EVERY DAY IN MY MTN

To make up for the ceasing of my MTN weekly posts, I've decided to pick up a new blog post trend for my Bullet Journaling. This form of documenting has been the most practical and easiest to keep up with for a few weeks, and may very well be the only method that works for me right now. I've wrote a number of Bullet Journaling posts in the past, so this post will really be just an overview of the pages I've done and hopefully give you some ideas of how to set up your spreads:

I've been focusing on creating simple spreads in my MTN, with pages not taking longer than an hour to put together. Embellishments are kept to a minimum and supplies include the use of stickers, journaling cards, and stamps from a variety of sources (Kelly Purkey, Kaisercraft, Amy Tangerine. etc).

Till the next MTN post!

BULLET JOURNAL PART V

It's been a while since I've done a part on Bullet Journaling, so here's a little gallery into how my weeks have been organised and decorated since February:

My Bullet Journal decorations are in no order or plan. I tend to just go with the flow, and use ideas that I'm currently working on in my MTN weekly / Project Life. Some weeks may just be an odd doodle, and others can be more elaborate as the last spread I did. You can follow my Bullet Journal posts through my Instagram (@lettersinnovember) if you want to stay up to date!

BULLET JOURNAL: PART IV

February has come around faster than I know it, which meant that a new set-up for my Bullet Journal was required. But before I get ahead of myself, here was the last spread of my Bullet Journal for the month of January:

This pattern was similar to the blue pattern I had on my previous spread, but instead of triangles, this was focused on squares.

Anyway, I eliminated quite a few things for my February set-up. For one, I didn't include a February calendar because January's was left unused, and for another, I eliminated my 'Goals' section as well (which I know I shouldn't have, because it did keep me on track last month, but oh wells). You can see how I set up January's layout here. I did, however, keep my monthly overview and my habit tracker as it proved the most useful.

For my first week and spread of February, I decided to go for a minimalist view (kinda like my first BuJo spread which you can see here), and I quite like it.

Most of the designs here were drawn with pen (Micron 01), with the exception of the alphas which were stamped using Kelly Purkey's Shoreditch alpha stamp and Kaisercraft's stamp pad. I then added some stippling within the alphas to give it some patterns. I will definitely be experimenting with stippling a whole lot more in the days to come. That's about it for this part of my Bullet Journal series, but you can check out more Bullet Journaling posts by clicking here for part one, here for Part II and here for Part III. Enjoy!

BULLET JOURNAL PART III

It's been a while since I've given an updated view of my Bullet Journal, so I thought I'd give an overview of how my 2016 Bullet Journal has been set up. I know it's probably a little late seeing we're already half way through January, but it may give you some ideas on how to set up February.

We start first with the title page:

I made it relatively simple using stamps and alpha stickers. The stamps were from Studio Calico and numbers were from Kaisercraft.

The next two pages was a January calendar I did myself and a January monthly overview. I know I could've written the events in the calendar, but I think it would just look too messy. I'll probably scrap the calendar for next month as I barely use / look at it. The monthly overview details what happened / is about to happen on each day.

The next two spreads are my January tracker list and my goals list:

I particularly love the habits tracker list as it keeps me on top of the things I need to do for each day and prevents me from writing it down in my daily to do lists each time. Although, if I do fall back behind too much, I do write it on my daily list to remind myself further!

Now we come to my spreads: because my Bullet Journal spreads aren't organised into any particular week, I'll just call them Spread 1, Spread 2 etc. This would be Spread 1, which marks the beginning of the new year:

This first spread was relatively simple. I barely added any decorations to it, other than my tasks. I of course, found it a little too boring, so I jazzed it up from next week onwards.

Spread 2 was inspired by coffee mug stains:

It was relatively simple to do. I didn't actually use coffee for the stains as they aren't exactly fadeproof etc, so I used brown watercolour paint. Use any mug / cup and paint watercolour on the base of the cup. When it's nicely coated with brown paint, plonk it down onto your page and you've created a nice little coffee cup stain. Easy peasy. The coffee stamp was from Sweet Stampshop and the gold glitter alphas are from Heidi Swapp.

Spread 3 was decorated using Kaisercraft stamps, and washi:

Spread 4 takes on a more tropical green theme and I think it has to be one of my favourites so far:

The leaves stamps are from Studio Calico while the 'happy' phrase from Kaisercraft. I love the calming nature of this spread and it was so simple and quick to put together.

