April’s BuJo

I’ve spent some time today setting my BuJo (bullet journal) up ready for next month.

I decided I’d like a kind of mandala with dangles for the cover page, which you can see above.

I chose quite strong purple, purple-pink and green-blues for the colour scheme, with golden highlights.  Faber-Castell Polychromos and Caran D’Ache Luminance pencils, along with a blender pencil from Derwent, were used to colour the design.  I used various Copic Multiliner SP pens to draw the design.

After working with my BuJo for a month, I decided that I needed a different design for the Monthly overview, where I’ll add in my appointments and events later on. I also wanted to change my mood tracker to one that lets me track my  mood through the day.  I thought it would be a good idea to add the other things I want to keep track of – meditation, walking and hand lettering practice.

I used dangles to join the various boxes to the headers on this page.

I also used Tombow Dual Brush Pens to colour in the designs on this page; and you can see the key to the colours used on the Trackers page.

I’ve also set up one of my weekly views.  I really liked having a page for week’s diary/notes and one where I can write my gratitude and memories.  It’s worked well for me the past week.

I will set up the other weeks as I head towards them through the month, but they’re likely to be similar with just different header and divider designs being used.

A look back at my first month with a BuJo

I’ve certainly had an interesting and fun time with my BuJo this month, and I’ve been finding out how it works for me.

My days are often very simple in terms of what I need to do, so I don’t really need or use large amounts of space for each day.  What I tend to record for each day is a list of tasks accomplished along with appointments.  The memories section is really valuable as well; for me a BuJo is more like a memory store rather than planning out my life in detail.

I’ve done a huge amount of work on collections; these include charms, dangles, bugs, botanical drawings, floral wreaths, feathers, crystals, cacti and succulents, and favourite patterns. My BuJo is becoming a kind of visual directory for me, which will be very useful as I look to start my next book project soon, as A Dangle A Day is nearly complete.

Creating the spreads is a rather soothing, meditative process for me, especially colouring.  It also gives me the chance to practice drawing dangles and other items too. I usually start my day be adding to a collection or colouring some of the drawings already done.

I do tend to keep a list of important things to do on a post-it note, but as I do them I write them down as having been done in the appropriate day.  I’ve mentioned it before, but I find ‘to-do’ lists not very motivational for me and a source of me beating myself up.  For me, lists of things I’ve achieved that day helps me far more.

I’ve added hand lettering practice to my trackers as I want to practice that a lot more.