Random Thoughts and Great Ideas Collection | Bullet Journal Brain Dump

September 5, 2017 3 Comments

If you are like me, there are a lot of thoughts bouncing around inside your head all day long.

Some of them are pretty creative. Few are deep. Some are reflections of the past or regrets. Others are just random, funny thoughts. I wouldn’t mind keeping those around once in a while to distract from the crazy of life.

Most thoughts are fleeting, but others I would like to develop and see if something bigger will come of these individual thought nuggets. I had never organized these golden idea droplets into a common space, they were all haphazardly written in various places or lost in the abyss of the day-to-day.

I felt that this collection of thoughts was not just a ‘brain dump page’. If you are not familiar with the term, brain dump can also be known as a ‘mental download’ or a variety of other terms. I’ve called it a ‘brain dump’ because I imagine my brain’s contents being spilled on a page by a dump truck. No organization, no common themes, just all the thoughts being dumped on the page for sorting later – or not.

A brain dump is great for when there are just too many thoughts to process.

I use a brain dump page for when I can’t sleep at night because the thoughts are running in every direction and won’t slow down. In this case, I record every thought that comes into my head until I cannot find another thought to think and my brain is able to {finally} rest.

Why this collection is not a brain-dump:

To be honest, I rarely revisit a brain dump page because its contents are mostly worries and irrational, unfounded thoughts that I can’t seem to let go usually as I am trying to calm my mind down before I go to sleep or when I am trying to work on a project and I am completely distracted. I want to keep my best ideas here. These ideas are more than fleeting. These ideas are pure inspiration that just need more coaxing to become valuable pearls.

The Random Thoughts & Great Ideas Page is not a brain dump. It’s themed with specifically chosen ideas to enhance future creativity and brainstorming.

I wanted a collective place to store these great ideas so I could expand or explore it further when I had more time or could find a connection between other thoughts.

Instead of all the thoughts jumbled together from one session, I am compiling all my great thoughts on this page. I may pull ideas from my braindumps, but it will be selected ideas jotted in this collection instead of all thoughts thrown together.

Make Pretty Designs & Use Them Too

After creating this page I had the initial fear of writing on it. I liked the artwork! This fear was quickly overcome as I have learned in the past: I value the page far more for the content AND the creative backdrop than I value just the creative background. Reviewing my past journals, I enjoy the drawings, doodles, and painting. But when I couple those with relevant feelings or thoughts, the recollection and overall meaning of the drawing meant more than just the artwork by itself.

Reviewing my past journals, I enjoy the drawings, doodles, and painting. But when I couple those with relevant feelings or thoughts, the page meant more than just the artwork by itself.

I cannot wait to see what comes of this page when I fill it with my Random Thoughts and Great Ideas. I may just find ‘my next big thing’ ascribed to its dotted page.

How do you track your ideas and random thoughts? Leave me a comment below.

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How I created the page

I outlined the light bulb lightly with a pencil. Using Tombow dual brush pens #055 (yellow) I filled in heavily around the outside. The gray area (you could call it gray matter if you like) I used a Papermate flair to create the outline. Using a water brush pen, I blended the colors outward until achieving the desired effect. Water brush pens are (similar to a paintbrush, but it holds water inside the pen instead of dipping in a cup of water – if you don’t have these, you can just as easily use a paintbrush and water).

I found that using the Tombow Markers with the water pens did not make the page wrinkle as much as when I used watercolor paint on the page. A nice perk.

Find other Idea Organization Spreads here!

Want to know what supplies I used? I’ll tell you.

This post contains affiliate links. The cost is the same to you but, I will receive a small commission to help support my blogging and creativity habits. 🙂 All opinions expressed were solely mine and from my heart.

September Week 1: Autumn Colors and Fall Leaves

August 31, 2017 Leave a Comment

Keeping with the monthly theme of “Heck Yes! It’s Fall!” September’s 1st week has an autumn look with the changing colors on the leaves.

See the September monthly spread here

I knew when drawing this out, that the leaves were small and wouldn’t hold a lot of tasks. Maybe I’ll just take the week off and relax. Probably not, but here in the US, Monday the 4th is a holiday, so I will just take one day instead.

I am a ‘sketch it out before painting’ kind of girl. So to create this weekly log, I found a simple leaf pattern and drew it out repeating the pattern with just slight differences. Many eraser marks later, I had just the right amount of whimsy to the branches and leaves. I labeled the leaves to make sure I had drawn enough!

