Guest Blogger: Heather Nichols

Hello everyone and welcome to this month's Traveler's Journal feature! This month, myself and the Traveler's Journal team are delving into the bullet journal trend.

Bullet journals are a customizable and forgiving (I love this part) organizational system. It can be your to-do list, sketchbook, notebook, and diary, but most likely it will be all of the above. It will teach you to more with less. I got this definition to share with you from bulletjournal.com.

The minimum supply list for a bullet journal is a journal and a pen. Everything else is up to you and being paper crafters we like to have a little fun with supplies, right? 

If you do a search for bullet journals online you will be amazed at the amount of ideas that you will receive – pictures, tutorials, videos and more! The best part is that you can customize the idea into something that will work for you and be whatever you want it to be. I put together a bullet journal using the Traveler's Journal products to share with you today – including the new Traveler's Journal: Bullets set.

I started off with a title page for this month. I used the "August" stamp from the Monthly Moments: Year Round Mini stamp set and the flowers from the Stemmed statements stamp set. The star bursts and dots around the flowers are images from the Traveler's Journal: Bullets set.

One of the parts of bullet journaling is setting up your journal each month. That way, it is easy to keep filling in the pieces that you need to as the month goes on without having to invent something new each day to keep track of things. When you are done with your month, you can look back and easily see your accomplishments.

I can't not have an envelope in the front cover of my journal, right? I added one here that I die cut from patterned papers.

One of the main ideas of a bullet journal is to use a symbol system along with a list of tasks, appointments, goals, etc. and track your progress. I included basic symbols in the Traveler's Journal: Bullets stamp set and here is a suggestion of how you can use the symbols in your journal. You can use this system or you can come up with your own way to track the items in your bullet journal.

I set up days of the week across this spread to keep track of daily items. You can see I have tasks listed by the squares, appointments by the triangles, events by the open circles, and notes/reminders by the dots. The framed area make it so easy to keep things organized for each day.

I also added a few habit/goal trackers at the bottom of the one page: one for a daily walk and one for practicing my ukulele.

You can keep things very simple and just black and white, but I added in some more flowers, borders, and a few other little details.

I continued my week onto this next spread using the same framed boxes and list format. As the week goes on, I can add to the lists that I started if I have new items come up or I have projects that take longer than one day to complete.

I had a little fun with the banner image I the set for my birthday on this Saturday. I stamped it onto an adhesive sheet and then cut it out to add it to my journal.

• STAMPS: Traveler's Journal: Bullets, Monthly Moments: Year Round Mini, Stemmed Statements
• INK: True Black, Soft Stone, Prairie Grass
• PAPER: Traveler's Journal: Page Blanks, patterned papers
• DIES: Stemmed Statements, Traveler's Journal: Envelope
• OTHER: baker's twine, eyelets, watercolor pencils

I am so excited to finally get started with using a bullet journal. It's been something that I have been looking at for a long time and sometimes it takes little bit of a push to get started. I can see how this way of journaling can be easy and enjoyable – especially because I can use it the way that is best for me. I hope you have been inspired and then get ready for some more inspiration from the Traveler's Journal team. They all have some great bullet journal ideas to share with you:

"If you like the idea of an all-in-one notebook that you can use for your calendar, future planning, reference, and general note-taking, then bullet journaling might be for you! You can start any time, and if something doesn't work, you can change it up the next day. Stop by to check out my slim, trim August bullet journal and calendar!"

• STAMPS: Traveler's Journal: Dates, Bullets; Pencilgrams; Monthly Moments: Year-Round Mini; Shine
• INK: Fresh Snow, Berry Sorbet, Green Parakeet, New Leaf, Harvest Gold, Tropical Teal, Aqua Mist
• PAPER: Berry Sorbet and Green Parakeet card stock; Traveler's Journal: Page Blanks
• DIES: Tag Sale: Quilted; Monthly Moments: Year Round 2; Traveler's Journal: Booklet Accessories
• OTHER: hemp cord, Mildliner Pens, black gel pen

Click here to visit Amy's blog to see more!

"Hello all! We’re coming to the end of these lovely summer months, and for a lot of us this means a little more planning to our days. There has been a huge Bullet Journal movement out there amongst the planners in the world, and I thought I’d show you how to use your Traveler’s Journal supplies to do this cool way of list making and tracking your tasks and goals!"

• STAMPS: Traveler's Journal: Bullets, Traveler's Journal: Dates, Traveler's Journal: Currently, Brushed Off, What the Doodle: Sun
• INK: Pale Peony, Hibiscus Burst, Melon Berry, Lemon Tart, Mint Julep, Vintage Jadeite, Spring Rain, Hawaiian Shores, Tropic Teal, Stormy Sea, Smokey Shadow
• PAPER: Traveler's Journal: Page Blanks 

Click here to visit Andi's blog to see more!

"Bullet journaling has long caught my eye but unfortunately been too scary for me to try out haha. With Heather's new stamp set, I actually made it work and it was so easy!! I loved being able to combine hand drawn lines with the stamped images from the set to complete an entire layout perfectly "bulleted." ? I hope you will join me on my blog as I show you in more detail the Habit Tracker Goal page I put together."

• STAMPS: Travelers Journal: Bullets
• INK: True Black, Lemon Tart, Amethyst Allure, New Leaf, Blueberry Sky, Raspberry Fizz
• PAPER: Travelers Notebook

 Click here to visit Stephanie's blog to see more!

Thank you so much for joining me and the Traveler's journal team today and I look forward to sharing more Traveler's Journal inspiration with you next month!