Do you have 6 minutes to get inspired and prepare for the April? Check out this easy tutorial – I’m sure you’ll find something for you. If you do, let me know:).
Tag Archives: bujo
April Bujo Tutorial
If you want to see the how this Easter inspired bullet journal is made, check out the video – it’s only 7 minutes and it goes through all the pages we need: the cover page or title page, monthly spread, mood tracker and habit trackers and a brain dump or lists spread.
I hope you find something useful and if you do, hit the like and subscribe for more:).
Yearly Planning
It is time to plan the upcoming year – or at least prepare to do so in the beginning of January or during the holidays… If you want to do it in a notebook or a bullet journal, here are some ideas how to go about it.
First, there are useful lists or collections as the creator of bujo calls them
* key: that is a legend to the symbols you use in your journal: how will you mark down something is a task, an event, is important etc… I honestly never use it so I stopped drawing it. But if you tend to have a complicated unintuitive system, you might want a reminder what each symbol means. For me it is very intuitive and I don’t really need it.
* savings tracker: another very useful and popular spread that I personally don’t use. I tend to leave my money alone if I don’t need something and usually I think twice before purchasing something so it’s not really something I would bother about. But it could be very beneficial if you struggle with your income/outcome balance;).
* birthday calendar: is very practical especially so that you can see at a glance when the month with many birthdays is coming up and you can plan accordingly (save or buy gifts in advance, reduce the workload if you can to bake the cakes etc;)…
* gift ideas: my favourite and indispensable spread! I often get an idea what to give to someone right after their birthday! So I write it down and it waits for the right occasion. It is also very nice to have a variety of ideas – from small to big so you have a gift for every occasion and you can match them so each kid gets roughly the same;).
* period tracker: what can I say – for those of us who are done with kids or those who don’t want them (at this time) really necessary but it can be beneficial to those planning on kids if you are not one of the lucky ones who can say: “I get pregnant when he looks at me funny”… I know the theory from uni but I don’t know much about that from practice – I always had to worry about the other end of equation and watch how he looks at me 😀
* pen pals tracker: a very useful tracker if you have several pen pals – you can keep their addresses, what you’ve already sent, their preferred style, their hobbies, etc… and of course have I sent the letter yet and has she received it (I don’t have male pen pals;). I had one a few years ago and I have to make it again.
To set your year for success many people recommend to live our life with a vision and set our goals clearly and smartly. To help you with that you might consider a page of goals or affirmations or purpose, however you call it and design it. I haven’t really done that in a meaningful way but I would like to try this year.
* cover page for the year: to set your intentions
* notes to self / affirmations / resolutions: what you want to tell your future self – it could be motivating and uplifting or a kick in the butt – whatever you think you most often need;)
* bucket list – although it is a list it belongs here, I think. It is a list of all the activities and things you want to try in the upcoming year. Some people put 100 things on the list – I was a bit more modest and only went one third of that.
* review the past and plan the future: to-do and not-to-do – i.e. lessons learned / you can do the level 10/10 (basically how satisfied you are with different parts of your life), or any other method. In any case, it’s good to look at different sections of your life – not just to know where we lack but also to be happy for the things that are going right:) We often forget those;). A couple of ideas for sections: family (you can divide that into kids and love partner, siblings and parents or whoever you live with), career, travel, sport / fitness, health, money/financess, home
Now that we know where we want to go, it’s time to schedule and plan. There are a number of spreads to help you with that:
* future log / important dates / year at a glance – that is usually at least a two page spread with all the month and important dates in them (birthdays, conferences, business travel, vacations,… everything that you know in advance)
* schedule / time blocks / block schedule / pomodoro technique / family schedule: I have already done our family schedule because we all need it – we all use it every single day multiple times – I made one in my bujo and one on a piece of recycled card that sits on the counter and we can see when somebody comes home and who needs to take whom where and when… Very practical. But a time-block schedule can also be practical for work. And a weekly personal schedule will make fitting your hobbies into your life a bit easier (sometimes;).
* home plan: if you want to make your home a bit nicer, it’s a very practical spread. This is the first year I have made it and I love it! I’ll post more about that in January.
* business plan: I am not much of a business woman but I should start one if I want to take this to a next level. Not quite there yet, though;).
* social media plan: I usually break this down into different sections and write one every month because that seems more manageable for me. But if you like to plan a year in advance, be my guest:).
See you tomorrow with a tutorial and more ideas on planning for the year!
December Weekly Tutorial
Yesterday I’ve shared my December’s weeklies and today it’s time to show you how I drew and painted the spreads:
I hope this inspires you to create your own, with the holidays you celebrate, adapt it to your families traditions, chose your happy moments,… Now we’re allowed to travel, to see family, there will be lots of shows… so you’ll probably be busy and hopefully happy:)
Have the best December ever!
How I Plan Appointments
3-4 minutes read- grab a planner and join me;)
When I talked to my alpha how I plan for all the family things I asked him what does he think I do after I come home from the doctors appointments with kids – he said that I probably put a reminder in the calendar so I don’t forget to make the next appointment needed. But I go one step further:
when we come home from the previous appointment as soon as I get home I google schedule an email to the same facility for the next appointment when needed – if they tell me to write for the next check-up in March, I schedule an email in March to be delivered during their working hours – then I just wait and in March when I have forgotten all about it I get the answer from the dentist to confirm the date of the appointment they have given us. It saves me so much time and frustration!
