August Plan With Me: Barnyard Vibes & Filling Space

August 5, 2018 3 Comments

This month I put a TON of work into illustrating my bullet journal, partly because I wanted to fill up the rest of the space in this notebook to start a new one in September. And I use my planner more when it’s pretty. I know I’m not the only one to do that. In March, I said I wanted to fill a notebook with a year’s worth of plans. But all that changed. I managed to fit 6 months into in this book, and I’m not mad.

Harvest & Fall Barnyard theme in my Bullet Journal + Pages to fill the end of a journal | @ ChocMusings ChocolateMusings.com

12 Week Year Experiment

Well, when I read the 12 Week Year, I decided that I could fill up a notebook for every 12 weeks if I wanted. Starting a separate collections journal turned out to be a good idea. I LOVE writing, jotting, doodling, building on ideas. I also realized that I needed space to track notes, etc. for current projects. Leaving space to breathe is a beautiful thing, especially when my mind starts racing 10,959,008,943 miles per hour when I lay down to go to sleep.

How to Fill Space in your Bullet Journal

Wasting space at the end of a journal seems, well, wasteful. So I threw in a bunch of trackers that I wanted to try. Coupled with note pages, I successfully filled up the rest of the book. Each page has a unique farm animal doodle + painting. My friend Amy & decided to feature Farm Animals in our Instagram Challenge this Month, so that’s where the idea bloomed. See below for a list of pages to add to your bullet journal or planner if you’re at the end and need to fill a few pages.

If you spend any time on Instagram or Pinterest, you know that there are lots of different trackers and plans you’d like to try. Since I had a few pages left in my journal, I filled the space with different trackers to see how I liked them. Each page features a different animal, partially so I can easily find the pages I’m looking for. “Oh, that one has the peacock, that’s the one with the chicks crossing the road, that one is the horse one” — tricks to help my brain.

Spreads such as a Planned vs. Actual Productivity log, editorial calendar, I added a gratitude log back in (partially because the Instagram challenge helped me think of an idea and a focus for my gratitude.

Productivity Tracker in My Bullet Journal - Track planned vs. Actual | @ChocolateMusingsCreates ChocolateMusings.com #bulletjournal #bujo #planner #productivity #tracker

Great Quotes

In a previous habit tracker post, I mentioned a quote from Gretchen Rubin, an author who writes about habits and happiness. She said, “We manage what we monitor.” Then later she mentioned that “monitoring habits don’t require change, but often leads to it.” Peter Drucker wisely said, “What gets measured gets managed.”

We Manage What We Monitor - handlettered quote #change #habits #handletter #quote #handlettered

I want to start creating and selling more planner-related resources, both digitally and eventually shipping products. This month’s ‘filler pages’ are a way to help me recognize my time wasters and what I can do differently.

Monitoring habits doesn't require change, but often leads to it. - Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before #habits #change #quote

What gets measured, gets managed - Peter Drucker

Too Ambitious?

Ambitiously, I also decided to document creating all of these pages (20 spreads!) with one YouTube Video per day. As of Day 4, I fear I’m in over my head (partly because I can’t get my computer to render the videos fast enough!). I have so much I want to share! Speaking of videos watch below for the flip through.

Extra pages at the end of your notebook? Add some extra notes pages with your theme to fill up those blank pages | @ChocolateMusingsCreates ChocolateMusings.com

Ideas for Additional Pages:

If you’re a blogger:

Editorial Pages
Blog post notes
Video notes (if you edit videos)
Social Media Results for the length of the notebook
Blog statistics covering the period of the notebook
Successes!
Things to Improve

Other Extra Pages:

Braindump (this month I call mine an Idea Cloud)
Lists of pages in your next journal
Productivity tracker
Monthly to do list
Next Month’s Plans, ideas, where you’d like to go, important information
Monthly Review
Journal/Event Page
Instagram Post Tracker
Gratitude Log
Quotes for your next journal
The inspiration for your planner
Doodle pages for headers and icons
Favorites

What pages do you add as ‘filler’?

~Tricia

No Matter Which Notebook I use – You’ll Always Find These Supplies Close at Hand

July Plan With Me – Watercolor Wash

July 8, 2018 1 Comment

July Plan With Me – How to Do a Watercolor Wash Background with Blocked out Spaces

It’s World Watercolor Month!

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew it when I started planning my July pages. Or maybe it was because I recorded all sorts of fun holidays in my future planner” and I subconsciously remembered it. Either way, this month’s plan with me is immensely appropriate for the month! I’ll show you how I did my watercolor wash + what I learned and tips & tricks.

