December 2018 Bullet Journal Setup and New Bullet Journal

My new bullet journal - Exceed brand from Wal-Mart

I'm a little late showing you my bullet journal setup for December, but we were on vacation during the first week and I tweaked a few things the second week. So I'm finally ready to show you what's currently working for me in my bullet journal.

First of all, I needed a new notebook this month. It's a little odd to switch notebooks in December, but hopefully somewhere down the road I'll switch at a more normal month.

I do like the Michaels Artist Loft notebooks, but I saw this yellow Exceed notebook at Wal-Mart and just had to try it. I love yellow, but I don't want to have to pay $20 for a yellow bullet journal. (Michaels doesn't carry their notebooks in yellow.)

I personalized the outside with a vinyl monogram an online friend made for me.

I'm also carrying my bullet journal without the Create 365 organizer I've been carting around that holds all of my pens and markers. I like being able to just throw this in my purse and not have another handle to hold onto. So far, the elastic loop is holding up well having it double as a pen holder (see the picture above). My last Artist Loft notebook elastic snapped pretty fast when I tried this.

New sleep log

This notebook is a slightly different size than what I was using, so my old sleep log layout wouldn't work. There aren't enough spaces horizontally to fit every hour of the day, as well as the date and day. (There are only 24 spaces across.) So I decided to track the number of hours I sleep, rather than the actual hours. It works for this notebook, although I have to admit that I like the old layout better.

I'm trying an entirely new layout for my weeklies. Since I'm trying to be more mindful of my health, I decided to track everything I eat in a day. I can't eat a lot at one sitting, so I tend to eat smaller meals - and more than three a day. This gives me space to record six meals/snacks. It has been working perfectly for me these last two weeks.

I love Dutch doors for my dailies, and I really love having tabs to make it easier to turn the pages.

I used some Christmas car/truck accents from a $5 Hot Buy paper pad from Michaels. The washi tape is from Dollar Tree, if I remember correctly. It's been awhile since I bought it.

After all of my dailies, I have space to record my daily workouts. I'm not into working out like some people, so this amount of space is perfect for what I need.

The rest of the elements (to-do list, menu and small calendar) are carry-overs from previous weekly layouts that I liked.

So far, I'm enjoying this notebook. The pages are more cream than white, and I thought that would bother me. But since my preferred pen (Uni-Ball Signo 207) doesn't stay wet for any length of time, it's a good trade-off in my mind. I used to have to add blotting pages in my Artist Loft book every time I wrote something and then had to turn the page within a minute or so.

I'm also enjoying the dot grid pages rather than the graph-lined pages I've been using. I'll probably be sticking with dot grid from now on. I like how the dots give me enough structure to design my pages and write straight, but they don't get in the way visually.

I'm already having difficulty drawing my lines at the spine of the book, so we'll see if that gets worse or stays about the same. If it stays the same, it won't be a dealbreaker. If it gets worse, it will be.

I hope you've enjoyed the peek into my new bullet journal!

An Altered Composition Book with Tabs

Yes, I've been on a papercrafting kick lately. I've never outgrown my childhood love of paper, and I suspect I never will. So let me share my latest variation on the composition-notebook-turned-pretty-journal: tabbed sections.

Front cover

I decided to make myself a pretty notebook, and I chose to use a graph-lined composition notebook. I found this one at a thrift store for $0.40. Someone had used three pages out of it, but it was a very nice quality, so I just carefully removed the used pages and continued on.

After doing several tabbed notebooks, I came up with a formula. What can I say? I like to reduce things to formulas and patterns. It's just the way my mind works. It also frees me to narrow my creative focus to the little details that make the difference for me.

So I started out with three sheets of floral paper, two sheets of polka dot paper, four sheets of cardstock and a Spellbinders tab die.

These papers came from Hobby Lobby. I don't have a Hobby Lobby store near me, but I like to support them every chance I get. So I stopped in while I was on vacation recently. I couldn't resist these gorgeous papers, especially at $0.25 for a 12x12" sheet!

There are 80 sheets in the composition notebook I used. Since I created four dividers, that means each section has 20 sheets (including the divider page). And since I removed three sheets, I just took those out of the page count of the outermost sections.

I created the front cover (shown above) with one of the sheets of the floral paper, saving the scraps for dividers.

Back cover

 I accented the gorgeous floral with a polka dot paper on the back and wrapped it around to the front. This took most of one sheet, but there were scraps that I saved to use on the divider pages (and for the tabs).

