Tag Archives: BuJo

April 2020 Bullet Journal Pages

I was reading a good book/series this week and didn’t spend any time tangling. :p This week’s Zen-Untangled is comprised of tangles I’m familiar with. It includes the Diva Dance tangles along with Drawings and a few others I cannot recall at the moment. I only had 2 tangles to do the step-outs for and so I procrastinated–not surprising to me. :D

Well yesterday when I was supposed to be doing art, I was finishing up the fifth book in the Invisible Library series. Then I decided I didn’t feel like drawing/tangling, so I decided to share my bullet journal pages I prepped for this month.

I started by pulling out my washi tape . . . all of them. :)

I looked through them and tried to see what sparked joy. I realized that Easter was very soon and wanted to use some of my Easterish/spring tapes. From there I added some whimsical ones and then ones that fit with the colors of the tapes already chosen.

Here is the page I set up for the meeting Tiffany and I have at the beginning of the month and where I right down goals or things to focus on.

This page has a completely different approach than most of my monthly goal pages because I usually use some glitter washi tape. But I just wasn’t feeling that this time. I like how it turned out–it’s light and whimsical.

Then I picked some more tapes that I like and felt matched the feel of this page and just ran a strip down the middle of the page. Here you can see how I use it.

I right the list either at night before I go to bed or in the morning before I get busy. Then I add stickers or whatever, if I want to add a bit to extra space on the page when I’m done with it. Sometimes I journal a bit, sometimes I log what I eat, and sometimes I’m way to ambitious with what I write down to do. :D

Here are the pages I have set up for the rest of the month. I find that if I don’t pre-run the tape, I’m not as motivated to use the pages and then I’m not as motivated to accomplish things. ;) Writing it down means I’m more likely to do it. Otherwise I do only those things that are essential and spend the rest of my day indulging in other things.

Some of these are wide and some are more narrow. Most of these have a combination of several tapes of varying thicknesses. Some work out nicely and others just okay. :D

I hope this has inspired you to keep a bullet journal and that it doesn’t have to be a work of art. :)

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Bullet Journal Pages

Well, the art I did so far this week was to pretty up my bullet journal pages. I’m not much on weekly or monthly spreads. But I do like my pages to have some pizazz. I utilize the power of washi tape and stickers. :)

Being a stay-at-home wife, and having Tiffany here learning to be one too, we have a monthly meeting to give ourselves some goals and to give each other some support and encouragement for the coming weeks. Before our meetings I like to make some washi tape sections on a page to put my notes and things. Here’s my page for this month.

I had several pages that didn’t have anything pretty on them. Time to pretty them up.

I really like that wider tape I used on that one.

Sometimes I journal on a page and leave space to put some washi tape on it later; that was the case with the left page below.I combine different widths of washi tape sometimes. I did that on both pages above. I like the effect of different tapes combined.

Sometimes I make notes or work things out on another piece of paper and want to keep it, so I affix it onto a page in my bullet journal, like this below.

I am better about using my bujo when the pages are a little bit pretty. So periodically I’ll run a piece of tape down the middle of the page and it is enough to encourage me to use it more.

I’m guessing that by the time I get to the page on the right it’ll be Christmas week and it’ll be nice to use.

Here’s the last two pages I’ve prepped. I’ll add some stickers as I go, if I feel like it at the time.

This is my no pressure approach to bullet journaling. I like to have a place to put all the notes I take and not lose them. I don’t really utilize the index as intended; I just thumb through to find what I’m looking for. I try to set off special things with stickers, sticky flags, or . . . wait for it . . . washi tape. :D

Remarkably, I got so much washi tape last year that I didn’t even put any on my Christmas wish list this year. :) But I do have to admit that I like to look for more washi tape as often as possible; you never know when you’ll find some you just have to have. ;)

Well, that’s all I had time for today because I spent a big part of it trying out a new recipe to see if it would work for our church dinner next week. Verdict is in and it was a success–we all deemed it delicious. :)

I hope you have a great week.