How To Do a Watercolor Wash – My Process

If you want to recreate this in some way (adding your own twist of course!) you’ll need:

Paints (I use Crayola Markers)
Paintbrush or Water pens
Water (if you use the paintbrush option)
a Notebook
Sticky notes or masking tape to block the water in specific areas
Patience or a blowdryer to speed up drying time
Pens or Markers to add dates/events/details after

Block-It Off

Block off the sections of your notebook that you want to keep from painting. I cut the sticky notes to the size I wanted (remember that I did have some bleed under the sticky notes from the water – I was okay with it, but keep that in mind). If you use tape or another sticky substance, make sure to test it out on another page first (maybe one in the back) to make sure you don’t tear the page or something when removing the tape.

Choose your palette and paint over the whole page or sections you want to watercolor wash. I tried to do a gradient fade from dark to light in my journal, but it required a lot of water, and the pages of my notebook couldn’t handle that much water (as you can see below with the bleed through).

The less water you use, the less chance you will have to bleed through. I used the same markers in June, less water, more intense color, less bleeding, lesson learned.

Patience or Hairdryer & Add Details

Once the paint is dry (either through extreme patience or with a speedy blowdryer) to increase the look of the gradient, I outlined each line of days on the monthly calendar with dark to light markers from top to bottom.

Add the days of the week and the name of the month and all the events and voila! Done. For even more detail, use a gold or silver pen to add little details and doodles around the remaining background.

Favorite Places for Random Holidays:

From World Watercolor Month to Sea Turtle day, I love some random holidays. So I thought I’d share my sources for where I find my random holidays to celebrate! I subscribe to some of these guys on twitter & Instagram; I love their notifications.

daysoftheyear.com
timeanddate.com/holidays/fun/
calendar-365.com – This one has some other facts about the days, not so many fun holidays, though.
holidayinsights.com
nationalday.com
holidayscalendar.com
ntldays.com

If you know of another website or reference for fun holidays, please let me know in the comments below!

What have you recently tried in your planner or journal? Did it turn out as you wanted?

~Tricia

Plan With Me: June 2018 Beach + Ikea Display Room Method

May 31, 2018 6 Comments

In this plan with me for June 2018, I’ll show you how I used the Ikea Display Room Technique & gradually grew my journal to include only the pages I *really* wanted & needed. If you’ve felt overwhelmed by having too much in your planner, use some of these ideas to help eliminate unnecessary items in your bullet journal and find what’s truly important to you.

It started out this month with my bullet journal feeling like ‘too much’. Besides the fact that summer is the hardest for me to use my bullet journal simply because I get caught up in the ‘lazy days of planning’.

When your bullet journal seems to have ‘too much,’ take inspiration from Ikea’s display rooms and eliminate everything that takes up space. Condense, analyze what you truly need, then reset your planning for the future. I decided to follow those steps this month. Starting with just three pages and adding pages throughout the month as I needed them.

Beach Sign Welcome Page - Watercolor Painted with Crayola Markers | ChocolateMusings.com #welcomepage #bulletjournal #watercolor #crayola

Plan With Me Video: June 2018

In the video below, I’ll show you from start to finish how I created this fun, beachy spread plus the other pages in my bullet journal this month. Crayola super tip markers – one medium I love for ‘painting’ in my journals. I started with absolutely no pencil marks, so you’ll see the whole planning process, doodles and all.

June 2018 Plan with Me Starting Pages

A Welcome page (not necessary but included because I love them, and you still need artwork even in a small space, and I needed something so I could turn the page and have the monthly plans on a two-page spread)
The monthly calendar page (with a daily habit tracker built-in)
Lastly, a monthly journaling page (one that I call All the Things with just the right amount of categories)

The welcome page is one of my all-time favorites. I started doing welcome pages last July, so this makes it my year anniversary of welcome pages! August 2017, January 2018, and June 2018 are my top 3 so far.

June Plan with me 2018 Welcome Page - colorful watercolor sign on the beach with palm trees, starfish, flip flops and sand, perfect for invoking a casual setting in your bullet journal

June 2018 Plan With Me: Rotated Tall Monthly Calendar | How My Journal This Month is Like an Ikea Display Room - condensed, small, minimal, and only includes the necessities | Chocolate Musings - Bullet Journal Inspiration

My Favorite Spread for the month perfect for journaling and memory keeping. | Chocolate Musings - Planner & Bullet Journal Inspiration #bulletjournal #bujo #journal

The Inspiration for June 2018 Plan With Me: Ikea Display Room

Have you ever been to Ikea where they display those ‘living in small areas’, and you see how beautifully arranged all the furniture is and still accommodates all the needs of the person living there? It’s fascinating how a small room can feel like it has everything you need. It’s a revelation to how much ‘extra stuff’ we keep just for the sake of keeping it.