Inside front cover and first divider

This paper doesn't need any more decoration, at least for me. So I simply cut a second sheet of the floral paper to fit inside the front cover and used the excess for part of the first divider page. It gives it a seamless look, and I really like this method. To fill in the rest of the divider page, I used a scrap of the polka dot paper.

A note on the tabs: This paper is lightweight, so the tabs needed some reinforcement. I backed them with cardstock before attaching them to the page, and it worked perfectly.

Second divider

This is the next divider page. I used scraps from the floral pages and filled in with the extra polka dot sheet (as well as polka dot scraps).

Third divider

I accented the pages with some homemade paper lace. I was so excited to find this Martha Stewart lace border punch at a thrift store recently! It was one of my all-time favorites from the last time I was into papercrafting.

Fourth divider

That's the last of the divider pages.

Inside back cover

I used floral paper on the inside of the back cover. I actually did this before the divider pages so I could use up all the scraps of the floral paper on the dividers. It worked well because I didn't have many scraps at all.

And that's it! I really, really love this notebook. I'm currently using it to sketch out my craft ideas. Graph paper comes in so handy for things like that, and I like that I can hang onto all of my ideas in one book to refer back to.

Homeschool Bullet Journals, Part 3

Last week I showed you the beginnings of my son's homeschool bullet journal for this year. This week I'll show you the beginnings of my daughter's.

I let her choose a washi tape that coordinated with the journal color she chose. From there, I picked the marker color and coordinating washi tapes. I still took a minimalist approach to the decorating, but she can fancy it up if she wants to.

I started with the same printable year sticker for the front cover so we can keep track of the days she's done schoolwork.

My daughter turned 13 this year. She has been planning her birthday party on my Pinterest account for a long time now. I created a spread where she could choose her favorite ideas so we could narrow them down.

Here is her book list. I'm sure we'll need several of these spreads. My kids each check out about ten books every time we visit the library, which we try to do every two weeks.

And here is one of her "grade sheets". Hers are just slightly fancier with the addition of gold washi tape.

And there you have it - simple, but effective. At some point, I'll have to update you on how they've worked for us now that we've been using them for a few months.

Homeschool Bullet Journals, Part 2

I thought I had already posted a follow-up about our homeschool bullet journals. Then I found these pictures, searched through my blog archive, and realized I had never written up this post. So today I'm going to give you some more details about them.

The first thing I did was create a spread in my own bullet journal to plan out the basics of what I wanted to include in each of the kids' individual bullet journals. If you notice those blue "smudges" at the bottom, I just blurred some personal information.

Today I'll show you the bare bones of my son's bullet journal. I picked two marker colors to use in his journal, and I chose browns.

To start with, I created a printable calendar on sticker paper and adhered it to the front cover. We'll be highlighting each day that we do school work. (Obviously I took these pictures several months ago, before we ever started our schoolwork for the year.) Since we have to do schoolwork for 180 days in Pennsylvania, this is an easy way to do keep track of that.

Since my son has a bank account, I figured it was a good idea to teach him to keep track of it. I think it's much easier to track in a big spread like this, versus the tiny checkbook register that comes with your checks. Bonus: If you make more electronic transactions and deposits than you write checks, this helps a lot!

One of the other requirements for homeschooling in Pennsylvania is keeping a running book list. My kids are both avid readers, and I suspect we'll need several of these spreads before the year is out.

Lastly, I created a spread like this for each of his school subjects. It's like a teacher's grade book, but obviously just for him.

I didn't get any pictures of his daily logs, since they were begun after I took the pictures. They consist of a simple date and a listing of what all he did that day. It's very much like the original bullet journal concept. No surprises there, since Ryder Carroll (the inventor of the bullet journal concept) is also a guy. As much as I enjoy decorating my own bullet journal, I have to admit that I enjoyed the minimalistic approach in this one.

I also enjoyed working with the dot grid paper in his journal. I've been using graph paper in my journals since I began bullet journaling. After working with his, I picked a dot grid book for my next journal. We'll see which I prefer after I use it for a few months.

I hope you've enjoyed this peek into our homeschool bullet journals. I'll show you my daughter's next time. If you keep a homeschool bullet journal, I'd love to hear about it or see it (via a link) in the comments.

