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!

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Plan With Me: May Weekly Layouts {+ Video}

May 13, 2018 2 Comments

New May Weekly Layouts!

I’m testing out a new set of layouts for May! The May weekly layouts will be two to a page to accommodate less planning needs. Thinking about May’s plans (and on into June and July), I plan less and relax more. Sure, we will have a week of family vacation but other events are on the ‘unplanned’ side and ‘off-the-cuff’ decisions.

I work during the summer so my schedule stays the same. The only thing I need to worry about is my sitter for the kiddos and the occasional planned outing. Consolidating the weeklies will help ‘space waste’ across my spreads.

Creative planning or bullet journaling is so versatile! When you need more space, take more space, when you need less space, plan your spreads accordingly. This month I decided to try two weeks to a page and have two different spreads to try.

May Weekly Layouts

Watch the video below (be sure to subscribe for more content!) and see how I layout minimal planning and add bits of color to each page.

Summer Mode: Loading

May Horizontal Weekly Layouts + Plan with me video, layouts and reason for condensing two weeks to a spread

My kiddos finish school the end of the month (before Memorial Day in the US) and about Mid-April we lazily fall into summer-mode. The days are warmer, the sun shines longer, the pollen is thicker (in the Southern United States, we have Winter, Pollen Season, Summer then comes Autumn), despite the yellow haze in the air and yellow film lacing my car from all the pollen, it feels like summer is coming.

Summer Plans = Planning Less?

Though we may do more during the summer, I tend to plan less. Rather than leaving whole pages blank due to lack of planning, I decided to condense May to two weeks to a spread. True to form, I always have to try more than one spread for the month and decide which I like best. The area of the squares is the same (same number of blocks) but the layout is different. I’m already loving the vertical layouts. The horizontal layouts don’t have a designated place for meal planning and that’s an important part of my budget, so I’ll have to add that back in.

Same Layout Different Backgrounds

Just to see how different a spread can look, I like to use different backgrounds for each spread. Vertical & horizontal. In this month’s spreads, I use diagonal, vertical and horizontal watercolor painted stripes plus the last week uses circles instead for a completely different feel.

It’s just my way of making each page different when they are essentially the same.

May Vertical Weekly Layouts + Plan with me video, layouts and reason for condensing two weeks to a spread

Question:

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

~Tricia

Planning May: What’s Staying vs Changing + April Flip-through

May 10, 2018 1 Comment

Planning May: What’s Staying vs Changing from April

What’s staying vs changing (and why!) in my planner for May. My favorite thing to see from other’s journals are the flip-through segments. I decided to slow it down and do a flip-through of the pages that I like and what didn’t work out for me.

Sneak peeks from the video:

After the pen for “All the Things” page
Journals for my kids (one for each!) and a little flip-through of those
Circle Badges for all the months and days showing off the preview sketches – coming soon to the shop! Thanks to @Darknss (find the handle) for the recommendations!
‘After the pen’ weeklies
Writing on spreads that are ‘too pretty’ – spread from the eclipse after the pen
Habit by number
Declutter my life two spreads (Initial & Updated)
How I bookmark/tab pages with washi tape

Watch the video below and hit the subscribe on the lower right-hand so you’ll be notified when a new video comes out.

Welcome Page

Welcome pages are funny things to me, it took a while for me to start using them because they just seemed like ‘fluff’ pages. They might be ‘fluff pages’ but other planners have welcome pages or monthly separators. It’s usually where the tabs are attached. Last July was my first-ever welcome page and I’ve used one ever since. It almost became a summer seasonal welcome page, but I combined it to the Welcome May and Summer page.

Calendar Page

When I set up my current planner in March, I made the future log pages very large, one month to a page, two months to a spread. I intended to drop monthly pages and just jump straight into weeklies. That lasted all of one month. I need visual planning!

In April I tried again to create a monthly ladder layout, I really love the concept of listing everything in linear form (that’s why I keep going back to it). I think that’s what the original bullet journal was designed with, but a calendar grid works better for me at a glance. In May I’m experimenting with smaller boxes and larger notes areas.

Coming soon! All the months in circular badge format! April’s creation inspired me so much that I sketched out (and started working on the months in this format.