Until next time,

Michele ºÜº

Bullet Journaling, Simply and Prettily

It’s been quite a while since I shared some of my bullet journal pages. I do so to encourage you to not be intimidated by a bullet journal. It is a tool that helps me be a bit more productive. When I don’t use it, it usually shows in the “mess” around me. ;)

I generally just write my to-do list down one side of my page and then later come back in with some pretty washi tape that makes me happy at the time. :)

Here’s an example: The way I write in my bujo and then how it looks after I come back in with some washi tape and stickers. :)

Bullet Journaling ~ Lifeofjoy.me   Easy Bullet Journaling ~ Lifeofjoy.me

I thought I’d share some recent pages. I’ve gotten so many different sizes of washi tape that I don’t always know how much space to leave, so I’ve tried my hand at washi taping a few pages before I write it and I don’t think I like that way as well for daily use. However, I love it for collection pages. I have washi taped up a 2-page spread for Christmas because I’ve started picking up some stocking stuffers as I find them and I need to keep track of what I have and how much I’ve spent. I haven’t written anything on it yet but it’s ready to go. :)

That is red glitter at the top with a gold foil and white dots along the sides. The one on the sides is a thinner tape. Then there are the gifts at the bottom of the page. :) I’ll write Christmas Gifts across the top under the red glitter tape and then create sections for everyone on my Christmas gift list.

This is my August planning page on the left and then I pre-taped the page on the right. I still have one column open for writing and I’m not bothered that it may stay blank for a while. Eventually I’ll figure out what I want to write there. ;)

These are two more pages that pre-taped. For the left page, I just grabbed a tape I wanted and ran it down the middle. Later I’d written some things I wanted to make on my next baking day on sticky flags. I decided to put them all on one column and because they weren’t very sticky, I ran one of the thinner tapes I have down both edges to keep them in place.On the right side I picked out some tapes I liked and but the sparkly star one down the middle and then found a thin star tape and ran it across the top and bottom. Later I used the left column to make this long list of things I’d like to get done, if I didn’t have any other responsibilities and on the right was notes (that I didn’t end up looking at) I made for my youtube intro video.

Below is a collection page I made using stickers and washi tape for ideas for my patreon benefits. I haven’t gotten very far but I’m working on it. (Do you have some ideas for me? Leave me a comment if you have an idea for me.)I didn’t want to forget that I want to makeover this recipe and decided I could keep a running list of ones I want to work on. Then I was working on a jello recipe and needed to make notes of my research and attempts, so put it here. Of course this now means this page will fill up more quickly but that’s okay, I’ve got lots of pages. :DThe page on the right was born because I got way behind on listening to the THM podcasts and wanted to keep track of ones I really liked and take quick notes on things that was said so I could refer to it later.

Sometimes I write things on sticky notes and pop them in the bujo so I don’t loose them. I’m still trying to remember what that blue one means. :D

For my birthday this year, I wanted some books but wanted to find bargains and didn’t want to put my family through that hassle. So I requested money and wanted to keep track of it. I saw these adorable stickers at Dollar Tree and got them specifically for these pages. I’ll write more about my birthday in any space leftover.The pages below is actually for three weeks–I’m not always consistent in writing my to-do’s and some weeks I have more to do than others. So I managed to get three weeks on these two pages.