Altered Composition Book with Tabs

You may have noticed that I've been papercrafting again lately. I've especially been enjoying altering composition books. As I looked at other people's ideas online, I noticed that some of them were adding sections to theirs. I like the idea, since I always liked 3-subject notebooks. So I decided to take a book I had already altered and add some tabs and sections to it.

This is the book I started with:

I gathered my supplies, mostly from the same paper pad that I originally used to make this one. It was a Hot Buy paper pad from Michaels.

I added in a few sheets of plain white cardstock, as well as a Spellbinders file folder tab die.

I used almost every scrap of the two decorative papers. I tried a few methods of making these sections and liked this one the best, since it only uses two of the fancy papers from the paper pad (which makes it stretch further).

This is the first section. I backed it with a piece of plain white cardstock to hide the lines on the back of the page, as well as giving it more stability.

For this divider, I used the rest of the decorative paper that I cut off when I made the first divider page. Then I added in a decorative strip from the paper pad that looks like a ribbon. That still left some room along the side, so I filled it in with some plain cream cardstock.

This is the third tab. The paper is foiled, so it's very pretty.

This is the fourth and last tab. I designed it the same as the second tab, just with a different paper (cut from the second sheet of patterned paper).

And this is what the tabs look like when the book is closed.

I've done several this way, and I really like the result. I hope this helps someone else. Let me know if you try it. I'd love to see yours!

Home Tour: Fall 2018

Today I thought I'd share my fall home decor before the season is over.

I mostly decorate seasonally in my living room and dining room. We'll start in the living room, since that's the first room you see when you walk in my front door.

This is an end table arrangement. The sign and mini pumpkins came from Dollar Tree this year.

I made the sunflower balls last year with Dollar Tree supplies. Last year, they hung on my porch. This year, I decided to bring them inside instead.

The glass vase/jar was a $1 yard sale find, the doily was a yard sale find ages ago, and the candle was from last year's fall clearance at Dollar General.

As a side note, I've been pretty happy with the throw of the three-wick Dollar General candles. The one-wick versions have been disappointing, but these candles smell amazing.

This is the other end table arrangement with a different Dollar Tree sign and a different yard sale doily underneath. The end tables are on either side of my sofa.

Next up is my coffee table arrangement. I made the "lantern" from Dollar Tree frames and some black foamboard (also from Dollar Tree). The top of it isn't as convincing as the bottom of it, so I'd leave it off if I were to make it again. But the loop of flowers helps to hide the worst of it.

I made the pumpkin jar (far right) last year for a ladies' meeting craft. After we did it, I found the idea on Pinterest, too. Apparently I wasn't the only one that thought of a pumpkin when I saw that jar!

My coasters are made to hold pictures (behind glass), but I prefer to swap out appropriately-colored scrapbook paper for the seasons.

The tassels came in a Michaels $4 grab bag a month or so ago. They were supposed to be summer-themed, but I thought they worked quite well with my fall decor.

Everything else was a yard sale find.

We have a bay window in the living room, and I like to put something pretty there. This was made entirely with yard sale finds. I added a few florals to the cornucopia, since it really needed more fullness. It's not perfect, but it works!

I'm pretty sure this crocheted runner is from my great-grandmother. If not, it looks exactly like hers (which I may have tucked away in my hope chest if this isn't hers). I tend to pick up crocheted doilies when I find them cheap at yard sales. I do crochet and love a good doily now and then, but old ones have a lot of character.

You've seen a tiny bit of my mantel already, but here's the full arrangement.

I did switch out the wreath, since I liked the colors of this one better with my arrangement. My daughter wanted a fall wreath for her bedroom door, so she got the one I originally had here. I made this wreath last year with two yard sale leaf swags attached to a wire wreath form (Dollar Tree) and three mini pumpkins from Dollar Tree.

I made the faux window frame from Dollar Tree mirrors. You can read more about it here.

I found the little truck framed print a few months ago at Dollar Tree and just had to have it. I really do like the "little red truck" items. There's something about the shape of the truck that I really like. Anyway, this was a way to bring it into my fall decor.

I made the pumpkin apothecary jars from old Home Interior candle jars and candlesticks (all yard sale finds - a whole box for $1). You can read more about those here. I filled them with miscellaneous jar filler that I picked up at Dollar Tree last year.

The candlesticks, crocheted runner, and swag were all yard sale finds. (Yes, there is a theme here. It's called, "I'm cheap frugal.")