April Weeklies

In April, I chose a common color scheme and theme for the weekly pages. Using a common color scheme across the pages was definitely challenging. It was a fun challenge that I’ll accept month after month. Space and circles dominated my weeklies, I do wish they had a little more structure but that is something I can do in the future. Space is always a fun theme and I like using circles too! In fact, if you didn’t see, I have a whole post about using circles.

May Weeklies

The weekly layouts are the biggest changes for the month. I didn’t foresee using a spread per week as summer nears. So I decided to condense two weeks to a spread. Each day still has space for events and notes, it’s just condensed. So far, so good. The boxes are the right size for all the things I need to do, including tasks and events. This just might be a thing when I have less to plan.

For the month of April, I switched to a Sunday start on the weeklies. In May, I am switching it back to Monday start. The May monthly calendar page shows Sunday-Saturday, but the weeklies are Monday-Sunday. The biggest reason is to keep the weekend plans together, it just seems easier (and I like to make my weekends feel bigger).

Collections

All the Things

I created an “All the Things” page to replace the failed “One Line Per Day” page. It is my new favorite page of all, perhaps ever. It was rare that I wrote on the ‘one line per day’ page daily. Instead, I write in spurts when I have a moment to reflect and think. So I would end up with several blank lines and missed details. “All the Things” uses categories instead of days. One section I’m going to add a “to journal” to keep a blurb for the things to add to my kid’s journals.

Habit Tracking by Number

I started “Habit Tracking by Number” in April. Using numbers to define my habits made a huge difference in tracking them, but not just tracking, but the motivation to do them. Each habit had a definition and something measurable!

That shift plus the shift in perspective that I needed to give these habits priority instead of trying to do them all in the last moments before I went to bed made a significant difference in my attitude towards these acts I am trying to form into habits.

Personal Habits & Business Habits

I’ll track the same personal habits for May as I did in April and add a section for habits for chocolatemusings.com. Also staying: flip-out habit definitions. I might use that idea on other pages too. And I just realized that I forgot to add a quote to my habits page, that is something I miss. I like motivational quotes on the habit tracker page. Especially the one I created in January.

Things I Miss Already & Things I Love So Far

I loved April’s theme – space, circles and the colors. Lavender fields inspired May’s color scheme, and I really enjoy it, but maybe I need to do a lavender space theme. I enjoyed the whimsy and the free-flow of the different pages. I’m looking forward to the structure of the May boxes because I tend to write until I run out of room. Maybe that’s why I like circles, they are whimsical, but have edges to keep me inside, If I want to. I really like the two-to-a-spread weeklies so far.

Question:

What pages in your journal do you change-up every month and what do you keep?

~Tricia

Creating Circles in Your Bullet Journal

May 3, 2018 5 Comments

How to Create Circles in your Bullet Journal

Creating Circles in your Bullet Journal: There are lots of ways to use circles in your journal. I have experimented with a few ways to do it. I have several tools that I’ve purchased (most are very inexpensive – as they’re usually intended for school-aged children). So creating the circles is one thing, but getting the spacing even is another thing. My favorite tool for measuring circles is the Helix tool – because it has each degree marked on the outside so once you have your calculations, just find the number and make your marks.

Creating Circles in your Bullet Journal

Do me a favor – click on the little red ‘subscribe’ button in the video. I’d appreciate it.

How I use Circles in My Pages

Here are some ways I have used circles in my bullet journal: Weekly logs, Accents for pages, I use it in my Gratitude Log, & Level 10 life my January 2018 Habit Tracker has one of my very favorite circular trackers. I am sure there are hundreds of other ways to use circles. All of my pages for April have a circle theme.

They add some fun to the layout. I know, it’s tricky creating them and getting the spacing right. Keep reading for the tools I use and the calculations to create the circles. I’ve created a circle measurement guide that you can print and keep in your bullet journal for reference. I am working on a printable for those who want to print, stick and go too!

Ready to include some circles? Here are some calculations and some examples to use:

Some Basic Knowledge:

A circle is made of 360 points or degrees, so you take the number of sections you want and divide that into 360.

To Divide by 7:

360 / 7 = 51.42…… well that’s not going to divide evenly. So now it’s time to get creative.