My alpha called this “next step genius”! I know this blog is not about optimisation but I also know moms and other busy people who want to have more time for art, might need/appreciate this;). This hack can save you so much time! I hope it helps someone:)
And this is how I find the time to make kids cards when they go somewhere;). More on that later – I just made quite some;).
How to Make Back-to-School more Fun
3 minutes read
Some of you are probably still enjoying your holidays but most of us are back home getting used to work schedule, preparing for the school to start, for all the extracurricular activities, meetings and all the normal busy life…
How can we make the new beginning a bit less chaotic and a bit more fun? I admit I might not be the right person to be preaching right now since me and the kids are running around our place busy trying to get it cleaned and in order before the busy kicks in full speed… but we have a saying “the blind hen sometimes finds the golden grain” (which is not surprising – what is a hen to do with a golden nugget – she can’t eat it :D) But let’s give some ideas a try:)
To start school with some enthusiasm we used to wrap notebooks and workbooks together and decorate them in original ways. That really made a difference so that kids looked forward to school:). Now they can do it themselves but they still enjoy the decorating a lot:).
A friend of mine gives his kid a new little something into the pencil case every year – a funny shaped eraser, a really good pencil, a brand new pencil sharpener, a special pen or whatever. Just a small detail to let the kid know he loves him.
I sew my kids new clothes for the first day of school – they choose the pattern and the fabric themselves and I make them something – it could be a dress, pants, T shirt or if I have the time, a combination of two items (since they are three that is not always possible – depending on the complexity of the chosen projects and the time when we arrive home and how much we stay home in the days before the school starts;). If you don’t enjoy sewing, you don’t have to do that – you could buy new clothes or even better – get them from friends – we love second hand clothes – we don’t have to go shopping that none of us enjoys and we get clothes that fit:).
Another good idea is to pull out your trusty old bullet journal or planner and fill it with all the things we have to do – all the lists, all the appointments – medical exams, vaccinations etc… So you are on top of things (sort-of;) – at least for the first 2 weeks;). Tell me if you’d need more on that – I don’t want to be too pushy with my bujo since I really love it and never know when to stop writing about it;).
Bullet journal for holidays
How to use bullet journal when you are planning your holidays? Well, as a planner, bujo is perfectly suited for the task! I’d recommend having a few lists (and if you want to see how I did this bujo, there’s tutorial on yt for the monthly layout and for the weeklies):
– one with critical information in case things get lost, phones stolen etc…
– one with all the necessary addresses you’ll need for the stay (like hotel address, street of the museum you want to see…)
– one with your friends and family addresses if you plan to send them cards (and I really recommend that you do – it brings them so much joy!)
– of course, packing list – and I like to divide it into luggage list and hands-on list – even if I’m not traveling by plane – I almost always have two bags and it’s so much quicker to prepare everything when it’s already sorted – and less chance that we forget anything
* you can also add a spread for memories – written or drawn or you can take a travel journal with you if you prefer or plan a long vacation with many memories;) You can use polaroids on this spreads as well – they are very popular in bujo communities. I don’t have a polaroid camera so I don’t do it but it looks really cute. If you don’t have polaroids, you can paint on a piece of paper in those measures and use it as a polaroid;).
Fishy July bullet journal weeklies
As I promised last week, here are the fishy weeklies – I love the last two spreads – the spiral and circle one (what a surprise :D) but I’d love to know which ones are your favourites! Here is the tutorial:
And if you want to just look at the pictures, here they are:
I know many people don’t make bullet journal during summer months as there is less to worry about – but if you’re planning a vacation it can be really helpful (more on that on Sunday;).
I love sea and everything sea themed so I like to make my summer bujo even if I didn’t need it. But I find out again and again that the more time I have, the more full of ideas my bujo is… Am I the only one? 😀
Have a very nice summer and if you plan to go somewhere, you’ll be happy to know that a bunch of arty-travel ideas are coming up in July so stay tuned:).
Sea bullet journal
It’s the end of the month, it’s hot, we’re abut to go to the seaside… so what does that mean? A sea themed bullet journal, of course! If you’d like to sea, how I painted the cover, the monthly and the trackers, just click on the video bellow:)
As promised in the video, here’s the list of materials:
– pencil and eraser
– ruler or straightedge
– black fine liner in size 0.3 (I use Rotring refillable pen but any fine liner would work, even Pilot pen would work just fine as long as it’s waterproof when dry)
– brushes, a rag and a jar of water
– watercolour paints: cerulean blue and/or turquoise, Prussian blue, Ultramarine blue, indigo blue, raw sienna and ochre for the sand, burnt sienna or Indian red and dark brown in any shade you want for the turtle and a touch of Payne’s grey if you want to add to the shading on the turtle’s shell.
I hope you like it – if you do or make anything similar, I’d love to know – write me a comment or tag me on Instagram (@very.arty.fairy)!
June bullet journal with roses
June is a busy month and this June will be especially busy since our eldest is graduating primary school. They have the real official dance and ceremony with dresses and decorations and everything! So this was my theme for June… If you want to see how I made it, here’s the video of the whole process (sped up so you don’t have to be there for 3 hours;).
I have a big monthly since I know I will need it this month…
We’re going to this beautiful place so I just had to paint it… You can use your bujo as a sketchbook, that’s totally legal;)
And a closeup of some of the wreaths:
I hope you like it and you come back for more:)
Very Arty Fairy 