I have a combination buffet/china cabinet next to our dining room table, and I've started to switch out the display seasonally. I've never owned a matching table and buffet before, so I'm enjoying this set. I know this wood stain and style are out of vogue. Most people would have painted it white and distressed it. However, I'm 41 and don't follow all the home decorating fads out there. I know what I like, and I keep it that way until I no longer like it. My home is about pleasing my family, not Pinterest.

Anyway ... The signs were all from Dollar Tree. They had some nice ones this year, but they sold out fast. I happened to be in the store when they unpacked these or I wouldn't have gotten them. They were gone when I went back a day or so later.

The lanterns were yard sale finds. One was $1 (on the left - flameless candle inside), one was $0.75 (on the right).

I have no idea where I got the pumpkins and sunflowers. I don't remember buying them, but they appeared with the rest of my fall decor when my husband and son brought my decorations down from the attic. One of us must have picked them up at a yard sale or thrift store last year. They're quite realistic, and I like them a lot.

Lastly, this is our dining table. In our previous house, I had a formal cherry dining table with intricate carving (a gift from our last church family). My kids were very young then, so I mostly protected it with a tablecloth. I wish now that I had enjoyed the look of the table and pulled the cloth off now and then. Oh well, it was pretty, even with a cloth on it.

Maybe that's why I've resisted adding a tablecloth to this table. I like the wood finish, and I like that the grain is decorative. I may add a runner at some point - maybe next year, if I can make or find one after the season is over this year.

My husband picked up these elegant placemats at the thrift store, along with a bunch of other nice ones that I'll be switching out seasonally. Up to this point, I've not been much of a placemat person. We rarely used them growing up. However, my sister-in-law really likes them, and I learned from her that they can add a lot to the look of a table, even when you're not eating.

I bought these gold chargers from Dollar Tree this year. They stay at the table to make it look a bit more polished between meals, and then we just add our regular dining plates on top of them at mealtime.

I don't remember where the big pumpkin in the middle came from. It was in the same bag as the other mystery fall decorations. However, I do know about the knitted white pumpkins because I made them. I thought I had posted about them on the blog, but apparently I didn't. If you knit, they're fast and easy. I used this free pattern from Ravelry and tweaked it just a bit after reading how others had modified theirs. You can read my notes on Ravelry here, if you'd like to make one yourself.

Well, that wraps up my fall decorations. I hope you enjoyed looking at them as much as I enjoyed creating them!

November 2018 Bullet Journal Setup

I searched high and low for a Thanksgiving theme for my November bullet journal layout, but I couldn't find any that clicked with me. So I hit up all the craft stores and dollar stores in search of fall-looking embellishments that I could use. This is what I ended up with - $4 worth of new supplies from JoAnn Fabrics & Crafts. (Also pictured: markers, a pen and a washi tape roll that I already had on hand.)

I laughed out loud when I saw several YouTubers choosing a woodland theme the week after I had designed this. (I designed it early, since I knew this week would be busy.) It would have saved me a lot of time if they had released their videos sooner - or I had simply waited a few more days. Oh well, this is now my original design, which is just fine since a bullet journal is a design-your-own planner anyway.

I used the (6x6") woodland animals paper for my cover page and then simply lettered the month into the middle. It's tricky to get just the right size of letters for me and my Tombows. This was a bit large for me, probably because I have child-sized hands. I'll file that away in my memory bank for the future.

I changed up my monthly layout because I'm working on getting back in shape starting this month, and I have more that I need to track as a result. It was just a little too much for my previous monthly design. I really like the fact that the calendar doesn't split over the two pages, since that makes it hard to write neatly.

As you can see, I already started filling in a few trackers. I didn't get a chance to take pictures before I needed to start using it. As a side note for those of you who know me and are concerned that I'm tracking my weight, let me assure you that I'm not anorexic and will not be starving myself. I'm just curious how getting back in shape will affect my weight. I'm only recording the results once a week, so I listed the dates to help me remember.

The top header is paper from the fox and mushroom paper. (I used the foxes elsewhere.) The bottom washi tape is one that I already had on hand from a washi tape color-themed tube.

This is my first weekly spread. I love Dutch doors, although I accidentally cut them a bit narrow this month. I should have paid more attention. I just cut them at the half-page mark, completely forgetting that I didn't need that much space for my to-do list and menu.

I added brown gingham washi (from JoAnn Fabrics & Crafts) to the cut edge of the Dutch doors. This helps me to see it better when I need to flip it over. Otherwise, it blends in so well that I'm constantly fiddling with it to get it to turn.

