e. tasks I need to do, but don’t necessarily have a specific date for), so that I can refer to them easily throughout the month. The internal, trimmed-down pages then house my daily task lists, separated out into individual weeks.

I used a long piece of kraft paper for each of my master task lists. This means that no matter which page of the weekly spread section I am on, there is always a kraft paper accent to the spreads, so I was able to tie this section into my theme with minimal glue-ing in & effort.

For the weekly spreads themselves, I decorated the right and left side of each spread with that same two-stripe chevron design, though this time I drew it going vertically down the length of the pages and added some additional dots of colour to the pattern.

For the daily task lists, I split each spread up into 8 sections (4 down, 2 across). I used my brown fineliner to draw a ‘stitched’ border around 7 of the sections, leaving the final section plain, so that I could use it for the weekly subheadings, which help me to navigate through this section of the setup.

Finally, I used my alphabet stamps to add the weekly subheadings. As I mentioned, this particular alphabet stamp set doesn’t include numbers, so I had to write those in with my brown fineliner. It doesn’t look amazing, but I was kind of losing the will to live by this point, so I let it slide.

November Review

Finally, we come to my November Review spread! The layout of this one is exactly the same as in its previous iterations: on the right-hand page, I have the ‘November Review’ heading (here, stamped onto pieces of kraft paper) and a big space for sticking in a polaroid at the end of the month. On the left-hand page, I have sections for noting down the ATP & WTA (tennis) Top 10 players, a favourite memory and my 6 favourite songs of the month.

I also recreated the full colourwork design from the Cover Page on the right-hand page of this spread, just to really tie it back to the theme (and because I think it will make a great backdrop for the polaroid!).

Final Thoughts

I really love this spread and I’m so glad I opted to carry on with it instead of letting it go to the bullet journal graveyard when October got too overwhelming to finish it off. It was quite labour-intensive, but I think it’s really functional, autumnal and nice to look at, which is exactly what I need in a bullet journal setup this time of year! Admittedly, it probably does suit October slightly better than November (mainly because of the pumpkins), but what’s a girl gonna do? Sometimes life just gets in the way.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my November bullet journal setup!

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

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