WHAT YOU NEED TO START YOUR BULLET JOURNAL

Happy Wednesday all! How's your week going so far? I'm shattered, but luckily this is my last week before a cheeky week and a half break, which I'm very much looking forward to :-) Today I wanted to talk about something that I've been really loving lately, and it's writing in my bullet journal.

I’ve heard about bullet journals for a few years now and was never really interested in starting one until recently. I have always written down ideas and to-do lists, but they were all over the place. I’d write one thing in one notebook and something else in another, meaning that I was never that organised in the end because I would forget where I’d written things. I really liked the idea that I could have absolutely everything in one place, so I started watching bullet journal videos around early December. I loved seeing how creative people get with theirs and getting an idea of what could and what wouldn’t work for me. My bullet journal will be much more simple, and it definitely won’t have many designs because I look like a 5 year old every time I try to draw something. I’m also not very good at calligraphy, so beautiful lettering also won’t be happening.

I got my bullet journal from Rymans and it’s the Leuchtturm A5 Notebook. I got mine in white, mainly because it was the only colour they had there haha, but I do quite like it. I'm just worried it will get dirty, but it’s a hardcover, so it should be quite easy to clean if it does happen. I used my Dymo Label Maker to title my Bullet Journal and I really like how it turned out. It’s very simple, but I love it.

So far I’m finding the whole bullet journaling thing so therapeutic. I never imagined I would love it as much as I do. Personally for me, I find it a lot easier to write everything out in pencil first before going over it with a pen. If you’re a pro at line work or an artistic person in general, then I think you’ll be fine going in with a pen straight away, but I want my bullet journal to be tidy and clean looking, so I find it gives me peace of mind when I use pencil first. I started by writing out the yearly calendar, and then adding a few pages on things I want to do and see throughout this year, and then I moved on to my January spread. 

I wanted a page for blog post ideas, a page for to-do lists, an expense tracker (OMG, you need to do this! SO helpful! I was actually shocked when I started filling mine out and seeing how much I’ve already spent). I also have a weekly spread, although I will be writing it out differently next month, as the way I did it this month isn’t very useful or helpful to me. And lastly, I have a page to keep all my monthly favourites so I don’t forget any when it comes to writing my Monthly Favourite blog post.

This is just an example of pages you can have in there. If you’re not into blogging, to-do lists, or tracking your expenses, you can of course tailor it to your needs and create pages that will be helpful to you. That’s the beauty of a bullet journal, you can literally use it for whatever you want! If you would be interested in seeing how I set up the month of February, let me know and I can write a post on that. For today’s post however, I wanted to share with you some things I bought to set up my bullet journal in case you’re planning on starting your own and needed some inspiration on what to buy. 

Of course, you need a bullet journal. I went for the A5 Leuchtturm dotted notebook. They do bigger sizes too if you think that would be more helpful for you. I preferred something smaller as it’s easier to carry around with me if I ever need to take it out of the house, like when I go to London or something. I also like to have a pencil and an eraser with me at all times. Again, if you don’t feel comfortable going straight in with a pen, this will help you design the pages exactly as you want them, and then you can go over it with something permanent and erase the pencil outlines. 

I bought the Stabilo Point 88 Fineliners to write and add some colour to my journal. My favourite purchase however, was the Tombow ABT Dual Brush Pens. They’re gorgeous water-based ink pastel coloured pens which have two ends. One end is a fine tip and the other is a flexible brush, which is the one I use the most. I love highlighting my writing with these pens, and they don’t smudge the ink... in case you were wondering. 

For the calligraphy side of things (or non-calligraphy in my case), I got the Faber-Castell 4 PITT Artist Pens. There are 4 different pens, each with a different thickness and they’re labelled with a letter, S being the thinnest and B the thickest. I usually use S and F to write things in the journal, M to go over any line work and B to title some of my pages. Lastly I bought these pens by Tombow. I don’t know if they’re fakes or something, because they just don’t perform very well. They’re meant to be calligraphy pens, but when I try to write something, the ink fades and not in a good way, it’s almost like the pen is drying out and there’s no ink left in there. Very bizarre. 

So that’s all lovelies. If you would like me to share my February spread with you, let me know. I could turn it into a monthly thing if you would like to see it :-)

Lots of love, SFS.