October 2018 Bullet Journal Setup - Sunflower Theme

If you know me, you might know that one of my favorite colors is yellow.

When I thought about a theme for October, sunflowers came to mind. Now, before we go any further, I should explain that I am no gardener. I admire flowers (especially roses, double peonies and sunflowers), but I cannot grow a flower to save my life. Flowers practically wilt overnight when they find out they're at my house. Well, maybe not quite that bad, but it seems like it sometimes.

Anyway, I said that to say this: I have no idea if sunflowers are still blooming in October. I just like them, they are a fall-ish color, and they're not difficult to draw. So that made them a perfect theme for my first attempt at drawing in my bullet journal.

 Why did I decide to try drawing in my bullet journal?

First of all, if you've noticed the bullet journal themes I've shared in the past, I've been using washi tape as my main accent and taking colors from the washi tape. However, washi tape - even when used only on every other page - tends to make the pages quite thick by the end of the journal. That can't be easy on the spine.

Secondly, when I'm very busy, I don't always have time to spend on creative pursuits. Creativity recharges me, and I feel restless when I can't do something creative for weeks on end. (If you don't understand, that's okay. Fellow creative types will understand.) However, when I'm busy, I rely heavily on my bullet journal to make sure I get everything done. So if I can work some creativity into my bullet journal, I can still have a creative outlet on my busy weeks.

Thirdly, I enjoyed trying a doodle challenge last month. It made me realize that I can draw simple things if I concentrate on the shapes and details. This made me wonder just how much I might be able to draw if I practiced and concentrated. Hence the desire to try out drawing in my bullet journal.

Inspired by @chrochlo on Instagram

I really love how my title page turned out!

I'm a math geek at heart, and I love it when I can find a pattern to make something that puzzles me. I used a protractor to make sure my petals were spaced evenly (one at 90 degrees, one at 45 degrees, etc.). I used a ruler to make sure the petals were all the same length.

I did freehand the shape of the petals, which is pretty obvious if you look closely. They vary a bit. The inside of the sunflower is filled with tiny little circles to mimic the seeds. It seemed like there were a million of them when I was drawing them, but I really like the finished effect.

The monthly spread was inspired by one I found on Pinterest. Unfortunately, the pin only led to the image, which had no watermark on it. If you recognize this spread, I'd love to credit the original designer.

I changed it up a little bit by adding my trackers on the righthand side and then filling in a few bare spots with partial sunflowers.

I used the same basic sleep log and budget page as usual, but I added a partial sunflower to the pages to dress them up and make them fit in with the theme.

I left my check register page without any sunflowers, since I really need all the space on this spread. I brought in the theme simply with the colors.

In case you're wondering, yes, I keep my checking account register in my bullet journal. In this age of debit cards, I burn through the check registers from the bank way too fast otherwise. I keep all of my bullet journals anyway, so it makes sense to keep my check registers in them, too.

Another big change I made this month was to try out Dutch door layouts and actually layout the entire month at once.

I discovered that I was using the same number of pages for each week, so why not make it look pleasing to the eye? The Dutch door feature ensures that I can see my weekly menu the entire week, instead of having to flip back whenever I go to the next page.

Here is a closeup of where the Dutch door is on my page, since it isn't very obvious from the first picture.

Notice on the far right of the picture that I didn't cut the paper the whole way to the spine.

Many people have noted that cutting the whole way to the spine weakens the binding of the journal and eventually makes the facing page loose where the cut was made. To prevent this, I simply cut up to the very last partial square near the middle - and then left it intact from there. In real life, it blends in. You wouldn't notice it at first glance unless I told you.

Another thing many people have noted about Dutch doors is that they tend to make mountains and valleys in the journal when too many are used back-to-back. To counteract this tendency, I'm experimenting with staggering where the Dutch door is placed from week to week.

On the first week, I placed it at the bottom. For this second week, I placed it at the side. On the next week, I placed it at the top. Cycling through this pattern should help to avoid having huge dips where I've cut out the Dutch doors.

On this particular layout, I was able to include my "to do" list on the lefthand side, which meant I had an extra block where the days are. I simply used it for a "brain dump" section, since I find those are helpful to include on a regular basis.

This is the last of the Dutch door layouts, this time with the cutout at the top. Other than that, it's basically the same layout as the one where I had the cutout at the bottom.

Once again, you can see the "Dutch door" part a little better on a closeup.

I'm excited to try this out for a month! I'll try to remember to update you next month on how it went, what I liked, and what (if anything) didn't work so well for me.