The leaf washi tape was also from JoAnn Fabrics & Crafts. It came in a pack with the brown gingham and coordinated with the paper pad I bought. The sticker was a freebie I found online (from Victoria Thatcher) and printed as an experiment to see how my printer works with printable stickers. Notice that I ended up buying a paper pad and washi tape instead. My printer doesn't produce stickers with the vibrancy that I want.

I'm staggering the Dutch doors again this month, in the hopes that this will reduce the "valley" effect created by cutting Dutch doors in the same place every week.

The fox border is cut from the paper pad. The mushrooms from my monthly spread came from the same paper.

This is very similar to the last, just with the Dutch door at the top instead of the bottom.

Lastly, this is very similar to the previous side-Dutch-door layout, with the exception of a different free printable sticker (also from Victoria Thatcher).

So, what are my thoughts about using decorative paper and stickers in my bullet journal? At first, I was conflicted. I doodled last month because of the bulk that washi tape tends to create. However, I like my planner to be pretty, and I really like how this turned out. After seeing several YouTubers' bullet journals that are nearly bursting their bindings, mine seems downright thin. So I decided I'm not going to obsess about it. I'll just do what I feel like doing from month to month and enjoy the process.

Dollar Tree Faux Windowpane and Wreath

Today I'm sharing more of my DIY fall decor.

I found a tutorial on YouTube for making this faux windowpane mirror. It uses frames from Dollar Tree glued together with E6000 and then glued onto the back of a piece of foamboard for stability. I changed it up just a bit by buying mirrors in a larger size and only using four of them.  That put my cost right at $5.

There are so many variations you could do on these mirrors. You could paint the frames, but black matched my decor. You could also buy a fancier frame and add the mirror panels into them (effectively doubling the cost), but I liked the simple black for this project.

I added a sawtooth hanger to the back (again with E6000 - hot glue won't work), and it was ready to hang on my wall after the glue cured.

The wreath is another Dollar Tree creation. It wasn't quite as inexpensive as my $3 Dollar Tree wreath, but it wasn't expensive as wreaths go, either. I bought a wire frame, six bunches of flowers, and one pack of small pumpkin clips (all from Dollar Tree) for this project. I used a metal sentiment sign from a pack I already had (3/pack from Dollar Tree). So this project cost me $8. If you needed to buy the sentiments, it would be $9.

There is no magical formula for arranging the flowers, but I like things to be methodical. I aimed for the equivalent of one bunch of flowers for each section of the wreath. It worked perfectly for me, but it really does depend on the fullness of your flowers. I tried to mix up some of the scrawnier ones with some of the fuller ones in each section.

To attach the sentiment, I simply wired it on with some floral wire I had on hand. It doesn't take much. You could probably use a bread tie on each side with the paper bits stripped off.

I really enjoyed making these! I hope they inspire you to look for inexpensive ways to make your house look prettier, too.

$3 Fall Dollar Tree Wreath

You might remember that I'm a pastor's wife. One of my duties is leading our monthly ladies' meetings. Our ladies appreciate a nice craft just as much as the next person, but it's hard to find an inexpensive craft that is actually useful and adds value to our homes. I'm a firm believer in making pretty, practical, and inexpensive crafts. As you might imagine, this taxes my creativity to the limit some months.

This year, I wanted to create seasonal wreaths for our homes. Since we take the summers off and start our "year" fresh in September, the first seasonal wreath was for fall. I browsed my local Dollar Tree stores for inspiration and was not disappointed.

With the same supplies (roughly $3.33 worth - 1 wreath, the equivalent of one batch of flowers, 1 package of small pumpkin clips and one metal sentiment sign that came 3/pack), I came up with the following variations:

The pumpkin clips came in three varieties - white, orange, and red. I used all white pumpkins on this wreath.

I switched out one of the white pumpkins for an orange one on this variation.

I reversed the pumpkin color selection this time, with two orange and one white.

Then I tried all orange. This was my favorite of the pumpkin variations. Ladies with a farmhouse decorating theme (the current rage) would probably prefer white pumpkins.

After all that experimenting with the pumpkins, I started experimenting with the placement of the sentiment. This was my favorite, and we ultimately ended up making most of them just like this.

The nice thing about these wreaths is that everything just tucked into the wreath without any hot glue. We can take out the fall decorations and make a fresh arrangement any time we want.

I hope this helps someone else who may be looking for an inexpensive wreath or inexpensive ladies' meeting craft ideas!