Spooky vibes.
I decorated my journal pages in honor of the spooky season. I used black gesso, white colored pencil, white gel pen, and a few colors of gouache paints.
NOTE: While the pages are like those who setup their Bullet Journals (BuJo), I use this journal more as a memory keeper/diary. The BuJo-inspired pages encourage me to make note of the good things in life, even on the worst days.
In case it's helpful, below are the topics covered in this post:
Calendar Overview Pages
The calendar overview is where I note important dates I want to document in my journal.
The larger calendar fills much of both pages. I note events such as birthdays, appointments, and holidays within the appropriate block that represents a day in the month. During the month, I will make a short note of something that happened.
On the right, I will note the best and worst things to happen during the month. While I write a line of text highlighting one good thing about that day on my highlights page, I believed it was important to document the bade things as well. It will allow me to reflect on the past and press on with the future.
I also have a mini calendar for next month and another box where I'll note next month's events coming soon. I like being able to visually see ahead to things I may need to be aware of before those days come.
Productivity-related notes like to-do lists are managed in a separate and more simplistic Bullet Journal.
I recently had AI generate a "haunted house on a foggy hill at night" image to use as a desktop wallpaper for the month of October. The generated images inspired this month's journal design theme.
I used black gesso, white colored pencil, white gel pen, and a few colors of gouache paints. Using gouache made me nervous since I consider myself a novice painter. It is not a paint medium I use often.
Painting the fog was tricky because I have never done it before, but it turned out well despite my inexperience. I especially loved the trees with the light blue highlight. It filled the negative space well.
Hobbies and Dogs' Pages
My hobbies & dogs are tracked across a two-page spread. While many journal enthusiasts track their habits, tracking my favorite hobbies reminds me to dedicate time for fun. The hobbies I track are:
arts + crafts,
writing, and
gaming.
For my dogs, I track the following:
when they go for a joy ride,
when they go for a good walk,
when I've cared for their coat with a brush, leave-in shampoo, or bath,
when they received teeth care with brush chews or teeth brushing, and
when they get to relax with a picnic in the park.
I especially wanted to track my new puppy's training progress. We will focus on mastering the following skills:
heel,
leave it,
under,
carry,
and quiet.
I believed it was best to omit the haunted house on the hill, cemetery, and moon. Still, the pages looked decent with the tree, jack-o-lanterns, black cat, and foggy background color.
I will use a metallic or gel pen to fill in the pages. I may use gold to create contrast against the white text and borders.
Highlights and Mood Pages
Every night, I write a line of text highlighting one good thing about that day on my highlights page (left). I will write about a simple thing that made me happy.
Even on the worst days, I try to think about a highlight of that day to write down. This page is intentionally left blank since I will fill it in throughout the month.
I treat my mood tracker page (right) as a coloring page of sorts. Each night, I will normally color-in a part of an image (or shape) that represents my overall mood for that day: awesome, meh/OK, sick, or bad/sad.
A part of me felt bad for drawing a stack of pumpkins for the mood page. I drew a similar design for my October 2021 journal design.
To make this page slightly different, I decided to doodle faces on the pumpkins instead of filling each with a solid color. At least this way it creates a relationship with the jack-o-lanterns on the other pages.
What's Next?
If you want to do something different for your next journal design, try painting the pages black and doodle with a white pencil or pen. Have fun!
Have you set up your journal design? Comment below to share what theme you went with and what materials you used to create it.
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Thanks, and have a great day!
Simply Jelly Jam
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