When I was a little girl, I used to pretend in my room that my future house was the size of my bed or the size of my bedroom. It required immense creativity to decide where all my stuffed animals and art supplies would live in this small space. That’s where I got the inspiration for June’s plan with me.

What Small Spaces Require

Small spaces require organization, and you eliminate every unnecessary item. Each nook has a purpose (or two) and storage solutions are well-fitted for the area. When I visit Ikea, I wonder if I could honestly live in such a small square-footage. I’d like to think I could by myself, but definitely not with kids.

Well….that’s kind of what I did for June.

If you saw the plans for May, I condensed the weekly plans down to two weeks per spread. Thinking that was as small as I could get. I guess somewhere in the back of my head; my brain took that as a challenge. Fitting everything in life into 52 dots x 38 dots (the width and height of my bullet journal) takes some creativity and planning.

Monthly Calendar

On the monthly calendar, I wanted a background for each of the boxes, kind of a washed-out background and I used two colors. I wish that Crayola markers had a number on them so I could tell you specifically the colors I used. But I used a water pen to blend the colors from the drawn boxes. The extra two lines at the top of each calendar box are for my habit trackers.

Rotating the book so the calendar is taller than wide adds more space to each day. Each day is eight squares (4 cm) by 5 squares (2.5 cm). I attached my habits using a little washi tape and a sheet cut from a Rhodia Dot-Grid pad (I love lining up the dots, so it’s like the page just continuing onto that little flap).

Rotated Tall Monthly Calendar | How My Journal This Month is Like an Ikea Display Room - condensed, small, minimal, and only includes the necessities | Chocolate Musings - Bullet Journal Inspiration

Was I Crazy? Maybe.

This plan with me was a little disjointed and crazy. I learned a lot about what I needed (and what I didn’t) for the month. I might have been crazy to try condensing all of my plans so much, but I think you’ll agree, sometimes there’s not a whole lot going on, and it’s ok to modify your bullet journal to suit your needs for any given month. Even if that includes eliminating weekly or daily pages. That’s the thing with this type of planner, you can adjust it to suit your needs and add or remove elements as needed.

Post Plan With Me: June 2018 Through the Month

As the month progressed, I added a few extra pages including a beach packing list and a spending log. I loved using my “all the things” journal page to record specific memories as a family and make general notes. There’s a reason why I like to include these particular pages. One reason is they provide a quick overview to the good things of the month. Another reason is that I feel like I recorded a journal entry without feeling like I have to jot every detail down of every event.

Track your spending by category & need vs want review at a glance | Chocolate Musings @ChocMusings #bulletjournal #finances #money #tracking #spendinglog #spendingbloom

Planner Question:

Do you use the same pages/layout each month/week? If so, how long did it take for you to decide on that layout? If not, what makes you change each month?

Are you ok with leaving blank space in your planner when life is less planned, or do you condense everything down?

No Matter Which Notebook I use – You’ll Always Find These Supplies Close at Hand

From Drab to Fab #2 Finishing off the Fancy Title – Part 2

May 20, 2018 3 Comments

Now What?

In the earlier drab-to-fab headers post, I showed you how to create a header for a page – I use my fancy headers like this on collection pages where I might spend a little more time creating the page because I will refer back to it time and time again. The header looked great ‘as is’ but outlining around the edges of the text is another fun way to enhance the look of the header. Now we will create a border for the header.

Read the original post – “Have 10 Minutes?” 10-Minute task list, clear your mind and the clutter.

Create a Border for the Header

You could call it good. And it would be good! I decided to go a bit further and outline the outline of the text – essentially creating a border for the header. I had all the swirls and flourishes in place – so I knew where the edges were.

Step 1: Outline

To create this outline, don’t worry about all the nooks and crannies of the text, just stay an equal distance away from the edges of the design or text.

Step 2: Blend in a Shadow

After I did that, I wanted some edges on the outline so I could color it in almost as a shadow – but with the same blended technique used on the number 10. I did this just to add more color because the blue blended so beautifully together. So I added more lines along the bottom and the right sides of the outline. Then I added more and more outlines for more depth. I’ll use these lines to know when to start the color blends.

The darkest blend will be the closest to the outline in this case since that is where the darkest part of the shadow is. But you will still start with the lightest color on the outside then blend darker and darker.

