My Summer 2018 Bullet Journal
Tuesday, August 7, 2018
Hey guys...summer is winding down here in the US, and it has gone by so quickly! Because my family and I were on the move a lot, I was feeling stressed about keeping up with weekly spreads in my digital BuJo. I'm wondering how the rest of you worked in your journals this summer. Did you keep up with entries everyday or every week? Did you put it on hold altogether? Or, did you choose to keep a simplified version like I did?
One thing that sparked a change in my journaling habits this season was paddle boarding. When my family and I headed up to the mountains for a quick weekend getaway. When we were spending time playing in the lake, I noticed so many people with paddle boards, and was intrigued. One of the guys that came down to the lake with his kids had an inflatable paddle board, and so I asked him a few questions about it. A couple of weeks later, my husband and I found ourselves taking a beginner's class so that I could see what paddle boarding was like. I wasn't sure what to expect, but even though it was a big frustrating at first, I ended up really enjoying myself, as you can see below:
Shortly therafter, my husband and I got inflatable boards, and I spent the last few weeks of August out on a nearby pond enjoying the water on my new board.
So why am I telling you this? Because during this beautiful time of year, being outdoors and active is taking priority over me making a lot of pretty spreads in my digital bullet journal. I still want to document my memories, but weekly spreads aren't cutting it right now. So instead of not doing anything, I settled on a simplified format that still allows me to keep track of appointments and such, but still give me time to get out on the water and enjoy time with my family.
Here's my video to go along with this post, if you'd like to see it:
Before we jump into my summer pages, here's what my May Memories page ended up looking like:
Here's what my journal entries consisted of for each month: I'd include a calendar, and facing it on the opposite page were sections for appointments, birthdays, events, and so on:
Because I was gone at the end of May and the beginning of June, I opted to use some pages from the Everyday Planner kit. This is the same kit I used earlier in the year to do my initial BuJo set up, so I it was an easy choice to use it again during a busy and hectic month. The two page format I used above is what I stuck with for the summer.
There were just a few additional pages I added each month. In June, I did some digital stitch meditations, which are basically drawings of squares where I digital drew or "stitched" embellishments and threads on them. I did some fabric squares when I was at my art retreat, and if you want to see more what the traditional stitch meditations look like, check out the work of Liz Kettle. Stitch meditations are her original idea, and she does them instead of a traditional guided meditation because that works better for her. I love this idea, and have started doing my own fabric meditations here and there, but wanted to see if I liked doing a digital version in my BuJo. It was pretty fun --- I'm not sure if this is something I'll do long term, but I'm trying it out for now.
I'm also doing the the Petite Floral Doodles Class from Erin at the Petite Planner blog. I'm so not finished with the class, but it has been fun so far. This is my first try at the exercises and then I'll be popping pages for this class randomly throughout my journal as I see fit.
And as I generally do, I'm putting in a page of memories for each month in the summer. Here is June's.
For July's spread, I used the calendar I created and offered as a freebie when my YouTube Channel reached 100 subscribers. You can pick that up here. The rest of these pages are hand drawn (please note that in all of my spreads, I've blocked out the birthdays listed here to protect the privacy of my friends and family...so that explains the random red rectangle on the birthdays section below).
The next spread here was created by using a calendar offered by the Petite Planner. If you like here calendar, you can get it by joining her email list, which will grant you access to her VIP Resource Library.
On this spread, the calendar grid and title treatments are Erin's, as well as the sheet with the journaling spaces, banners, and the orange accents at the top. Everything was black and white, except for the word August, so I colored in the elements to match the lettering Erin created. I created the word art and the orange drawings the bottom myself.
The only other page I've done so far for August is this packing list for Brave Girl Symposium, since this will be the only one I'll have time to finish before the summer's over, and I only decided last minute to go that event. It looks a lot like the one I did last year for a similar, trip, but I'm adding in a bit of color since I threw in some of my Bitmojis. When I return from Symposium, the plan is to add some drawings into those two wonky rectangles on the bottom left page.
I hope you guys enjoyed seeing these abbreviated summer pages. I think it's fine to simplify areas of our life when things get busy, and this worked really well for me. I hope you guys that are in the summer season are enjoying the last few days of this lovely time of year. Give me a holler and let me know what you do with your BuJo in the summer. Do you choose to keep going full bore with the same types of pages as you do in fall and winter, or do you simplify? Or maybe you do more? I'd love to hear what works for you.
Talk to you guys later!