I don’t usually need something like the banners across the top of the left page but that week was the beginning of a pretty busy stretch and I was needing to keep track of it all and these little banners helped. When the dailies only took one column on the second page I was concerned about how I was going to get my banner on and then I had a good idea and wrote it down the page edge. :) The washi tape and flower sticker were added on the day I was prettying up my bujo.Once again, the tape on the left side was added later. I had a big space and so I used a wide tape. :) For my June planning page, I had made notes on sticky notes of different sizes. I wasn’t in the mood to rewrite them so I just washi taped them on the page. :) I vary the size of the tape with the space available and combine tapes sometimes too. The left page below is another collection page. All that means is that I made a page to collect similar notes. In this case, it is a list of book suggestions. I think the flower strip of washi tape was added on the day I was prettying up my bujo. Then I had gotten two new passwords and didn’t want to forget them, so I put them in the bujo and frame it up with more washi tape to draw attention to it, so I can find it easily. If I had a lot of passwords to keep track of, I’d create another collection page but this works fine for now. I had a lot of space left over, so I just added some pretty stickers. :)I just wanted to show you the pretty flower petal stickers I found at Walmart! Those on the right page below. I’d seen them on Wish but hadn’t ordered and was thrilled when I saw it locally. Again, they were added after writing. The final page I’ll show you is my monthly tracker for what I’m eating, weigh, exercise, and Bible reading. I had hoped that writing down everything I was eating would help me see trends in weight loss/gain. Well, it did. :D I only weigh twice a week and log it on those two days at the bottom of the square. I wrote the book chapters on the right side and then cross them off as I read them. I have a lot fewer pieces of paper piled up on my table and getting lost since I have the bullet journal and I think I get more accomplished too. ;)

I hope this has inspired you to try your hand at a bullet journal and know that you can leave it plain or pretty it up in whatever way suits you. :) I know there are a lot of people out there that do lots of drawing and artsy stuff in their journals with themes and all that but I just keep mine simple. :)

Until next time,

Michele ºÜº

 

Rash, Daily Focus, and Bujo Idea

Daily Focus ~ Lifeofjoy.meWell, it’s Finally Friday once again. Sometimes my weeks are so uneventful and mundane that I really don’t have anything on my mind to talk about on Fridays, which makes me soooo glad that I at least have a subject focus each of the other days of the week.

The biggest thing on my mind, other than my failure to go visit with my parents in the last couple of weeks, is this annoying rash, for lack of a better word for it, under my arms. The really sad thing is that I cannot determine what caused it exactly. You see, I got new razors (a brand I’ve used before and loved) as well as a different deodorant. I used both for the first time on the first day. Now, I must admit that when I was in the shower using the new razor, a lovely 5 blades, I felt that it wasn’t moving very smoothly. I thought I had ensured that the old deodorant residue was gone but it must not have been. So as I was shaving, it did feel a bit raw or inflamed.

When I got out of the shower and was getting dressed I was glad to try the new deodorant. :) Our house is pretty cool right now, so the deodorant was too. I did let it warm a bit and spread it on. I really like it but the next day it was hurting under my arms. I did use the deodorant both days but did not need to shave again so soon, thankfully.

Because of this rash and how cold it was, we decided to move our errand day. I’m hoping that a day without irritants will help it heal quicker. Thus I hung out in partial pjs for a day. ;)

I know I say this all the time, but it is hard to believe today is February first!!! I did not do very well with the photo challenge thing but I can always start over. I also did not do well Zenuari 2019, which was an art challenge for the month of January, but I do more art than I have in a long time this past month.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it yet but Tiffany and I have decided rather than do a bunch of things for a short time each day, we are focusing on one thing each day. So the things we are doing is Art Day, Bake/Make Day, Errand Day, Reading Day, and Writing Day. It is nice to be able to spend several hours in a day focusing on one thing and not feel like you have to move on to something else just when you are getting into it. If I only allot an hour a day to reading, I have a hard time putting the book down when that hour is finished and moving on to something else, like art. And then it may be difficult to get an art idea and follow through with it before that hour is up and time to move on to writing.

So this is a way to be able to immerse ourselves in one area and get a little more accomplished. If I have art ideas on writing day, I just write it down on my Art Ideas collection page in my bullet journal.

#bulletjournal art ideas ~ Lifeofjoy.meThen when art day arrives, I look at the ideas and decide if I want to use one of those or if I want to do something else.

