November, say what!? It’s ALREADY November! Can you believe it, 2017 has flown by! What a year… am I right? For November’s Bullet Journal planning spread, I did an experiment! I bought some letter and number stamps and tried to implement them tastefully to my layout. I really like the turnout! The stamps give it a newspaper feel if you ask me. The theme for this month’s spread (other than using stamps), was fall colors, so you will see a lot of red, orange, yellow, and brown. Let’s get started!
Hello November
As I mentioned in October’s walkthrough, I am starting to use title pages or “hello” pages for my journals and the months in them. This month I wanted to stick with the fall colors theme and use my Tombow pens to essentially paint a fall leaf. Of course, after drawing up this page, I decided to buy some watercolor brush pens to try next month, stay tuned!
November Calendar Spread
Naturally, I had the idea to buy and use stamps after I completed the hello and calendar pages, so my use of stamps hasn’t started yet. This page I wanted to utilize the crimson #847 pen but do so tastefully. I decided to use it to highlight the days of the week and the new goals section of this layout. After choosing this month’s quote, I decided to create a red clock, though I do not care for the results.
I generally create my monthly spread the same way. I generally push the calendar to the far right and use the left margin for the month title, a key, quote, etc. This month I pushed the calendar to the left and used the right margin for a goals bar. I want to start utilizing goals in my regular spreads because I believe a well-made goal can be very powerful. They give us something to work toward and tell us how we can meet the goal.
I then chose to put November in the top margin in simple thin black lettering (one of my favorites. And the quote was placed in the empty space below the calendar. I needed a small quote to put here. “Take your time” is the quote I used because it is a good reminder to slow down and enjoy what you are doing. I get going and get so focused that I forget to enjoy what I am doing. I also have a tendency to look so far in the future that I don’t pay attention to NOW. I need to take my time.
Weekly
The whole theme of this month is stamps. Because I wanted to experiment with stamps, I wanted every week to be different, while also sticking to the fall colors theme. I found last month’s general layout very productive and decided to stick to it this month. I also utilize goals and work ahead sections in the empty space. At this time I only had black ink, so my layouts had to be fairly simple, utilizing color is borders, doodles, washi tape, and titling.
Week One
The first week I had no intention of adding color. I wanted to use my stamps and I already had an idea of how I was going to do this. However, after I started drawing the final lines for each day, I decided I wanted to add little falling leafs. I did these using my Tombow pens then outlined them using my .01 Pluqis Micro Fineliner.
I used all capital letter stamps for November and all lower case everywhere else. I also put the date in the lower right-hand corner of each day’s section. I liked the way this worked and decided to keep the date in the bottom right-hand corner for every week. As you can see, my stamping is not perfect. And while I realize this might be bothersome for many people, I have accepted that stamping probably won't be perfect and I love the way it looks regardless.
Week Two
For the second week, I decided to see if the stamps would hold over washi tape. I only had patterned washi tape at this point and the black ink did not work during my trials. However, I had this silver paint pen and wanted to see how that would work on washi tape. It worked well. The only issue was that the silver is difficult to see on top of the pattern. Despite this, I rolled with it. Because it takes the silver ink so long to dry, I made a little bit of a mess by closing the page too soon. Oh well. I like it and this trial inspired me to purchase colored ink.
For the titling, I spread November and week of out instead of keeping them in the corners. I really like this. I also made week of all capital letters, this I was not a fan of.
Week Three
For this week I wanted to pull the red back into the layout. I lined the bottom of the pages with it and scribbled the titling in it. I wanted to switch up the stamp usage by drawing the title for this week. I also completed the daily squares and shortened the daily titling. I capitalized these shortened days of the week. I liked this. Lastly, I removed the goals section and replaced it with holiday prep because it is this week that I am leaving to go to my Aunt’s for Thanksgiving and have to prepare my home and life for this trip.
Week Four
By the time I drew up this layout, my colored inks had come in the mail. I first tried the gold ink, but it barely showed up on paper, let alone washi tape. I had also ordered solid colored washi tape. Instead of trying to recreate week two. I decided to use brown and orange. I stamped and outlined in brown then utilized my orange washi tape. I titled the week and numbered the days using my stamps and brown ink. Then titled each day with a black sharpie on orange washi tape. I LOVE the simplicity of this week! Because it’s Thanksgiving week, I also decided to doodle a little turkey on the 23rd. Inspired by this spread I ordered holiday stamps, and I love them!
Week Five
This final week is marked by the end of my semester. As such, I decided to mirror week one, except using confetti instead of leafs. Essentially the layout is the same as week one.
My Bullet Journal Tools
