I've been bullet journaling for a few months now. After browsing Pinterest and watching countless YouTube videos, I fell in love with the creativity and flexibility that came with this kind of planning. Since September is often very busy, I chose a simple theme which looks good and can be done quickly: plants! I came up with a selection of cacti, succulent and other hanging/indoor plant doodles to use throughout the month. They are easy to draw and can be added to any spread for decoration. If you're wondering what supplies I used, they'll be listed at the end of this post!
This is my September title page. I wanted to keep this set-up simple, but it felt wrong not to have a decorative cover page! These hanging plants have recently become very popular, not only when doodling, but also as home décor.
I didn’t originally plan to use the brown craft paper but was forced to after I messed up the original calligraphy. However, I would consider this a ‘happy accident’ as I loved the rustic look and continued to use it later.
I chose to leave the left page blank as a way to transition between last month’s very summery theme, and this month’s darker and more muted green and brown theme.
The next spread was the monthly overview.
I decided to keep this one very minimal to make it as practical as possible. I did the title on more craft paper and filled the rest of the left-hand page with a space to note down significant dates and events. I added some washi tape to bring in the colour scheme, but I left out doodles to give me as much planning space as possible.
The right-hand page is where I added the fun, hanging-plant doodles. I always find it useful to have a space to write down my monthly goals and any events I need to remember for the next month. I experimented with using a lighter green for the right-most plant, however, I didn’t use this colour again as I felt it didn’t fit the theme I was going for.
This month, I decided to try a habit tracker and mood tracker for the first time. I think it’s important to take time for yourself, especially when it’s busy. Trackers like this will (hopefully) remind me to do so.
For the habit tracker, I combined the capital letter font I used in the title with a more decorative calligraphy font. I used a calendar stamp to save me from having to rewrite the numbers six times (although it does mean that my trackers have 31 days rather than 30!). I prefer to have my habits written out and tracked individually, rather than having one calendar and a table for all of the habits.
I drew out three hanging plants for my mood tracker. In total, there were 30 individual sections which I can fill in each day. I didn’t write in the numbers so I won’t be able to tell which days were my worst or best, but I will be able to get an overview of my mood throughout September. I added the key at the bottom of the page, bringing back the lightest green to signify happy.
I love to include a page in my bullet journal where the focus is on creative enjoyment, rather than practicality. Usually, this is some kind of relevant, decorative quote page. I put a bit more time into this page, adding more detailed drawings and the quote ‘plant seeds of happiness’. My hand-lettering is not the best here, but there are loads of other examples and inspiration on Pinterest.
I also added a brain dump page. If you’re unfamiliar with bullet journaling, a brain dump page is a space to write down ideas, journal, take notes, etc… So I tried to leave as much of the page blank as possible whilst of course adding some decoration. To make the empty space feel more finished, I added a black border.
The final spread is the first weekly spread.
Overall, I tried to keep this very minimal, leaving as much space as possible for lists and plans. However, this is my least favourite of all the pages I have created for this month so far. This is mostly because the lettering for the days of the week gradually gets higher and higher up the page, despite drawing a guideline.
I combined Saturday and Sunday into one column; I tend to be less busy over the weekend so I will need less planning space. I drew a plant above each column to decorate the spread and added the date under each day.
Hopefully my September bullet journal set-up has inspired you in some way. Of course, this theme and many of these pages can be adapted to the way you like to plan and create. If you want more bullet journal inspiration, there are thousands of talented artists and planners on YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest. Check out my Pinterest here!
Supplies:
· Stationery Island A5 Dotted Notebook
· Sakura Pigma Micron 08
· Crayola Supertips (50 Pack)
· Tombow Fudenoske Hard Tip Brush Pen
· Zarrs Washi Tape
· Craft paper collected from used paper bags
· White gel pen from Stationery Pal (to fix mistakes)
· Pritt Glue Stick
If you’re new to bullet journaling or hand-lettering, check out which supplies I recommend here!
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