Tag: Journal

Posted in Bullet Journaling

My favorite Bullet Journal things

Posted on by babbles&brains

NOTICE: Some of the following links are affiliate links. However, all of the products in this post I have purchased myself. Click here for more information.

Winter the kitten-cat modeling my bujo supplies.

Since I have been journaling for a while, I have accumulated some really cool things for making bullet journaling more fun for me. However, all you really need is a notebook and a pen. It doesn’t even have to be a dot grid notebook. My very first dot grid bullet journal was from Peter Pauper Press because I wasn’t sure if I would like bullet journaling and it was only $10 on Amazon. IF you want to test the waters on bullet journaling and don’t want to break the bank, I found another dot grid journal for only $8.09. I bought one for a friend who wanted to try it out recently, and it’s a great starter journal.

My red vegan leather sleeve and “starry night” insert! I’m so excited to use it!

My favorite A5 dot grid journal brand is Scribbles that Matter. The doodles are just adorable on the inside cover pages. I also love the fact that they have two bookmarks, a back pocket, and a pen loop. I’ve gone through three A5 Pro Versions of the dot grid journals. This company is always listening to its customer base and has come up with some amazing products. Recently, they have made vegan leather sleeves and inserts so you can choose your favorite color sleeve and change out inserts when you finish a journal. I LOVE this option for bullet journaling because the leather sleeve will last a while. I just got myself a red sleeve and the “starry night” insert. Get ready for JUNE 2020, because that’s when I start the next journal with BLACK PAGES (I go from June to May because I teach and it is a lot easier to organize my life around the school year rather than starting in January). I remember friends in middle school who used black paper notebooks with creamy gel pens and it just means so much to me to be able to let out my inner tween in bullet journaling. I only have three white gel pens for my black journal currently, but I definitely intend to get a few more things for black journals. Looking forward to showing you guys!

I really love having straight lines, and my favorite thing for straight lines are Jayden’sApple metal stencils on Etsy. They’re sturdy, practical, and versatile. I have the starter pack with a lined stencil for those terrible habit tracker things (habit trackers aren’t that bad I just have anxiety and perfectionism issues), a stencil with basic shapes (circles, triangles, angles for banners or drawing tags, hearts, leaves, etc.), and a circular stencil for mood trackers. The best part about these stencils is that all three of them will fit nicely in the back pocket area of my bullet journal.

For the white page notebooks, any pen you choose will work. Because I am a sloppy person who hates smudges, the fine point Sharpie pens work for me most of the time. Plus, they fit really nicely in my journal’s pen loop. I love fine lines for cute details and to keep things looking crisp. I am in the market for grey fine line pens, because I tend to use black for writing and grey for big things like monthly spreads. I also really love having the Pilot Frixion pens because they erase, but the downside is they smudge if you’re me and are not patient. But you can erase that too no problem. My best friend LOVES her Frixion pens. For fine line color, I go for Staedler fineliners.

Hand-lettering is a whole thing for bullet journaling too. I have collected quite a few options. Tombow dualbrush pens are nice, but also a little bulky and thick for day to day lettering like for a weekly spread. I only have the brights set, but I think if I were to do it over I’d go for pastel ones, which would be really nice for highlighting and shadowing. The best brush pens in my opinion are the Kuretake Watercolor brush pens. For me, they are easier to control size because the brush tip is more flexible, like an actual watercolor brush. I have the set of 24, but they have larger packs if you’re really into all the colors. My absolute favorite from Tombow is their Fudenosuke Brush Pens. They are a nice, rich black, and they do a beautiful job of dainty hand-lettering. Being patient with them is important, but they are so nice I can wait for them to dry a bit. Sometimes. I also use Crayola Supertips because they are extremely versatile. I have the pack of 100. I numbered every single pen by wrapping the cap in a little washi tape AND made a key on my test page because Supertips don’t have their color names on the markers (WHY) and I needed to know which marker was which color. Yes, I am extra.

My Crayola Supertips key is necessary!

For days when I just can’t be bothered to be cute and creative, there is washi tape. Washi tape is awesome. It’s pretty much the same everywhere for washi tape so I don’t have specific recommendations. Get a few packs of colors and patterns that speak to you and you’ll be set. I have a whole washi tape organizer full of washi tapes that I had to get because they were my aesthetic (meaning I saw they had pineapples, florals, and cuteness). I will not buy any more washi tape until there is space for it in my organizer (from Hobby Lobby). I promise, hubby.

Now, there’s something else I have to mention that I really love for my journal. A book sleeve for bullet journals. I have an “Indie-sized” floral one from bookbeau (as you can see my cat model for me in the first photo). Because I tend to bring my bullet journal everywhere with me, having a protective sleeve on it really helps it stay nice and neat, protecting it from whatever craziness is happening inside the bag. I’ve had a pen explode in my bag and it ruined the cover of my last bullet journal just days before my bookbeau sleeve arrived. My heart still hurts to think about it. Anyway, bookbeau has a lot of options in patterns and cute things, and there is also a cute store on Etsy called PagesRemembered that has more options for sleeves. I don’t think the vegan leather journal I bought will fit my Indie-sized bookbeau sleeve, so I may have to get a bigger one (and I saw one that has cats and books so….. I need that one).

These were all my bujo favorites so far. I’m working on keeping my bullet journal Instagram @babblesandbrainsbujo updated with my latest spreads. Hope to see you there!

See you next time,

Babbles&brains

Posted in Bullet Journaling

Bullet Jour-NAILING it. Or not.

Posted on by babbles&brains

I started bullet journaling a couple of years ago. Mostly because planners always lose my interest after the first month or two. Doesn’t matter how cute they are or what stickers they come with, I lose motivation to keep track of things I needed done with regular planners. Then, my best friend started talking about trying bullet journaling. Then a fellow colleague told me they were going to start trying it. So of course I got interested. I started research.

Side note: I research things to death. I’ll babble about that another time.

Anyways, I realized that bullet journaling was a pretty useful tool for me to be more creative whenever my creative muscle needs to flex. I could change things up each month, make my own themes and colors, get real simple and quick during my busiest times and still interact with my bullet journal as much or as little as I want to. It’s perfect for my Type-B brain that needs to perform in Type-A mode to keep my anxiety in check.

I failed a lot along the way with bullet journaling. I hate habit tracking and almost never do it because if I can’t be perfect and fill in all the little stupid squares in the month, then the overachiever in me feels like I accomplished nothing. Sometimes I would make an entire month of weeklies and not touch my bullet journal for three weeks after because I was just surviving, and the overachiever in me felt like I failed at organizing.

However, the fact that I put effort into my own planner even if I didn’t touch it those weeks or use my annoying habit trackers made me feel like I interacted with the process of organizing. It works for me even when I don’t work on it because creative outlets are necessary for my survival.

This is all to say that I bullet journal. I do it my way. Sometimes it’s intricate, sometimes it’s just stickers and washi tape, but it’s my whole life of teaching and schooling and living in one little book. If I don’t take the thing with me everywhere I feel naked and lost. This month already has felt strange because I forgot to even set up my first week of March so I’m already feeling behind and rushed. Here’s some pictures of what I have right now that are also on my new bullet journal insta @babblesandbrainsbujo. I’ll probably be better next week because I’m trying really hard to be the writer I want to be and time management is key for my success here. I’m not planning to create the perfect curated bullet journal insta that has everyone swooning with the perfect pictures with the cute pens and stationery accessories scattered around it. My aesthetic is hot mess. It’s going to be just me doing what I do, showing that it is possible to be all over the place but still getting it together with a little bit of creative planning.

Until next time,

Babbles&brains