You could do 51 degrees for each – it will be a little harder to measure – so turn your wheel carefully.
Using the Helix: make a mark at 0, 51, 102, 153, 204, 255, & 306 the last will be just a little bigger than the rest, but it’s tiny.
You could do 50 degrees for each and have a little sliver left over – that’s what I did for the penny farthing bike in January.

To Divide by 6:

360 / 6 = 60

Layout Idea: Combine the weekend into one segment.
If you wanted everything even and are ok with a combined weekend, that works out.
You’d make your marks at 0, 60, 120, 180, 240 & 300.

To Divide by 5:

360 / 5 = 72

Layout Idea: use it ONLY for weekdays and leave the weekend for another location) this makes it a little more complicated, but it’s even!
Make your marks at 0, 72, 144, 216, 288.

To Divide by 4:

You’re now dividing into quarters – 360 / 4 = 90

Ideas for this layout: To-Dos, create two circles one with 3 and one with 4 for the week, or two with 4 and have a meal planner
Make your marks at 0, 90, 180, & 270.

To Divide by 3:

360 / 3 = 120

Layout Idea: You could have two sets of circles for the week and combine the weekend
Make your marks at 0, 120, & 240

Other Ideas:

Another idea is to create 7 circles, one for each day and split them in half for to-dos, appointments & meal planning or split it into 3’s. I used one like this for a weekly spread. I liked it! It was different than normal.

Here is one other idea – divide by 12. Think I’m crazy? It turns into a clock. An inner circle is the AM, and the outer circle is PM.

360 / 12 = 30

Make your marks at 0, 30, 60, 90, 120, 150, 180, 210, 240, 270, 300, & 330.

Multi-Layered Circles for Tracking

Now I’ve opened up a whole other realm. I will do another post about making multi-layered circles for habit tracking and mood tracking – just like the mood tracker in January.

Want a quick measurement guide for making circles? I created one for you.

Save this to your Pinterest board you’ll want it for when you create circles in your own bullet journal. Who knew you’d be reaching back to the time you were in grade school and doing math? I guess those teachers were right. You would use math every day. Well, at least when you need to count out those dots and measure circles in your bullet journal.

Plan With Me: May Monthly Layouts {+ Video}

April 29, 2018 3 Comments

May is the Gateway to Summer – May Monthly Layouts: Plan With Me

May doesn’t officially start summer in our house until the kids are out (the last week and a half of May) but summer is definitely on the brain. Since school is almost out, I wanted to accommodate our summer plans/May monthly layouts in my bullet journal. Looking back at my planner for the past month, I’ve filled out less and less of my weekly spreads as I get more and more ready for summer.

Watch the Planning Video Below

Make sure to hit subscribe in the lower right-hand corner of the video! I decided to do the April flip through & May weeklies in a different video.

How I Created the Spreads:

Welcome Page:

I went back and forth on the welcome page – on the one hand, I wanted a welcome page for May, for another, just an introduction to Summer. So I switched the banner from ‘May’ to ‘Summer’ and added the blurb about May on the left side. My amazing friend Kiki (find her Instagram here) created a class on SkillShare – how to make consistent block letters. All I have to say is ‘and how!’ (is that a real phrase?!)

Monthly Calendar

For the monthly calendar, I took my favorite supply of Crayola markers and painted the colors inside the boxes like a paint swatch. You can erase pencil when watercoloring this way unlike regular watercolor paints and write over them with any ink once dry (takes a very brief amount of time to dry). Once the page dried, I erased the pencil marks.

In this case, each box was 2 cm x 2 cm square or 4 boxes square. Perfect for visual planning and plenty of space around the edges for notes and to-dos.

I’ll show you what I did for the weekly pages in the next post. Here’s a hint: I didn’t know what I was going to do when I started on the pages, it’s simple, and I like it.

Mentioned in the Video:

Skillshare – Making Consistent Block Letters by Kiki B
Color Combinations Pinterest Board or My Pinterest Profile
April Plan with Me – Monthly
April Plan With Me – Weekly
March Plan With Me – Weekly
Favorite Beginner Lettering Supplies
May Plan With Me – Weekly

Question:

What’s your favorite technique in your planner?

~Tricia

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

Follow @ChocolateMusingsCreates

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