It’s a new year, which means it’s time to set up all new spreads for my bullet journal. I’ve been using bullet journaling as my primary form of planning for a year and a half now, and am on my second planner. I have found that it is the most flexible way to plan and track what I need to at any given time, and a way for me to spend some time creatively on what ends up becoming more than a planner.
On my blog, I’d like to start showing you what I’m doing with my spreads, and where I get my inspiration from. I’d also like to document my progress and see how the visual aspect of my journal changes over time.
So here’s the spreads I’ve created for 2019 and January of 2019. I already created my key and table of contents in the beginning of the book (as I started this one last year) but here’s everything else I created:
2019 Landing Page
For my 2019 spreads, I wanted to make something colorful and exciting that I would enjoy revisiting often. I found some metallic watercolor shades from Michael’s a while back, and decided to test them in my journal. Although I clipped the pages back to keep them flat, I still found that the pages curled, so it may be best for me to insert pages if I want to use them again. However, I did want lots of watercolor in the background for these pages, and I think I achieved that here.
I really wanted to design some mandalas for this spread, so I decided to use that throughout these spreads. The landing page has one in the center, and on the next few pages I decided to continue drawing them to pull the theme throughout the spreads.
Since I’m mistake-prone when it comes to calendars, I outlined the calendar dates out in pencil and drew over them in my Papermate Flair pen. Then I took my Mildliners and accented the months. I really like how this turned out!
2019 Future Log
I ended up not using my Future Log too much last year, but it was still something I needed in my bullet journal. This year, I condensed it to one page and left a little more room for the holiday months and 2020 as I’d expect more space would be needed there.
Putting down the paint for this section at first didn’t look too great in my eyes, but once I started drawing the layout on top, it started to look better. I also decided to add in gray drop shadows with my Mildliner and I love the dimension that it added to the page.
2019 Birthdays
Over time in 2018, I felt that I could really benefit from having a spread with everyone’s birthdays. That way, I could see at a glance when I needed to buy presents and just generally keep track. In hindsight, I probably didn’t leave enough space for each month, but if anything, I can always put a sticky note on top if I want to add more.
For this spread, I wanted to make sure it looked visually separate from my future log, so I decided against using boxes. Instead, I alternated between my blue and purple Mildliners to highlight each of the months and add more color to the page.
2019 Memories
I adopted this spread in 2018, and whenever I look back I love taking a look at everything that’s happened – visits with long-distance friends, trips to new places, first-time experiences, and other happy or successful moments that should be remembered. This spread leans more into the journaling side as opposed to the planning side, but it’s one of those spreads that I look back on and am happy to have in my journal.
For this spread, I just laid the paint and header down for now. I’m not sure if this will be a text or picture collage yet, so it’s mostly a blank slate, but I’m interested to see how this evolves over the course of 2019.
19 in 2019
This is a spread for 19 goals I want to achieve in 2019. I’m not exactly sure how this will go (since there’s many goals to set!) but I figured I’d try it this year. In order to at least make this list do-able, I’ll have to have goals at varying degrees of difficulty. My thought process behind 19 goals (other than the ’19’ in 2019) is that I will really have to think about what new habits, mindset changes, and all-around new things I’ve really been wanting, but haven’t yet realized. I realize that a lot of these goals will probably be shorter-term ones as a result, but I’d like to make it so that those goals have just as big of an impact.
I really love the large mandala on this spread – although I should have spent more time on it and worked on symmetry a little more. I think there will also be a nice amount of whitespace on this page once I write out my goals, which feels right (much like a clean slate) for what this spread’s purpose is.
2019: A Year in Books
I did this spread in 2018 and loved it. But last year, I did this on only one page with the assumption that I was going to read around 40 books. I ended up reading almost 90 books, and while it’s so rewarding to look at that page and see everything I’ve read visually, you can tell that the books get smaller and more cramped towards the last two shelves. This year, I wanted to give myself more room so I could have space to draw decorations and bookends and whatnot. Plus, I’d love to draw thicker spines for thicker books – which, was my intention for 2018, but that didn’t quite work out due to the lack of space.