After sketching it out, I sampled some chocolate of course. Then I watercolor painted in the tree branch and the leaves. The paper tends to get wavy when I add a lot of water or paint. So I kept as much whitespace as I could. I love the whimsy of this page not to mention the fall colors. I like to fantasize about the day when I paint hyper-realistic and you can’t tell the picture from reality. But I am not that kind of painter – at least yet. This page is nowhere near realistic

I like to fantasize about the day when I paint hyper-realistic and you can’t tell the picture from reality. But I am not that kind of painter – at least yet. This page is nowhere near realistic, but I love it nonetheless for its bright hues and whimsy in the curves of the branches and leaves.

Even though I live in Atlanta and it is still dreadfully hot, I think I need to sip a cup of hot cocoa in honor of this page. Fall here I come, ready or not because I am gearing up for cooler weather, crisp nights and a school schedule for my kids.

Tag me on Instagram (@ChocolateMusingsCreates) with your fall creations or weekly layouts. I would love to see your creative muse at work.

Here’s my process for creating this page in a super speedy video. Enjoy!

I just noticed that I have a pen mark on my left hand from when my kids couldn’t get a ballpoint pen to write. Ah well. The things you do for kids.

A pile of gathered leaves and Autumn inspiration await you. Jump right in!

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Want more inspiration?

I update my Pinterest boards regularly with seasonal designs and more awesome ideas & inspiration.
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Want to know what I used to create this spread? I’ll tell you.

This post contains affiliate links. The cost is same to you but, I will receive a small commission to help support my blogging and creativity habits 🙂
All opinions expressed were solely mine and from my heart.

Easy School Lunches Need Two Things: the Right Container and a Plan

August 24, 2017 Leave a Comment

Making school lunches is a chore no more with a plan and the right container.

If you are like me, the first day of school hits and I repeat over and over in my head “YAY! School is back in session! The kids are not driving me nuts anymore” That lasts all of 2 minutes. Because it hits me now: I have to make lunch for those munchkins because for one reason or another – school lunch is not an option in our family. Making school lunch is the bane of my morning. It is SUCH a chore! I have one school-aged child who will eat sandwiches – great! Easy school lunches. I have another who won’t touch sandwiches.

It’s important for me to make sure these little ones receive the right nutrition. I am not getting into a nutrition debate here, but let’s just say it is important to me that they receive a variety of foods in different colors. But ugh I have to think of things to pack for them. That was the big issue for me. Then I need to remember to keep a variety of the things they like stocked up in my pantry. I’m pretty sure they like a variety of choices instead of eating the same thing day after day.

The Motivation

A few years ago when my oldest was starting Kindergarten, I tried to have him just each lunch provided by the school. That lasted all of a week. His teacher called me and begged me to send his lunch from home because he hated the school lunch menus so bad. So I started sending him lunch in baggies. But my goodness, those are expensive! I saw an idea where a mom would use a hard plastic sandwich container and separate the food with cupcake liners. Great idea, but whoa those sandwich containers though: $3-4 each and not readily available. I couldn’t justify spending that much on each container with the high risk that it would not return home. So I thought of a cheaper alternative – just small, rectangular, shallow plastic containers with lids then I add cupcake liners to separate the food. I am not going through hundreds of baggies each school year. YES!

This helps with portion control – so I don’t overpack. The kids have a short amount of time to eat lunch and before I developed this method of packing lunches, there was always a lot of wasted food each day. I feel like I am pretty darn innovative for adapting these “bento lunch boxes” for my kiddos.

School Lunch Mind Map Page Layout in My Bullet Journal

Now if it would only get up before the sun rises and pack the containers for me…I guess that is where weekly meal prep comes in. Sigh another time, another place.

The other problem was planning the lunches. I now have two kiddos in school taking their lunches – with my middle starting kindergarten this year. Keeping ideas in check and supplies stocked would be an issue. I got even smarter this year and included a Mind Map page in my Bullet Journal so I always had a comprehensive list of lunch ideas while I am shopping.

To make a Mind Map: Start with a central idea expanding out and becomes more detailed as you go.

In this case, I started with the sketch of the school lunch and expanded outwards as in the picture below. Mind mapping has always been a favorite exercise of mine since I am so visually inclined. You can expand even further if you wanted (for instance under protein, I could have listed nuts and had another branch that listed all the types from there).

I use this technique for the family when we need dinner on the go. Usually when I am taxiing the kids to karate. Bonus: maybe now I can enjoy the structured nature of the school year because packing their lunches just got easier and my kids can focus on packing their brains full of information.

What tips and tricks do you have for packing school lunches for your kids? Leave me a comment below and let me know.

Pin this tip and then Follow me on Pinterest for even more tips, tricks and great ideas for your creative life journey.

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What did I use for this post? I’ll tell you.