Coloring Pages as Bullet Journal Monthly Cover Pages

I recently found this book at my local Ollie's store. If you don't have an Ollie's store near you, the motto is "Good Stuff Cheap," and that's about what you can expect. The store has a warehouse feel to it. You're getting a good deal on the merchandise, partly because they keep overhead costs to a minimum. I especially enjoy their book section, since I can usually expect to find books at 75%-off the regular price. I've found a nice selection of adult coloring books there in the past year or so.

This book caught my eye because it's about the same size as my bullet journal. I looked through it and discovered that I like most of the images. Most of them would work as monthly divider pages - also known as cover pages - in my bullet journal. I've been looking to branch out of just washi tape decorating my bullet journal, and this seemed like a good place to start.

I don't know about you, but I can't color well in a bound book this thick. So I took a utility knife to it and cut all the pages out.

I cut as close to the spine as I could, and it worked perfectly. Now I have a whole book full of coloring pages that will stay flat while I color them. I was inspired to get started on one right away.

This is the finished product with the pencils I used and my homemade blender (on the far right). When I first looked at the blank page, I wasn't sure what colors to work with. But I started with the obvious - the leaves. Then, since I know virtually nothing about flowers, I searched online to find out what type of flower has five pointy petals. I found a yellow one with an orange-red center. That color scheme works perfectly for this time of year, so I went with it.

I enjoyed blending the colors a bit - something new for me (at least without using baby oil). I outlined each letter in red, then colored it in with orange. It created a lovely, blended color.

My baby oil is long gone, so I used some vitamin E oil that I had on hand to blend the flowers a bit. It didn't turn out exactly like I had envisioned, but it will do. I'll get better with practice.

I'm envisioning cutting around the outside edge - letting the leaf and flower edges spill out onto the page. I don't want to do that until it's time to paste it into my bullet journal, since I don't want to risk having the leaf and flower edges bent or torn.

I'm not sure what to think about adding it to by bullet journal with the oil blending. I didn't think about that part until after I did it ... I may put it between two pages until next month to see if it leeches any oil. I'll keep you posted!

DIY Decorative Phone Case for a Cheap Phone

If you're budget-minded like me, you can't justify spending $700+ for a smartphone when a $100 or less model will suit your purposes just fine.

The two main differences I've noticed with my phone - a Galaxy Core Prime model from about three years ago - is the camera quality and the built-in storage space. Since I have a nice camera to use for photography, the camera issue is not a dealbreaker for me. At 41, I'm probably not your typical cell phone user, either, so my 8 GB of built-in storage works just fine for me. I added an SD card to help with photo storage, and I really don't miss the extra built-in GB.

However, the big downer for me was that no one sells pretty phone cases for my phone model. Again, though, it wasn't worth spending a few hundred dollars more for the option of pretty phone cases. I simply found a clear case for less than $20, added a color card I reference often, and called it good.

I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me sooner to add something pretty, but it didn't ... until I saw a video on YouTube of someone designing a custom-drawn insert for their own clear case. I'm no artist, but I have all kinds of pretty paper and old calendars hanging around. I love paper, after all.

So I sat down and remedied my boring phone case in less than an hour. It was very easy!

The first thing I did was go through my old calendar stash and look for pictures I liked that would fit inside my phone case. Overly large pictures won't work, but often you can find a smaller detail that works in larger pictures. In this case, it was the sunflower. I love yellow, and I love sunflowers. This was perfect.

The next step was to trace around my phone case. In retrospect, I think it would have been much easier to trace around my phone, but my phone case is clear, so I was able to make sure I had the details exactly where I wanted them. I paid special attention to where I was going to be cutting out rectangles for my camera lens, flash and microphone (at least I think that's what the third rectangle is on my phone). I didn't want that to be in the middle of the main detail of my picture - the sunflower.

Then I played around with it a bit, trimming a little here and there, until it fit nicely into the back of the case. Then I used a pencil to draw around the camera, flash, and microphone rectangles on the case so I knew exactly where to cut and how big to make the cutouts.

Here you can see the pencil marks before I cut them out.

I used a small craft knife to cut out the rectangles. Precision is important here, since you don't want a tiny remnant of paper clouding all of your pictures.

I put it back into the case to make sure it all lined up perfectly before adding the phone. My case is pretty hard to get apart without a screwdriver, so I wanted to make sure I had it just right.

All that was left was to add my phone, snap the front on, and admire the results.

This makes me ridiculously happy. I hope it helps someone else.

If you've done something similar, I'd love to see yours for inspiration!