Whimsical Watercolor Travel Theme: April 2020 Planner Set Up

Welcome to April! I know I’m ready for a new month, how about you? Here is my Bullet Journal theme for April – I call it Whimsical Watercolor Travel.

There are so many places I’d like to travel but haven’t done it. I could blame it on life, and kids, etc. But in reality, I know that it’s because I haven’t made it a priority. Maybe I’ll change that once the world calms down a bit.

April Theme: Whimsical Watercolor Travel

Honestly, I penciled in this month’s theme about 3 months ago – not knowing that most of the world would be on a complete travel ban and in the current situation we are in due to the worldwide pandemic. But that doesn’t mean I can’t dream, does it? In fact, I think the ability to dream and plan outside of our circumstances is keeping most of us sane right now.

I’m a firm believer that we all need some whimsy in our lives, and I think I added just the right amount to this month’s travel theme.

I decided to experiment with watercolors and see how masking fluid worked in my notebook. First off, I masked off the entire building skyline on the welcome page. Secondly, I masked off part of the brick mortar in the bullet train weekly spread.

Spoiler alert: the masking fluid worked perfectly, and I plan on using it again.

Watch for my blog post demonstrating how to use masking fluid in your planner because I love using masking fluid + watercolor paints.

Side note – if you’re looking for some great quotes for your planner – check out my post where I compiled 75+ quotes on resilience perfect for motivation! I collected them with the idea that I wanted to calm the chaos and take control over what I could control.

Pages in this Month’s Planner

The pages I included in this month’s plans are:

• Welcome Page
• Monthly Calendar View – this page also has space at the bottom to write my goals. Look for the one with the suitcase & street signs.
• Weeklies for each week with lots of room to make notes or make journal entries. Pro Tip: need more room? Attach an extra piece of paper to the page with washi tape.
• The weeklies are: Hot Air Balloons, Bullet Train, Little Red Truck with Flowers, Metallic Bicycle, Flying Red Wagon
• The last page for this month is my Brain Dump Page. By the way, if you don’t like the term “brain dump” find my list of different names for brain dump here. The brain dump page is essential for me. I love having a place to write down all the random thoughts that don’t have a home otherwise.
• Not shown – I added a weekly task checklist with washi tape to each page. I’ll add a blog post about this later.

Go ahead, pin your favorites.

Things I learned while creating this month’s whimsical watercolor travel theme:

1. Go easy on the water. The Scribbles That Matter notebook holds up to a lot of watercolors, but even its pages become saturated and bleed-through if you use too much water to blend paint on the page.
2. The second thing I learned: Masking fluid works very well! I wasn’t sure how well the paper would react to the masking fluid, especially peeling off the masking fluid once finished.
3. The third thing I learned while creating this month’s whimsical travel theme is that coming up with a lot of different designs for hot air balloons on the fly (ha!) was hard. Hmmm, maybe I should make a page of pattern ideas – it would work for hot air balloons or Easter eggs.

I have to admit that the watermelon one is my favorite – I also love the nod to Charlie Brown design on the end.

Bullet Trains in a Bullet Journal

By the way, it’s not the first time I’ve used a bullet train in my bullet journal. I find it funny to use a bullet train in a bullet journal. January 2018 featured a bullet train for my future log. In this case, I painted with Crayola markers instead of watercolor paints!

If you’re curious, here’s a tutorial on how to paint with markers. Wondering what supplies you’ll need? You need a kitchen plate (no joke!), Crayola markers, and a water pen or water brush). Creating doesn’t have to be complicated.

Sparkle Watercolors Vs. Regular Watercolor Paints

Another fun thing I learned is that sparkle watercolors bleed more than regular watercolors. Ok, it’s not really ‘fun’ per se, but it’s good to note. Be aware of how much water you use if you use sparkle or metallic watercolor paints in your bullet journal.

FYI: I’m not going to stop using them. #becausesparkles

If you follow me on Instagram, you might notice that I love using circles of all kinds in my bullet journal. You can create a lot of whimsy and use fun colors in your bullet journal just by coloring in a circle and adding spots of color.

Finally, I learned how to create a super fun new cloud font. It’s fun and not complicated!

What Did You Think?

It felt good to try some new, fun techniques and to paint. Painting always soothes my soul. I would recommend finding something that creates peace in your life, especially when dealing with a stressful or unknown situation.

I hope you enjoyed this whimsical travel theme and that it inspired you to try something new or experiment with a new technique.

Keep in mind that your planner doesn’t have to be all about making plans and crossing off your to-do list (because let’s be honest – you crave a little creativity to spice up a boring planner). I think in addition to getting things done, it can be about learning, creating & documenting. That’s how I use my planner, and I encourage you to try using your planner for building your dreams and recording more than just your tasks.

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