Writing day is mostly filled with writing blog posts now. I used to write them up the day, okay, more like the night before, it was supposed to be published. Now, I get most of them done on writing day and have them scheduled for publication on their respective days and don’t have that hanging over my head each day. Michael likes it better too.

The first week I did this, I did not get started early enough in the day and ended up finishing it up close to bedtime, which frequently happened before, and Michael did not care for that approach. This is a much better method and makes me less occupied in the evenings. :)

Well, for nothing much to talk about, I sure did ramble on. :D

I’ll run for now. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and make great plans for February. Tiffany and I have our first of the month meeting today, so I’m planning to make it a better month ahead.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

February Wrap-Up; Planning for a Good March

As things turned out last week, Michael’s van decided to be finicky and not start on my errand day. So, he had to take the car, which was okay by Tiffany and I since we didn’t feel like running errands anyway. ;) Michael stopped at the store and picked up some essentials, so that we could make it through the weekend.

But I decided that we could actually make it until Wednesday, which was the last day that Sprouts had their roasts on sale for $2.88 a pound. That is a great deal here and I usually like to get one each week of that sale, so I got a couple this week. :) The last one we had was really good.

I cannot believe it is already March! Tiffany and I had our monthly check-in with each other. I like this because it gives us each someone to talk to about how things are going and set goals for the month. Some of those goals are based on the challenges of the previous month. :o

We could not justify spending any money to eat out this week since we chose not to do this on errand day (and my gift cards were depleted) so I decided to make something special for us. Ham and Cheese Scones! Only problem is that we really needed to have our meeting early in the day rather than around lunch time, so we chatted after breakfast.

February Check-In ~ Lifeofjoy.meI fixed us eggs and zucchini hash and Tiffany fixed the tea. I got down some nice cups that I either got from my mom or one of my ancestors. :) I love them; they are so pretty and dainty. I did douse those eggs with nutritional yeast after taking this picture. :D

Tiffany and I both took notes in our bullet journals(bujo) as we went. We paused to draw some rectangles to fill in the beginning. Then later I made some notes on some sticky notes on how I want to design my next month bujo pages.

BuJo Feb Check-In ~ Lifeofjoy.meI’ll pretty it up later but I like how it turned out and I don’t have a bunch of meeting sticky notes to make pretty. Those sticky notes are my brainstorming schedules, routines, and bujo pages. :(

One of the things on those sticky notes is about habit trackers. Mine did not work very well last month. See.

Failed BuJo Trackers ~ Lifeofjoy.meNotice all the squares without x’s? Well, there should be very few of those. The only reason there are x’s on the Weekly Must Do tracker is because that is all about the blog daily posts and I have to do those or not blog. :o

I’ve got a plan though, so I’m encouraged. That is one thing I like about a bullet journal, when something doesn’t work, change it. If this were a planner, I’d be stuck for the whole year. ;)

Unfortunately I did not implement a lot of the things I wanted to last month. I’m referring to those things that I planned to do at the first of February. I have learned some things about myself through this. A tracker or list does not encourage me to accomplish a task. But a reminder and attaching a new task to an existing task works quite well.

With that in mind, I’ve revamped my morning routine, to accomplish some of the goals I set with Tiffany yesterday. I’m looking forward to implementing some of these changes.

I still made the Ham and Cheese Scones from AllDayIDreamAboutFood.com and they were quite yummy. I may play around with the flours a bit to lighten the calorie load so that we can have two without feeling like we overindulged. ;)

Ham and Cheese Scones ~ Lifeofjoy.meThey were delicious! We had them with a small side salad and a “after work-out” shake. They tasted sooo good we both still wanted another one. ;) I’ve sent out a question to the THM groups to see what they think about how many can be eaten in a sitting. :D

Well, I’ve rambled on long enough for today. I’m excited and hopeful for accomplishing many things this month. I hope you are too.

Until next time, God bless,

 Michele ºÜº