Finishing off the Page:

Sub-Headers & Mind-Maps & Task Items

Sort the 10-Minute Tasks into categories by location and create headers for the categories. For my collection, I laid this out mind-map style (start in the middle with the main item, then sub-items expand out, then add list items beyond the sub-headers). I like this method because no one sub-header has more importance than other headers so I don’t neglect the tasks listed at the bottom and only do the items at the top.

I am practicing a new all-caps font so it was a perfect opportunity to do some extra practicing. If you look closely, you can see that I needed to move a couple of tasks. Whiteout tape is a good source for quickly masking mistakes.

So there you go! Please let me know what you think and what you do to dress up your collection pages.

Remember to plan your life so you live beautifully and don’t be afraid to find your inner muse.

~Tricia

Save this layout to Pinterest for later – while you are at it, follow me on Pinterest for more inspiration!

Follow @ChocolateMusingsCreates

My Muses #3: Favorite Reasons for Habit Tracking & May Mid-Month Habit Check

May 17, 2018 1 Comment

Favorite Reasons for Habit Tracking, Creating Habits & Favorite Quotes for My Habit Tracker

I’m going to combine two topics this week. Usually, I post a mid-month habit-check for my accountability and hopefully providing a little inspiration for you too! I decided to combine My Muses (favorites) with my habit check this month. Here are a few of my favorite reasons for habit tracking, creating habits, and favorite quotes to use in my habit tracker.

-Gretchen Rubin

Why I Track My Habits

Every month I post my progress on forming habits. To date, I think I’ve posted just one true habit success story- “dishes aren’t a dirty word anymore” (FYI, it’s still a success). Other than that at a glance and in comparison to other’s progression, my habits seem to go nowhere. Just looking at the data, there’s little progression. But that’s not how I see it. I’m still trying, and that makes all the difference. I know I am trying to make a positive change in my life. This is why I track my habits. We manage what we monitor – one of my favorite chapters from Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin. To paraphrase: monitoring doesn’t require change but often leads to it.

I know I write a lot about not making improvements or lack of progress, the truth is: creating a habit is hard. If it were easy, there wouldn’t be more than 30,000 books on Amazon with the word ‘habit’ in the title (with more added all the time). I’ve read a few, and many have helped me in my journey here are a few of my favorites:

Other Habits in “the Works”

Right now I am working on decluttering my house using the KonMari method, and if that’s not a change of habits, I don’t know what is. If I don’t change my shopping habits, I could end up where I was before I started. And I never realized how much stuff I have! Getting rid of it is exhilarating and completely exhausting, but what’s more amazing to see the other members of my family follow my lead, that payoff is thrilling.

If habits weren’t hard to create or break, there wouldn’t be a need to track them. (Do a search on Habit Tracking at Pinterest – it’s a fun rabbit hole – I’ve got a board dedicated just to tracking with all kinds of tracking ideas). Round, Square, linear, weekly, box grid, dots, patterns, there’s a lot of variety in tracking methods.

Percentage calculator for monthly habit trackers

Success Rate Percentages

Want to figure percentages in your habit tracker at the end of a month? I’ve done the calculations for you, so you can quickly jot down how you did.

Gretchen Rubin says in her book Better Than Before, “It’s simple to change habits, but it’s not easy”. And I couldn’t agree more!

The principle of getting up at 5:30 in the morning is simple, and the reason is genuine. It’s so I can have some much-needed time to think, write, and read before the chaos of the morning starts, but getting up at the appointed time is difficult. Well, as you can see below (personal #5), I’ve not succeeded in many instances (just once so far this month). I keep it on my habit tracker because I want to form this habit, even though I know I am not ready to commit to the actions needed to create the pattern (yet).

creating habits, mid-month habit check, sometimes it's the journey not the speed, favorite reasons for habit tracking

One thing I love on my habit tracker is a good quote. January 2018 featured one of my favorites – Sometimes it’s the Journey, not the speed.

Habit Tracker Quotes

Here are some other great quotes for your habit tracker. I love finding inspirational quotes from Brainy Quote. Goodreads surprised me with a fun quote database. If you’re on twitter, check out @Inspire_us for some great and inspirational quotes, they influence my feed for good.

I hope you’ve enjoyed a snippet of my inspiration my favorite reasons for habit tracking and some resources I enjoy using on a regular basis. If you have any resources you use, drop me a line below in the comments! I’d love to hear about them.

Question:

What’s your favorite quote to use in your habit tracker?

~Tricia

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