A Bullet Journal is a great way to keep your life in one place and have notes on what you need to do while being creative!
We have moved on from the April showers and now it is time for the May Flowers. I did realize that the space theme that had persisted for the first three months has faded but who knows, maybe it will be back. Looking back, April was a crazy month. There were a lot of exciting things happening!
But when the excitement died down, I had a difficult time getting back into the swing of things. The excitement of the day to day just didn’t excite me as much and I was left feeling a little numb. That’s why there were several days last month that went without getting a post.
But my mood has begun to improve, and I am hoping to get some momentum going into May. Especially since I don’t have any big events planned. May feels like it will be a good time to readjust myself.
That is something I really love about bullet journaling. Every month can feel like a fresh start with creating the new spread (and writing the articles help for me as well). I feel like having a new habit tracker each month gives me permission to shake off the last month and start new. And that is a freeing feeling.
Check out the Craft section of MCG for more fun patterns in strings and things or more unlimited ideas.
May
As I said before, I am continuing the saying of “April showers bring May Flowers”. While I knew the subject of what I wanted to make, I wasn’t sure which medium to use. And then it hit me. What are flowers associated with most? Their color. So why not remove the color and make the spread black and white?
That is what lead me to use only a pen for drawing the flowers. It felt like a stark contrast to some of my previous spreads as well. The process for this spread was easy! I did a rough draft of the flowers that I wanted to draw before cementing them in Ink. That was pretty much it.
I went with three core flower choices because I wanted the spread to look full but not clustered. The other lines, I wanted to fill with images that have a more leaf like effect. I feel like there was a delicate balance. I kept wanting to add more but eventually I had to stop myself.
May Habits and Calendar
One of the interesting things about May is that the journal is set up a little differently. Instead of having the Habits and calendar on the same pages, the calendar is with the monthly cover pages and the habits is with a short weekly spread.
This is just worked out better when I was creating the design. If I did it the normal way, there would have been multiple blank pages in a proximity which just didn’t feel right. I was able to do a sweep effect across the monthly spread into the calendar due to their positions.
But there needed to be a tie in to the habits page. I decided to keep the imagery of the black and white flowers in the habit tracker as well. I should have done that in the blank space of the short weekly spread, but my brain really likes using stickers. But I tried to pull flower stickers to make some sort of tie in.
Last Month’s Habits
Yea… I’ve got to be honest. April was a little rougher than I anticipated it would be. It is hard to keep up with habits when traveling, especially for ones like music where I don’t have access to a piano. There was more I could have done last month so hopefully I can use that as motivation to create habits in the next month.
Make a Mess!
I have often showcased the neat and pretty sides of my journal but sometimes I make an absolute mess. I make notes and wish I had organized them differently. Things get cross out. Things get written down multiple times. And it doesn’t always look good in the end. Sometimes I can’t even understand what or why I wrote something down.
And that’s okay! While yes, it is written in ink, that’s just a part of life. Not everything needs to be pretty. It’s okay to make mistakes and have things that are just there. Bullet journals are meant to be a fun outlet, so don’t hold onto perfection!