The last spread which takes us up to this week was inspired by my watercolour musings. I've been obsessed with watercolour recently so I had to move it into my Bullet Journal spread:

Apart from all my daily tasking, I've been lusting over Midori spreads seen on Instagram currently as I do miss the size of it all. I don't want to start a new booklet because keeping it in my current MTN cover makes it just too fat for comfort, so I thought: why not just incorporate it into my Bullet Journal? I woudn't do it together with my daily tasks, but I'm planning to do a weekly overview (kinda like my weekly Project Life spread) in a facing spread to summarise the week. This way, I'll be able to keep my pretty pictures and my tasks all in one. Brilliant.

I hope you enjoyed this post!
Till the the next Bullet Journal post!

BULLET JOURNAL: PART II

I've been using my MTN for my Bullet Journaling studiously for the past few days and I love it. I'm still experimenting with different ways of documenting things, but I will definitely be sticking with this system in the new year. Here are two spreads I've done so far:

I've been quite fond of doodling this little baby elephant and it will definitely make a comeback in future spreads.

I have more or less settled on a few things that works for me though, such as:
1- 0.3 Micron Pen for the date
2- Blue Black 0.28 Unistyle Fit for the body
3- All text written in caps
4- Red 0.28 Unistyle Fit for tasks completed and for tasks migrated
5- Green 0.28 Unistyle Fit for events
6- Black 0.28 Unistyle Fit for dashes indicating events explanation

I'm also particularly loving how coloured Versamagic stamps are appearing in the mix, together with some washi tape. I've still yet to try out many other formats and mediums though, so stay tuned for the next part of this series!

BULLET JOURNALING

I was getting pretty restless at home with no work and with nothing to document, but I wanted to do something. I wanted to write. I wanted to use my MTN. I wanted to create. So I decided to research Bullet Journaling to see what all the jazz is about. I've heard of it before, but I knew that when it comes down to it, the whole concept is basically just a to-do list system - with fancy icons. Put it simply, Bullet Journaling is basically just a fancy name that someone has given to an already known / mundane task. But, that doesn't make it any less helpful. I guess someone had to lay down the basic 'rules' to make it universal, even though, in the end, Bullet Journaling can basically be anything you want. Everyone has their own way of doing things, and everyone will alter the system to their liking, because what's the point if not useful? But don't get me wrong, I'm not here to bag on Bullet Journaling and its creation, because I'm currently using the idea of it in my MTN, and I'm loving it so far. On the contrary, I'm here to spread the word on Bullet Journaling (even if it doesn't seem like it), and demonstrate my second little project for this year and beyond.

I started my own little Bullet Journaling system in my MTN last weekend after doing some meticulous research online. I love how everyone has customised their Bullet Journal to fit their own lifestyle and I was absorbing every little bit of idea to implement it in mine. The past 4 days of Bullet Journaling has been going great, and I always can't wait to use it because for the first time in ever, I actually have a notebook where I know I'll be able to doodle / write in without feeling guilty that I've ruined a perfect book. The thing is, I still haven't laid down a particular format I like. It's still early days, after all, and I need to experiment a little bit more. So what I've planned for my Bullet Journaling is to document each facing spread differently, that way, I'll be able to find out just the right style for me. This week has been all about monotone colours - black and white and nothing more:

I must admit, black and white does make things look neat, but I do miss colours, therefore, I'm aiming for the next two spreads to contain them. My mission will therefore be the continue altering of page styles until I find my 'just right' format. I will of course, document these pages in batches as I did with my MTN daily November, in the hopes that maybe it will help you future Bullet Journalers know how you'd like to style yours. In order to make things a little more organised, I've included a list of things that I should try out for each facing spread. I'll be adding more ideas to the list as the days go on. Feel free to try it out yourself and chip in with ideas!

Bullet Journal Challenge:

1.       Black and White

2.       Colour

3.       Boxes

4.       Stamps

5.       Photo

6.       Illustration

7.       Quote

8.       Washi tape

9.       Sticky Note

10.   Stickers

11.   Watercolour

12.   Icons

13.   Pie chart

Exciting days are upon us and I hope you'll be able to join me on this journey!