My 2018 Bullet Journal Setup + January Plan with Me!

Hey everybody! So today I'm going to be showing you guys my new journal setup for 2018. I got the Leuchtturm 1917 hardcover journal in the dotted copper version. This will be my second ever bullet journal that I have used. My first one got totally filled up. I'll actually be doing a flip through video of my whole 2017 bullet journal and I'm probably going to put that up in the next couple weeks so make sure to look out for that video. Alright, so I just took some watercolor paper and I cut it out to the size that I needed for my journal. I'm just going to be making a small little watercolor painting with a quote on it just to introduce the new year. So I am taking my watercolor paints, a lot of them are mostly Winsor & Newton and then I have my watercolor brushes and I'm just going to tape this down so it doesn't move around and I'm just measuring out dots on this paper to make a diamond shape. I'm just erasing the pencil marks so there's no harsh lines when I go in with my paint and then I'm just using some blues, grays, and a little bit of green to fill in this diamond shape. I'm just going to fill it in with a bunch of different watercolors and then I'm going to overlay it with a little quote that I found. Alright, so I just let that dry and now I'm taking my Wackendecker laser level and I'm just using this as a line reference for when I write the little quote on top. So I saw this lettering design overlaid on a picture on Pinterest I believe and I thought it was such a cute little lettering design so I wanted to recreate it and put it on my own artwork. I also thought the quote was the perfect thing to have in the beginning of my bullet journal to bring in the new year. Now that the lettering is done I'm going to go in with my Posca white paint marker and I'm going to just outline some of the edges of my letters and add some little details. So now that it's all done I'm going to paste it into my first page of my bullet journal and I'm just using this Tombow adhesive to adhere it to the page. And this is how my painting turned out. Alright, for the right side I wanted to do a full yearly calendar of 2018 so I pre-printed this calendar that I found online and I'm actually going to decorate it on my own and letter the months. So I'm just going to go in with my laser level again and I'm going to go in and write each month in my own lettering. I wanted to do the lettering in gold for the months so I'm going in with my Posca paint pen marker in the color gold and this is the extra fine point. Now that I'm done writing the months out I'm going to make a little outline on the outside of the calendars and I'm actually going to be doing a kind of floral design around this. And then at the top I wanted to write 2018 and so I'm going to do that and I'm also going to outline that in gold as well. So to prevent any ink markings from going past the lines that I made I'm going to put down some washi tape and I'm just going to cut it so that it's perfectly squared off with the lines that I made. So now I'm going in with my Uni pen point 2 block pen and I'm just going to do floral doodles around the whole entire calendar. And this is how my yearly calendar turned out. The washi tape was the perfect thing to get those straight lines with the floral designs and I'm definitely going to use that trick in the future. So now I'm going to just paste this calendar into my journal alongside the watercolor painting that I did. I'm going to be making prints of both of these and putting them in my shop by the time this video goes up. So I'll have both the calendar and the watercolor painting up there for you guys if you are interested in them. But yeah, I really love how both of them turned out. This upcoming year, my goal is to do more art in my bullet journal and in general. So I kind of wanted to set the tone of the new year by doing these drawings and art pieces in the beginning of my journal. So for these pages, I'm going to do kind of like a future log. Basically, each column will be its own month and then I'll have whatever important dates that I need to remember so I can just flip to these and kind of jot down exactly what's happening in future months. So these pages are going to be January through June. I wanted to do a floral ink drawing on the bottom and then I'm going to do the columns of the months after that. So now that I've gone in with pencil, I'm going to keep up with the black and gold theme and I'm going to go in with my gold pen to do the outlines. And then below that, I'm going to do a mini calendar for each month. And this is how my future log turned out. Keeping track of dates far in the future has always been a struggle for me, so this is really going to help me just jot down those future dates that I need to remember. Alright, so now I'm going to do the next and last six months. So I'm going to kind of do a similar design on the bottom, but just with leaves instead of flowers. But I'm going to keep up with the same colors and design of the columns. To make it a little bit more interesting, I felt like it was kind of lacking something, so I'm just going in with my gold pen and I'm doing some detail on the bottom. And now I'm just going to go in and do the columns and months just like I did before. And of course I start to put January and February, so I'm just cutting out a piece of the back pages of my bullet journal. And I'm just