Ani, my magical friends. My first blog post calls for some celebrating. This year has definitely been a time of first. First blog, first bullet journal, working on my first new adult book, first time making stickers, and I am sharing my first month's journal pages.
I am definitely a planner and I planned out the entire yearly theme. I feel it gives me direction and a sense of calm to know what I will be drawing in the next month's spreads.
The entire year's theme is magical creatures.
The theme for January is, can you guess? Dragons.
New experience
I have learned what works and doesn't work, so my pages have changed drastically over the six months I have used a bullet journal. When I first started bullet journaling, I have to admit that I was intimidated. It was overwhelming to draw and plan the layout, but it was also freeing.
I am sure I am not the only one that never found a pre-made planner that met my needs. I wanted something that I was passionate about filling and using and bullet journaling was the answer. This first step opened my eyes to the possibilities of what I could include in my planner. January was filled with dragons. One of my favorites was using the flames as my mood tracker, I thought at the end of the month it was beautiful.
When I first started bullet journaling I created weekly spreads and some of them I liked but I have to say trying a dutch door with dragons was definitely my favorite. I noticed as I am sure that you do, that I did not fill a lot of weekly boxes and felt it was wasted space. I love dragons and I am sure they will make appearances in future spreads. I really liked using a ring binder, but I am going to admit that this allowed me to make mistakes or spreads that I did not like and then pull them and try again. This is a good thing and a bad thing. A good thing because I was not worried about mistakes. A bad thing because I was tempted to change the layouts a lot. I left most of them alone and I even saved the old ones. The main ones that I changed were the beginning pages and the business pages.
I feel it gives me direction and a sense of calm to know what I will be drawing in the next month's spreads.
Four Lessons I learned
1) The drawings do not have to be elaborate and if you need to trace then do it.
When you are first starting out, you have to do what makes you feel good and makes it easier for you. The point of doing bullet journals is to create a way of planning that works for you. Bullet journaling feels magical to me because it is evolving creature.
2) The spreads can evolve over time and it is okay to experiment.
When I started to look for inspiration and examples of different layouts, I wanted to try everything. I picked my favorites, such as dutch doors. I wanted to try one-page spreads and two-page spreads to see which worked better. I learned that it was okay to try them all, obviously at different times, so I try them over months. Try is the keyword, just by trying a person can learn a lot.
3) Themes can reduce stress.
Bullet journaling is the process of planning and having themes is planning the planner. Themes can be anything, and I like to plan for the whole year. The thought was that the bujo (bullet journal) would be more cohesive with an overall theme. I can tell you that it is and it isn't. There were so many variations and changes that have happened that it does all go together but there is definitely growth to be seen in my bujo.
4) Bullet Journals should be functional.
I found that aesthetics are great and we should strive to make out bullet journals beautiful to us, whether they be fully painted, filled with stickers, or have a minimalist feel. But the biggest priority is that it works for you and that it performs what you need it to.
What type of themes do you create?
If you are interested in seeing bullet journal spreads and learning about my author/artist life please follow my blog and checkout my YouTube channel - VRJanis