MAY 2022 Plan With Me // Bullet Journal Monthly Setup

[Music] hello everyone and welcome to this bullet journal vlog with me video if you're new around here hi my name is anna and today it's time to set our bullet journals from may i'm so excited about the theme this month i feel like the best way to describe it is a jane austen story made into a bullet journal theme so we are kind of continuing with the last month's rokoko style a little bit but taking a very different approach to it this time so we are focusing more on some neutral colors and also some architecture elements but anyway we have a lot to go through in this video so it's time to open up the bullet journal from the next empty page and we are starting by setting a cover spread for this month cover spreads for me are basically just an opportunity to make some bigger drawings to my bullet journal and this time i wanted to start with this castle illustration which we are first going to sketch out with a pencil and then color using markers i think i've only used these copic markers once on my channel but i recently got new paper that works with them and i was just so excited to try them out so i cut out this piece from the new paper which is a little bit narrower than my notebook page because i wanted to try out something new and leave a little white border on both sides of the painting but anyway first let's get started with the pencil sketch i had this photo that i wanted to use as my reference i did simplify it a little bit and changed some measurements to fit the paper size we're working with here but generally speaking this is going to give us a pretty good guide for the whole picture i know it might be a little bit overwhelming to start with a picture like this so what i did first was drawing some of the main lines with a ruler so i was figuring out the corners of the structure also where the different floors start and mainly just creating these guidelines for the perspective in the picture having these lines in place will make it so much easier for us later when we are drawing the smaller details in the buildings like the windows pillars and so on so i would advise you to pay attention to the perspective and angles of the structure and how all the lines become steeper the further away we go from the eye level of the picture [Music] i spent quite a while with the pencil sketch alone because there were a lot of details in this picture and i wanted to have a good idea of all of it before starting the coloring phase also the markers will pretty much blur the pencil sketches to the background so i wasn't super concerned about it here but once i was satisfied with the amount of details here we can start the whole coloring phase the copic markers i'm using are alcohol based and they have this quality to kind of blend together but you could definitely use some other brands of markers brush pens or watercolors to get a pretty similar result i think starting from light colors is always the best way to go and if you've been thinking about buying some of these markers i would highly suggest getting at least some of the grey and earth tones because those will be useful for almost any type of drawing also generally the colors from the same color family will blend together the best but i was adding some different tones here on top of each other too so it really isn't that strict i wanted the buildings here to have a pretty warm tone in the picture and then i added some cooler cray tones especially to these shadowy areas [Music] but then i just kept layering darker shades on top of the previous ones to create some shadows and intensify everything further one problem i always have with these pens is that they're quite big so i was struggling to maintain some of the smaller details especially when working on the darkest areas so i definitely messed up some parts here but there wasn't really much i could do about it personally i think adding the leaves and flowers to the corners really changed the whole picture and brought some color to it and i think a picture like this in general is a very good study of colors in a way so for example i try to use some cream tones here in the lower part where there is this river and also some parts of the structures might have some warmer or cooler reflection or spots so i think this type of drawing is very helpful to learn how to use colors in a little bit more creative way but then in some point i took out this thin black pen and intensified some of the line work a little bit since it was really difficult to maintain any of the details with the markers i also showed you a white pen here which you could also use to add some white highlights but i didn't end up needing to use that for this picture also i know i'm going this through pretty fast here in the video but i hope at least seeing the process will give you some ideas of how to approach a drawing like this in the end there were definitely some parts here that i wasn't completely happy about like some of the angles were a little bit off for me and i think i should have been a little bit more careful with some of the line work so i think i'll keep editing this picture a little bit on a computer for the digital version of this theme if you're new around here i do upload a digital version of all the themes to my shop and also to my patreon and there's actually a small rococo style collection coming out as well to my shop which will have some stickers and prints inspired by this and my previous april theme my current launch date for this collection is the next wednesday and there's also a small sale coming at the same time so if you'd be interested in any of that the link to my shop is in the description and if you want to get some updates when new stuff is coming out there's also an option to sign into my shop's newsletter but anyway that's about that and now let's move on with the cover spread and before i will attach the drawing here i wanted to add something very simple to the background so i made this quick frame thingy and then attached the painting on top to be honest not sure what i think about this whole page maybe having the painting in a regular full page size would have been a better idea but at least i tried to do something different then before we can finally move on with this setup we still have the may title page here that we're going to create first if you're more into simple bullet journaling style you could definitely just skip the whole drawing portion we just did and just make some kind of flower arrangement like what we're gonna do here around the title i also tried out a little bit more decorative font this time i think may is such a good title to try out something fancier like this because the word is short and pretty much fits everywhere but the after the title i sketched some swirls and simple leaves and flowers around the title and colored these with brush pens [Music] i realized that i haven't used brush pens for the illustrations in my bullet journal in a long time nowadays i just usually reach for