Right now these pages are just a header and some shelves. I decided against the paint on this page because it’ll ultimately be saturated with color anyway. If there is some extra space at the end, I’ll definitely consider adding some in though. I’m really looking forward to watching this spread evolve throughout the year!
2019 POPsugar Reading Challenge
This year I decided to take on an additional reading challenge! This one is by POPSugar and features a 40-item challenge (plus a 10-item bonus challenge) with prompts to broaden your reading experience. This year, I’m looking forward to using it to hit some bigger books, classics, my long-term reading challenge (Gilmore Girls, anyone?) and read some books I wouldn’t normally have picked up. I’m more of a mood reader, so it’s hard for me to stick to monthly TBRs, but I’m hoping that having the whole year to read these books specifically won’t addect that.
Again, I think the paint in the background makes this spread look so much more interesting (especially because it’s mainly text!). I already started filling in books for the prompts, and I think I’ll figure out the rest as I go.
January 2019 Landing Page
And here it is – January! This year I’d really like to pull my themes from the first page throughout the weekly spreads. I found that last year I put my goals and books read boxes to good use, so I used them again here. I also want to add nice quotes that I find to each spread, plus a small calendar, so I added that in too. The blue paper actually happened after making a mistake writing the quote, but I like the way the cover-up came out with the washi tape over it.
The theme I used for January is actually very similar to what I used for January last year, but I really wanted to work on it and improve it a little more. The snowflakes were easy to make and quick to reproduce throughout the month, so it was an easy way to make my spread look a little more artsy. I also added some dots throughout to fill the smaller spaces, and I think that made a big difference.
January 2019 At-A-Glance
When I got my dotted journal, my first thought was, “I can finally make monthly spreads neatly!”. But as it turns out, those are annoying to make, and I don’t need two pages of space. Writing out the dates this way works just fine for me, and I find that I have a better idea of what’s going on throughout the month this way. My only change from last year was I put the numbers in the middle. I found that the spread looked sloppy if I had more than one thing going on for one day, so hopefully this will look a little cleaner.
This is an example of how I want to spread the theme throughout the month. I also want to experiment more with my writing overlapping some of the background drawings.
January 2019 Pages Read
This is something I originally saw on Riley Marie’s YouTube channel and I really wanted to try this out myself! This year my goal is to read 100 books, and while it’s not that much more than what I read in 2018, I do also have a lot of longer books on my TBR. I already mark my daily progress on Goodreads, but I did also want to see a visualization of my daily reading progress.
As far as theming goes, it’s mainly just colors, but depending on how this spread turns out I may add some dots and snowflakes in the margins later.
January 2019 Weekly Spread
Last but not least, here is my weekly spread! I really wanted to work on making my weekly spreads more colorful and interesting (but simultaneously not too difficult to create) this year. I’ve seen the days written out like this in a lot of bullet journals and I really wanted to try it out. It ended up being a nice, easy way to dress up the spread (and was actually quicker than just writing out the dates normally!).
I’m really pleased with how this spread came out (and how easy it was). For the next few months, I’ll have to brainstorm ideas for things as easy to doodle as snowflakes so I can incorporate them into future monthly/weekly spreads. I already started filling this one in, but I love the contrast of the large dates vs. the tiny text of the tasks and events.
And there you have it! That is my setup for 2019 and January in my bullet journal. I hope this gave you some inspiration for your planner as well, and I’m looking forward to sharing more of my journal in the near future. Let me know below how you set up your planner/journal and if you have pictures – I’d love to see them!
Stay tuned for next month’s spreads – for February I’m thinking about creating a theme with muted pink colors – my new color obsession! I can’t wait to create it and show you!
Sincerely,
Julie Anna
You are so creative and talented! I love your bullet journal! (I just learned what that is last wk lol)
Thank you! 😊 And yeah haha they’re great! I love that I can mix a little fun and creativity into my planning.