kind of using that to overlay on top so that you can't see my mistake. And now I'm done with my whole future log. If you're wondering what gold pen I used, I used the Pilot Supercolor Gold 2mm pen. And it's one of my favorite gold pens of all time. Alright, so for the next page and my last page of my bullet journal planning section, I am just putting in a picture and I'm just doing a 2018 goals section. And I'm not going to fill it out right now because I still have to think about all the things I want to put here, but I'm just making a page for it for the future. Alright, so that's all I need for my planning of my bullet journal. Now I'm going to go in and start my month of January. I'm going to go in with some watercolor paper and I'm just going to cut that out to the size I need. And I already kind of sketched out some of the flowers in my drawing that I'm doing, but basically I'm just going in and sketching it out first and then I'm going to do some watercolor on top. Alright, so I'm going to bring out my paintbrushes and I'm going to go in with kind of a bluish gray with some lilac in there and I'm just going to do a light wash of color on the pot of the flowers. And then for the rest of the painting, I'm actually going to go in with some deep blues and grays and I'm just going to go and fill in around the flowers. I'm planning on keeping the flowers white and then I'm going to go in with ink afterwards, but for now I'm just doing the background. The main colors I'm using for my background are the Winsor & Newton indigo blue paint and then also the Payne's gray and a little bit of the turquoise. Alright, so I let that fully dry and now I'm going to go in with my Uni Pen pens in various sizes and I'm going to outline the flowers. I've always loved watercolors that incorporate ink and watercolor in the same painting, so I'm really excited to be doing this painting. And when I'm drawing these flowers, I'm just making sure I leave enough room on the top and the bottom for my little monthly calendar and also the lettering of January. I'm just finishing up with the details and then this painting is done. I loved painting and drawing this. I always love doing ink drawings because I used to do them all the time and for some reason now I haven't done them as much, but I'm always excited to get back into it. So now I'm just going to paste this into my journal and I'm just going to take my Posca white paint pen marker again and I'm going to letter January on the top of this painting. I wanted to go in with a more minimalistic style of writing, so I'm just doing January in this very fine lettering and then at the bottom I'm going to go in and do the little calendar. And I totally messed this calendar up, you'll see in a second, but don't worry, I figured out that I messed up all the dates and I go in after and fix it. And I also scan all my paintings luckily before I go in with the lettering, so if I ever really mess up then I'll always have that as a backup. I'll have this painting in my Etsy shop as well by the time this video goes up, so if you guys want it in blank or if you want it as a calendar in any month that you want, that'll be there for you guys. So now I'm just overlaying these white dots with my white paint pen to cover up my mistake and then I'm just going in with a pen to put the dates that are correct down. So on the right side I have my important date section and this is how I have laid it out for a long time now and it's just what works best for me. I might change it up in the next month, I just have to figure out some other ways to maybe try something different out, but this has worked for me for a long time so I'm just going to stick with it for now. And then at the top right hand corner I'm just doing a little note section to write any notes down that I may need to know over the month. And this is how my January spread turned out. Alright so now I'm going to go to my next page and I'm going to do some planning for the month. So this page is going to be dedicated to my expense tracker and then on the other side I spelt tracker wrong but this is going to be my Etsy tracker and I usually use this section to just write down ideas that I have during the month. But yeah I'm just decorating it with some of my stickers from my shop and this cute little travel photo that I found on Pinterest. By the way if you guys like any of the photos that I paste into my journal they're usually all from Pinterest and I have a Pinterest page where I actually have a folder dedicated to all the photos that I put in my bullet journal so if you guys want to check that out you can print them out for yours if you like any of them. So I just went in with some craft paper and my gold pen and my white pen and I just wrote New Years to dedicate that page to New Years Eve photos and everything. And yeah so now I'm just decorating it with some pictures and these watercolors that I actually did in my last watercolor with me video. But yeah that's pretty much it for the planning of this month. I hope you guys enjoyed this video. This is definitely the longest video that I've done. I just wanted to make sure I did a bunch of art for the beginning of my bullet journal and I'm really happy about how it turned out. Thank you guys so much for watching. I hope to see you in my next video. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already and follow me on Instagram where I post all my journaling photos.