watercolors instead and i'd actually really like to hear your thoughts about it do you usually prefer decorating using brush pens or do you use watercolors or something else like that and also if there is a certain decoration method you wish i used more in the videos i'd love to hear about that because that's something i've been thinking about a lot recently but anyway after that we finally have the whole cover spread ready and now it's time to move on to the actual monthly setup the next spread here will be for the bigger monthly calendar and this will actually end up being a three spread dutch door combination and we are starting by preparing some of the decoration elements first you guys know how i usually try to avoid using stickers or prints as much as possible in these videos because i feel like it's a little bit more helpful for you to see how to create stuff like this by yourself so i really wanted to use this type of scribble letter paper and i'll quickly show you how i created this from scratch if you don't want to use time for this kind of stuff there are many washi tapes and prints you could use for this exact purpose and i also have some stuff like that on my shop but in the end all you need to create something like this is some type of paper in the color you wish to use i went with this slightly thinner japanese paper i have but absolutely any paper would work for this purpose but anyway so i just started to write something on the paper with a thin black micron pen you could always look up some old style cursive fonts for inspiration i think something very tilted and also pretty messy looks the best for this purpose and you definitely don't even need to be able to read what you're writing also if you don't know what to write you could just look up some lyrics to your favorite song i was actually writing the lyrics to hozier's work song here because it was stuck in my brain while filming this part also a good point of using a thinner paper is that you can use something underneath to get straight even lines but after i had this whole page worth of scribble text here we can now use this in any way we want in this setup i decided to cut out a smaller piece from it and ripped some of the to the edge of the page here but at this point i wasn't quite sure how the rest of the page was gonna turn out so instead of attaching anything down just yet we are first gonna draw the monthly calendar and then continue with the decorations so i wanted to do something pretty simple with the calendar as usual first i wrote out the daily titles to the top and then i made this calendar where every day has five times four dots i actually had this idea to draw these small different shapes to each day that you could use as a easy happy tracker that's combined with the monthly calendar but after drawing a few rows of these i thought they made the whole calendar look a little bit messy so i decided to just give up that idea and cover it with some sticker paper after the calendar was done i went ahead and cut out the piece from the right side that will create the dutch door effect for us and then we can jump back to finish the decorations on the left side now i glued the scribble paper to the page and then started to work on this white tag thing that we're gonna use for the may title i love these tags shapes and decorations there's something very elegant about them and you can decorate them in many different ways the paper i used here is matte photo paper which is slightly thicker than normal sticker or copy paper so it has this very nice feel to it but anyway after the title and framing this white piece i wanted to also draw some very quick flower illustrations here i used the same beautiful olive green brush pen again and then added some pink to the flowers by the way all the details of the brush pen colors and other tools i'm using in the video are listed in the description i finished the decorations here by outlining everything with this thin black micron again and try to keep the shapes and lines pretty messy [Music] [Music] lastly i added a quick color palette to this page using these small square stickers from my shop because i felt like this needed something else and a quick color palette is usually my go-to for times i can't think of anything else then i lined the dutch door side of the page with brown craft sticker paper and that's finally it for the whole monthly calendar spread but now let's flip over and next we'll set up a monthly planning page for me these are some of the most important pages in my bullet journal is they really help me to set a focus and a game plan for the whole month ahead so after the title again i'll first have some empty lines to write about the expectations i have for the month so for example this could help you to recall some of the tasks and projects that need to happen this month and maybe you could even choose to focus on a certain hobby or self-care habit in this upcoming month if you keep virtually consistently and use spaces like this to reflect on your own expectations you'll pretty soon start to learn how to have a little bit more realistic expectations for yourself and also see what are some reoccurring patterns that you often seem to repeat but anyway i made these two boxes do the bottom part using the same japanese paper i used for the scribble text and i'll use the first one of these to list all the most important tasks i need to get done this month and the other box will be for me to list some good habits i would really like to focus on in may but after setting up the monthly planning content here i wanted this theme to have one more bigger marker drawing so this time we're gonna throw a garden with this stone pavilion thing i don't know if this is called a gazebo or what but we're gonna call it a pavilion because it's easier for me to pronounce anyway we're gonna follow pretty much the same steps as we did with the first drawing but this time the pavilion is the only structure we need to worry about which makes this picture a little bit easier than the first one in my opinion and also this sketching phase is much faster so i focus mostly on sketching this structure here and then just added some light messy guidelines for myself for the whole garden around it then i'm using many of the same copic shades we used in the first drawing and i'll also list all of these colors to the description so i started with some lighter colors again and then started to slowly darken the shades for all the shadow parts and any parts that i felt like needed a little bit more depth i didn't want to spend too too much time with this drawing so i kept the whole garden pretty loose and messy so i just kept adding different shades of green on top of each other and then try to be a little bit more careful with the pavilion part of the picture [Music] [Music] [Music] then i added some black line work here again and intensified some of the shadows and shapes even further i think you could get a very cool outcome if you kept adding even more lines with the black