Oh dear, even all the best plans come unstuck don’t they! Of course, I was planning to start the new year off by posting every month (which clearly hasn’t happened yet!), so this month I’m just in time to post something with three days to go. My great grandmother always said “better late than never!” As you can see from the images, I am still journaling and have also posted a picture of my bullet journal cover page for January.
 
I found this February’s Super Blue Blood Moon Eclipse an inspiring and great time to reset for the rest of the year and decided to use the moon as my February bujo cover page. I’ve now realised that over the first two months of this year I’ve spent so much time planning how to be ‘organised’ that in doing so, I over planned in my efforts to be an expert and efficient organiser and failed to be one. I made it all so complicated that I lost my flow and actually slowed myself down (I’m sure you can relate to this). When it came to my bullet journal, I found that I got so caught up in trying to prep its Feb pages with the essentials like trackers and lists that I overcomplicated the structure and forgot to stop and go back to the system that I know works for me every time. Simplicity. I spent so long faffing around planning how to use it, that I forgot the point is to actually use it, rather than ‘plan’ to!
 
So instead of over-planning this March, I am going to set out some guidelines but this time plan as I go, instead of setting up too many pages of lists to begin with and not actually using them. It’s all a learning process isn’t it!
 
Anyway, I’ve probably waffled on far too long now, but I just thought I would check in before the month was out, share some January and Feb images and use this post as an opportunity to jump back into blogging. I am now ready to swing into March, all guns blazing and ready to start back at university for another year. I also have some new ideas I am hoping to share with you on the blog.
 
Wishing you all a relaxing and peaceful start to March.
Until next time,
Over and out,
 
Mrs Jones and Mrs Smith. 

Hi everyone,
 
Hope you’re all well and enjoying the festive season, however you may celebrate it.
 
In this blog post, I wanted to have a chat about my December bullet journal spread and how to try to find the balance between being organised and staying relatively calm and relaxed at this rather busy and sometimes chaotic time of the year.
 
I find that working in a bullet journal is often the perfect way to do this. While organising your thoughts in a condensed way, it is also the perfect place to express your creativity (particularly during the festive season) in a fun and relaxing manner. Personally, I enjoy everything about this time of year and find the lead-up to Christmas exhilarating and exciting, but it is also a tad stressful and a full on time of year that requires quite a bit of organisation. In our efforts to achieve the impossible we often forget it should also be about relaxing and appreciating this special time with family and festivities.

Recently, I drew up my December pages in my bullet journal for this month and I was reminded that this sort of creative planning is the perfect combination of relaxed doodling and mindful organising without even thinking about it! For me, the bullet journal is the perfect place to focus my thoughts. As I also have a couple of diaries, I chose the smaller size for my bullet journal, and am currently using a black small Moleskin journal with gridded paper. It works wonderfully, as the gridded paper adds order to my sometimes chaotic thoughts and I love being able to decorate and embellish each page. Relaxing at my desk with a candle, some Christmas music (‘The Holiday’ soundtrack of course!) and a cup of tea, I used my favourite pens, washi tape and Christmassy inspired images from Pinterest to create a bujo spread for December that is planned and organised but also arty and was a joy to create. Just taking that time to be in the moment, and making sure I kept the balance of planning for the holidays in a peaceful, expressive and artistic way, is something that I think we should try to incorporate more into our daily habits if we can.
 
We get so busy during this time of year that we forget to just enjoy the simple moments. It doesn’t even have to be with a bullet journal - even just the act of sitting down with a cuppa and or a candle, getting creative in some shape or form, making a list and thinking about Christmas makes you instantly more grateful and excited for the holidays.
 
Good luck with your Christmas journaling and organising – may you find a nice balance between keeping the creative, relaxed vibe and being your productive organised selves.

So, until my next post,
Over and out. ​

Hi everyone, 

​Hope you’re all well and looking forward to the fast approaching Christmas/Noël season.
Now that holidays have begun, the stress has released and I’m embracing the relaxed holiday vibes, really enjoying having the time to water-colour much more (although as you saw from my last post, I did procrastinate by working with water colours during exams as well!). Last year I discovered the ‘bullet journal’ craze everyone was talking about. After starting my own notebook/bullet journal type thing, and developing how I would personally like some of the monthly spreads to look, I really started to enjoy creating an image cover page for each month in my journal. For this month’s cover page, I was inspired by Jenny Journals (@jennyjournals) and her watercolours on Instagram. Even though it is still November, I have begun to feel slightly Christmassy and dreaming of a snowy Christmas (something which could never happen in Australia), I was inspired to paint this water-coloured snowy forest scene to urge on my December vibes and get me into the spirit of Christmas. Trust me, I am already waiting for the first of December, when I can officially begin to play Michael Bublé’s Christmas album (because let’s be honest, it’s a must!).  
Below are some of my other monthly cover page images. September's was inspired by the second season of Outlander which was set in both Scotland and France and I always love that I have French and Scottish ancestors as well. With 'Bullet Journaling' some months you're inspired to create full detailed images and other months you just want to mark the change to the new month. Over the next few months I am hoping to do some more posts about bullet journaling and would love to know if anyone else uses this method? ​