Leuchtturm1917 A5 Dotgrid
Papermate Flair for the color
Micron pens for the lines
Tombow Fudenosuke brush pen for the lettering – buy a bigger pack – I LOVE these pens and have made all the difference in my hand-lettering journey
Water brush pens for blending
Energel in purple (because I love it) – these are my go-to pen for general writing.

This post contains affiliate links. The cost is the same to you, but I will receive a small commission to help support my blogging and creativity habits. 🙂 All opinions expressed were solely mine and from my heart.

Eclipse/Space Layout – Shield Your Eyes!

August 17, 2017 1 Comment

The Eclipse is Coming! The Eclipse is Coming!

Warning: Shield your eyes from what you are about to see or make sure you have the proper viewing spectacles for your eyes.

Nevermind, you can look.

Monday is the eclipse across North America – and we are very near the total coverage area in the south. We are checking the kids out of school and trekking our way to a better viewing area. Thank goodness we have family in the area and don’t have to find lodging. If I owned a hotel, I would crank up prices because people would pay them to see this once-in-a-lifetime {for some} event. I am not a hotel owner though.

Perhaps I should make a calendar of when the next eclipse will be and where so I will be more prepared the next time. Well… if I’m still around on this earth. I should learn more about them. I’m sure that I just cursed myself – it’s predicted that my kid’s future science fair project is probably on eclipses. Great, can’t wait for that karma. That doesn’t lessen my excitement about this eclipse, though. So now, enough with the chit-chat.

Here is the layout for next week in honor of the Eclipse!

First off, I have to tell you that I didn’t have a compass of any sort in my possession, but I wanted to make circles. I actually wanted imperfectly overlapped circles, so it looked like the eclipse either coming or going.

I scouted around my kitchen for two glasses with different size openings. One needed to fit inside the other – but just so I could make the circles pretty close to overlapping. I offset them just slightly. On the first page, I wanted the emphasis on Monday, which is when the eclipse was happening. I chose to do a repeating pattern for the facing page. Watercolor was so much fun on these pages!

I left a large area for notes since we are making a big deal of it for our kids, I plan on recording the events here so I can tell them about the adventure in years to come. Maybe you will have more patience than I did to splatter white paint across the pages to make it look more like stars.

Did you miss the eclipse but like the layout? This layout could be used for space/celestial/cosmos theme.

What layouts did you do for the eclipse? Anything special?

What objects have you used in a creative way?

Pin this layout for later (and follow me on Pinterest for more ideas!) I’m on Instagram too, @ChocolateMusingsCreates. Follow over there for bullet journal ideas/layouts art and hand lettering.

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Here is the layout with a couple of close-ups.

Leave me a comment below and let me know what objects you’ve used in a creative way.

Minimal Open-Side Square Weekly Spread

August 15, 2017 Leave a Comment

Minimal Open-Side-Square Weekly Spread

{with Monday Start}

Great layout for a minimalist design
the names on the side added variety to change-up the layout.

The day-to-day planning is down the center of the page (except Sunday) and all the other planning is on the edge of the pages.

I left a big part of the page on the right for a quote or to do list. You’ll notice that the week starts on Monday. Not typical for the calendar I use, but I’ve really been liking the Monday start to the week. Whether it’s in my head or not, it makes me feel like my weekend is not disjointed…and possibly longer? Whatever extends the weekends right?

I tend to lay things out in pencil before adding color or pen, it reduces mistakes. After getting it drawn out, I decided the sides would be the best place for the days of the week names. Below is the video of me lettering the names. Yes, I forgot to cross the “t” on Saturday and dot the “i” in Friday – what in the world was I thinking?! Details! I discovered it later and added them as you’ll see in the final layout.

To create this layout:

Start from the center – and leave one dot to the center of the book, you could move it closer if you wanted, but it makes it easier to add tasks and notes you don’t have to write into the center of the page. I have tried to allow for white space in my bullet journal. (And let’s face it, white space in my life too!)

I always leave 2 square heights for the meal planning – it just makes it seem easier to plan meals that way. I like to have a place to jot down miscellaneous ‘next week’ items. On the right side, I included a square for blog posts and “to do” for those tasks that are not assigned to a day. But in that space, you could have: To Do Lists, Shopping Lists, a place for notes or journaling, mini-calendar, a weekly habit tracker or a myriad of other things! I love having space ‘as needed’. If you were making your own, you might decide to mash Saturday & Sunday into a “weekend” box instead. I think I might do that next time.

Pin these layouts for later (and follow me on Pinterest for more ideas!) I’m on Instagram too, @ChocolateMusingsCreates. Follow over there for bullet journal ideas/layouts art and hand lettering.

Pin this layout for later!

Leave me a comment below and let me know what you think.