pens that i did here and really use them to create more shadows and details all around the painting but something like that would probably take an extra hour or two and i thought the messier loser appearance was enough for me this time [Music] [Music] but after that i actually decided to cut this picture a little bit before attaching it to the page because i wanted there to be also some sort of dutch door here where you can still see this crippled text kind of peeking under this illustration there was now this empty space on the top part of this page so i decided to add just one more of these boxes here i'm not sure what i'm gonna use this for so i didn't write any title to it just yet and then after lining this page with the same craft sticker paper we're finally done with the monthly planning spread but now let's flip over to this last page of our three dutch door combination and this will be for my monthly reflection so if you're new around here the reflection pages are something i use in the end of each month to just gather my thoughts and do a quick recap of the whole month before moving on with my life so first i drew this scale thing where i can review the month on these five different areas the middle line here is kind of the zero point and then i will just draw a small dot on this scale then under this one we're gonna draw a small box which will be for my monthly favorites so i share some very quick decorations here on the corners and then i wrote a few things here that i can list in the end of the month i think stuff like this is always so fun to look back too and the whole next page is gonna be more of a reflection page so i wrote three open-ended questions here that i can answer in the end of the month so the first one will just be simply what's on my mind at the moment then i usually like to reflect on what worked in the previous month and what did it work so well so what needs to change moving forward but anyway that is all for the whole reflection portion of this month and then we have only one more section to go through before we are finally ready with this whole theme so this will be for the weekly layout and i had an idea for one more bigger decoration spread here so because of that i decided to go with a dutch store weekly layout which allows us to enjoy watching the bigger decoration for the whole month instead of just one a week dutch door weekly pages are also my favorites to use throughout the month it's very fast and easy to set up a new weekly layout just when you need it anyway i decided to cut out the weeklies in this little bit weird shape this time and they get the shapes as close to each other as possible i cut them two pages at the time but when we have these shapes ready in the middle it's now time to start working on the whole decoration part my idea for this was some sort of symmetrical pillar structure so i started again by sketching out all the main shapes with a pencil and figured out the placements for everything so you can get them even on these both pages i will speed through the pencil sketching here a little bit because i think you can see things a little bit better in the coloring and lining face so next i took out a few of these neutral tone brush pens that we've been using here on the other pages too and i basically just started to color the whole structure part here the first gray shade is very light so it won't look too overpowering on the page and then i created some shadows and depths using this sandy brown tone then after that i wanted to draw some more messy flower arrangements to add a little bit more color to this whole illustration [Music] i think overall this is probably the easiest and most straightforward illustration in this whole monthly layout because even though it might look a little bit complicated at first all you need to create this is a few brush pens and a black pen so if you like the look of this i highly suggest you to try it out or at least use this idea as a base for your own decorations i decided to write the may title here again and add a small calendar because i think it will be useful when using the weeklies and then i added some more lines and details to the illustrations with the black pens as well i actually ended up darkening some of the illustrations here later but before doing that let's now set up the last few pages so since i didn't need this first page here for a weekly layout i decided to just use this small space for a meal planning section for this month i started by outlining the dutch doors because i feel like it made them stand out against the rest of the page a little bit better but when it comes to meal planning i usually like to just plan out the lunch and dinner for each day of the week but on weekends my husband is often the one who cooks so i didn't need to write this saturdays and sundays here you could also use this space for anything else you need so if you don't need to do meal planning maybe this could be a good place for a habit tracker or a mood tracker or whatever you like to use your bullet journal for but after that let's flip over to the first full dutch door spread and let's set up this first weekly layout together i decided to go for a normal daily to-do list approach so i divided the space here for each day of the week where i have a little bit of room to list a few tasks per day i don't always end up using these but they are really helpful for the weeks that have a lot of small tasks to remember then i decided to use these sites for some priority tasks and then i think it's always good to have some free spaces to write some random notes but that's it for the first weekly layout i'll probably end up setting something very similar for the rest of the pages here and then as the very last step i just added a few more details did the illustrations around here before i was finally satisfied with this whole weekly layout [Music] [Music] i can't believe we created a whole monthly theme without using any pains but the change felt quite fun and refreshing to be honest anyway i really hope you enjoyed this romantic castle theme and maybe got some new ideas for your own journals if this was your first time around here and you'd like to stay tuned for more videos please consider subscribing but i guess that's it for today thank you guys so much for watching i hope you're having an amazing day or night wherever you are and see you in my next one bye bye

Channel: Journal Away

Views: 18,028

Keywords: bullet journal, journal away, plan with me, bullet journal plan with me, bullet journal monthly setup, bullet journal 2022, 2022 bullet journal, bullet journal plan with me 2022, may bullet journal, bullet journal may, may plan with me, plan with me may, may 2022 plan with me, may 2022 bullet journal, bullet journal may 2022, bullet journal plan with me may, bullet journal may plan with me, bullet journal may setup, bullet journal may 2022 setup, bujo may setup, bujo may

Id: 67246tP9quc

Length: 28min 20sec (1700 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 24 2022