Can you believe it’s almost February? I may have lost track of time and am just getting to setting this up now, so I thought this was the perfect first blog post to share.
The Theme
This February, all my pent up #wanderlust is finally getting an outlet - both in my bujo and in my life as I’m off on holiday this month. To celebrate, I’ve decided that February will be vintage travel themed. I wanted to capture a handful of my favourite things all in one spread:
mountains, gold, vintage, plane windows and clouds.
You can find a full list of the materials I used at the bottom of this post but nothing is so precious that you need these exact tools. Just find
a pencil
an eraser
a ruler 📏
a marker
and a pen. and if you want to get fancy, grab
watercolours or gouache
a gold watercolour pan
some water
and a couple of brushes
and that’s it.
Though I have countless stationary supplies, they’re not necessary. Most of the time, I just use a ruler and a Bic pen I got in bulk on sale. All the other is a creative outlet for me, which in itself is self-care and inheritantly good (for me) but not necessary (for anyone).
Last thing before we get started - you do your set up wherever feels good for you. Before I started filming, I set up my spreads in bed. Paints, markers, pens and scissors everywhere. The point? Wherever is comfortable is your right space to set up. I like to grab coffee and a podcast and settle in for the long haul.
The Plan
I focused In on some greyed out shades for my painting elements and simple line drawings on top. If you don’t love drawing, stickers or cutting and pasting would work great for this as well.
The spreads are tied together with simple cloud details ☁️☁️☁️ along the bottom of most of the pages. These are just curving lines that all attach, at varying heights and widths.
I love anything vintage because of the history and stories old things hold. I tied this element in with vintage inspired travel memorabilia done minimally and gold accents. My habit tracker was set up long before this spread so doesn’t quite fit the theme but the use of brown Kraft paper for the habits gives a nod to the theme.
The Details
Though as a whole, this designs may look complicated, it’s made up of simple parts. Squares, rectangles, circles, curves, and lines. I love having inspiration, and sketching out in pencil first. Head over to my Pinterest where I have boards where my inspiration and references lives.
On my Pinterest page “vintage travel” you’ll really see what I leaned heavily on for inspiration. The cover page references looking out a plane window with gold details lighting up the sky.
I stuck with simple shapes and minimal materials. I didn’t want the spread to feel crowded, but to invoke some of the joy of travel and the little magic moments.
The Spreads
Month at a Glance
I prefer to have my cover page and monthly calendar in one spread with a quote integrated. I see it more this way than if it were stand alone because I’m always flipping back to my monthly to check dates.
I’ve recently started using my calendar page to integrate both a calendar and quick view of any important dates. You can see that I had to do some cut and paste in the columns of dates.. the first time I only gave February 21 days. It did look aesthetically pleasing but February already has less days so I couldn’t cut it shorter and fixed those columns with some glue and extra paper.
Where I would usually put monthly goals, I decided to integrate a quote into the clouds. I switched around some words to make the quote fit better around the clouds but find it still gives the same feel as the original here with no author to credit.
Habit Tracker & Journalling Pages
I’ve had the same type of habit tracker for months and though I love it, I thought it was time for a change. I got to work hunting for a habit tracker to fit my needs: single page, many habits, minimal effort during the month. I was inspired by this one from Blueberry Papeterie and this one from Boho Berry. I liked the formal they did but wanted mine to be a bit different.
I divided my habits Into 5 sections: morning routine/self care, work, working, cleaning and evening routine. Work is more about planning and scheduling, while working is more the creative side of things.
I have each day of the month it’s own box running alone the top and put in line dividers for each week (I’m a Sunday start kind of gal).
This is my first time doing a mood tracker in over a year so I kept it simple with a 3-colour key.
Most of my habits will just get a dot beside them for completion but a few have a set of icons to give me a bit more information.
The best part of a habit tracker may be seeing it all filled in at the end of the month. I’m excited to see how this version serves me.
Packing List
Depending what’s going on each month, I tend to have a spread to reflect any items that require a bit more room. Because I’m going on holiday this month, I decided to integrate a packing list.
This Is mostly just a blank spread with some vintage elements to tie it into the theme. I’ve decided to lay it out with “to do’s” on the left page and “packing” on the right. I am a lover of list and this spread helps ensure me I’m not missing anything, on the way out and back.
Weeklies
Though these may not be the most exciting spreads, they are the ones that I spend the most time in.
My weeklies feature days of the week along the top. This is where I put events so they’re easy to spot at a glance. Below I have a rolling weekly. I learned about this method from Plant Based Bride on YouTube, though the original method comes from Ryder Carroll, the creator of the bullet journal method. This style set up for my task list. This method saves me so much rewriting It’s crazy.
Neither of the weeks I have set up so far are standard for me because of my holiday.
For my first week (with the ticket doodle), I set up Friday and Saturday as columns to give me more dedicated planning time because those days will be busy with travelling.
My second week, I will be in Hawaii so I left out a task list all together and will instead use this space for memory keeping.
Thank you for joining me for my first video on bullet journaling - I’m happy you’re along for the ride (pun always intended).
For everything fibre art, be sure to find me on socials @themarigoldfold. I’m most active on Instagram and would be honoured to have you join me there!
Materials
- Maisie Lane A5 custom black on black bullet journal
- Bic round stic M
- Uniball Signo in gold
- Westcott white eraser
- Elmers washable school glue stick in disappearing purple
- Bic #2 mechanical pencil 0.5mm
- Magicfly gouache paint set
- Staedler triplus fine liner in charcoal
- Archer & Olive A5 Neapolitan notepad
- Archer & Olive acrylograph 7mm tip, cool fall