It’s finally time! I’m so excited to share my 2019 Bullet Journal set up! I’m SO excited to share this set up with all of my bujo friends. I’m going to jump right in:
The Journal Choice
Last year, I used a Moleskin in black with quadded paper. For this year, I decided to go with a Leuchttrum 1917 in this bright pink. I think in the picture it’s looking red but it’s definitely a fuchsia. In a shocking twist I actually decided to go for a dotted journal rather than a grid. I think the grid was perfect when I was a first time bullet journal-er but I’m hoping the dots can give me an overall cleaner look.
The Monthly Color Theme
I wanted a color for each month in my yearly lists. I wanted them to look good all together but also for each to be a color I genuinely like. The colors are a mix of Crayola Supertips, Tombow Dual Tip Brush Pens and Zebra Mildliners. The only thing I’m not a huge fan of is when June and August (both yellows) are right next to each other. However, in most layouts, they aren’t close to each other. I also intend to use this to mark each monthly section on the side.
Yearly Lists
These are a few of my sort of year long collections. I use the monthly colors (and I think you can see the difference in yellows here. I have my year at a glance, a boring but relatively useful spread. I also included a birthday calendar which I reference all the time. I also have a cultural round up for each month so I can note my favorite songs, movies and books from each month.
Collections
Some of the most beautiful and dynamic bullet journal spreads are collections. Whenever I browse Instagram I always get so inspired by the gorgeous collection ideas. I’ve found that I don’t always use every collection as much as I want to. So I slimmed down my collections to only a few for the beginning of my bullet journal and I’ll add as I feel like I need.
The collection spread I look at the most is my address book spread. Whenever I send mail around to my friends, I peek at this spread for the address. One piece of advice is to put down the addresses in pencil in case people move. I typically only write down addresses that I don’t know well.
A spread I find that I really enjoy making but don’t always use the most is the Color Story spread. I love experimenting with different colors and markers throughout the year. Ultimately, I may not use the colors in my spreads year to year but sometimes these ideas inspire me. This year, I plan to name my color spreads after my buddies.
I have two other collections I wanted in my bullet journal this year. First is spread to track some of my biggest to-dos for 2019. I wanted to think of the 20 biggest to dos and put them into a spread. I haven’t decided on all of them and some of them may end up being personal so I haven’t filled it in yet. The last thing I put in were Hygge Habits which I can reference if I ever need some cozy activities.
Travel
I decided to put some pages for travel in the beginning of my bullet journal. The most important page for me was the packing list. I use this list literally every time I travel. I was initially really irritated setting this up just because I didn’t really love the way the boxes looked but all together I really enjoy it.
I also wanted to put my Europe map only since I don’t really think I’m going to be doing much transcontinental travel in 2019. Spain is the only purple country as it’s my home and everything else is either green to show I haven’t been too many times or yellow to show I’ve done a decent amount of travel there.
Lastly, but actually firstly, the cover page which has a spot for me to put my travel details for the year.
Pen Tests
Pen tests are relatively important to me to see how the pens will behave with the paper. I tested all the pens and markers i use the most. I found that the Leuchttrum paper is pretty similar to the paper in Moleskin. The worst pens on this paper for bleeding are gel pens (you can see above how badly the ghost through the paper above in the color story spread). In general, my favorite pen to use on this paper are Pigma Microns. They don’t bleed through and the ghosting isn’t too bad. After doing these pen tests, I decided to get rid of most of my Staedtler Triplus fine liners. They don’t look great on the paper and I wasn’t reaching for them. I think the Tombow Twin Tones will get the job done and I prefer the colors.
The Crayola markers are slightly better than the Tombows for bleeding through the paper but I always prefer brights to pastels so that’s what I look at. You’ll notice I have some empty boxes in the Tombow marker test. I wanted to leave a couple of empty boxes in case I decide to buy any new ones. I’m really happy with my collection right now but who knows – throughout the year, I may want to try a new color.
So there you have it, my 2019 Bullet Journal set up! I’m so excited to officially move into this journal in just a couple short weeks! Let me know which spreads are your favorites that I set up in the comments below. Also if you have any other ideas for me – I have a few pages ripe for collections 🙂
The Minimalist Abroad 