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2018 is over! Wow. This past year I had some great monthly layouts and themes and some not so awesome ones. This December flip through is a really good one though. My original theme changed quickly and I managed to turn a huge mistake into inspiration for a new design. Keep reading to see what I mean.
Planning
I had always intended my December theme to be “Arctic Animals”. I was planning on doing cute cartoon animals frolicking on icebergs and the like but then I also needed to do some Christmas spreads too. The Christmas spreads would make sure that I had it together when I was getting ready to make the round of family visits.
For my Christmas
Coming into the month I wanted to make sure that it was an easy maintenance layout and that I wouldn’t have to worry when I inevitably missed a few days.
- Related: January Plan with Me
- Related:
Novemeber Flip Through
My Holiday Spreads
A December flip through wouldn’t be complete without some holiday planning spreads!
I added a little more “ooomph” to my cover page later in the month so it’s a bit different than in my December Plan with Me. I used my green metallic Crayola marker to add a new layer to my line tree and then added some gold stars and bark to the trunk.
When I went to fill out my gifts and baking pages I had a way more concise plan than I was thinking I would. It was still great to have somewhere to write it all down and check things off as I got them done though.
Now, this spread was really hard for me. When I say that mistakes happen it’s because the really do. When I first made this spread I only wanted it on the right page. But I only made 16 boxes. I had already done all the doodles in pencil when I realized that I didn’t have a full advent calendar’s worth of doodles… Face palm. Because of the mistake, I had to add 8 more boxes to the left page. Since I still had space, I just ended up adding in a nice list and having my girls tell me
When it was all said and done and the doodles coloured, this spread is a lot of fun. I would definitely do it again. Special shout out to Amanda Rach Lee’s Christmas doodle video on Youtube that gave me some of these ideas.
Monthly Set Up
Getting into my usual spreads for this December flip through, I intended to start off December with cute animals galore!
On my monthly set up I did my mini calendar that was dotted with different colours to symbolize the days that we had events or trips to remember. All the dots were fleshed out on my Ryder calendar on the right side of the spread. I kept my goals and tasks simple this month since it’s always such a busy time of year. The main tasks were finishing my ebook and redoing my email welcome sequence.
I stuck with an easy half page habit tracker and used icons at the top to represent each habit. #timesaving
This month I broke out this blue patterned washi tape since it seemed to match the arctic theme and I used it to
The rest of my set up also features these cute little critters. I really liked the fade I got from my Tombow blending pen and blue Tombow when I was making the water my whale was situated in. I did the same thing to fill in the letters on my chores page.
The Mistake…
First context…
Like many of you, I’m a stationary snob. I have specific pens that I use in my bullet journal and I only use those pens. This adds consistency to the feel for me and makes sure that I don’t have bleed through. When I went to start my spreads in December I realized that my last bujo pen was dead. *Gasp*
So I hit the store and they had a very limited selection but I was determined to start my spread and got some gel pens. I then proceeded to commit the cardinal sin. I didn’t test the pen before I used in on my spread.
This is what happened.
Yay! Pretty geometric animal complete with glittering silver snow….
Oh crap. It bled through like no other.
I didn’t know what to do! I felt so silly that I let it happen and it totally threw off my plans for the rest of my layouts. Becuase this is something that often happens, I wrote a whole post on correcting mistakes in your bullet journal! If you make them (like I obviously do) check that out.
This mistake though, sparked a stroke of genius.
I decided to draw the exact same animal on the page where it had bled through. I ended up with a mirror image of the same drawing on the next page. Then, I drew another animal on the other side of the spread and it bled through to the next page and made a chain of animals. I LOVED the way this mistake made me think and the spreads it led me to create are really something special and a little unconventional. Take a look.
My Weeklies
Blogging Overview
So I don’t usually include this page in my flip throughs but this is where that mistake happened. Right with this little bunny. Also, if you’re a subscriber thank you for helping with all my growth this month! It’s been amazing and I’m truly grateful. As you can see here we increased our exposure 7x this month. That’s huge. If you want to join our mailing list for exclusive content do so right here!
There’s that bunny again!
I did a different take on my box system for layouts and added to the geometric feel by making them more trapezoidal. Each date is in a little circle that was washed over using my blending pen method to give it different saturations of colour.
Just like with the bunny the wolf ends up carrying over to the next page. All the animals in these spreads are made with the same terrible pen then snow was added with my silver metallic Crayola marker.
A break from form
This week I had a bunch going on so I skipped the second animal in favour of having space for a notes box. Always feel free to change something when you need to! Bullet journaling is fluid and the purpose is to make sure you have room for all the things you need.
Moving to the next week, I did the same thing, 6 daily boxes with a box for notes too. I put a polar bear in the top corner of this one and he transferred over.
I knew that I wasn’t going to be using my journal much over Christmas. Who does honestly? Instead, I made a packing list, planned our meals for before we went and left some room for notes.
For the space that would typically be used for the
The last few days are set up a little differently but very similarly.
- Related: Bullet Journal Set Up
- Related: 7 Trackers you’ll Actually Use
Review
2 quotes pages you say?! I know, I’m not usually like this but man, I live in Canada. This quote is my life. And it’s another excuse to use those markers and practice my lettering.
My December review is actually a few pages long but I’m still filling out some of it as it turned into more of a year in review really.
I did a general overview of December then I started the year in review. There were pages for the “best of” the year and lessons learned. I did a page with a “what happened” and I’ll be writing out a few journal type entries encapsulating my feelings about the year as a whole.
Having a review for your months and year is a great way to stay on track and reflect on the things that are important to you and the things you’re grateful for. I highly recommend it.
This December flip through shows that a bit of adaptability can go a long way when you’re
