Do you ever get an idea for a layout in your head, but you can’t execute it until you have EXACTLY the right circumstances? That was me with this January theme! I had the idea way back in September when I got the frames I’ve used here from Journalsay - but since this idea revolved around paint, I knew I needed to wait until I moved into my new Mellow Days watercolour-paper bullet journal before I could make it happen. Presenting: my January 2024 Art Gallery bullet journal theme.

Check out the video below to watch the whole process (and BOY was it a process!) or scroll on for detail photos, and links to all the supplies I used!

January Cover Spread

I knew this would be a time-consuming spread going in, and it was worth it. I’ve used frames from three different scrapbook paper sets to get the variety of shapes and apertures, and painted the florals directly on the journal pages with gouache. It was my first time trying this style of painting with gouache so I took a Skillshare class first to get my head around it, then jumped in with a variety of inspiration photos from Instagram to use as reference.

Cover spreads don’t really serve a practical purpose, so some people prefer to skip them, but I find them so much fun. They’re a chance to play with my theme elements and work out how I like them to interact, they serve as an introduction to the rest of the theme in the journal, and for me, they help me get into the mindset of a new month - I love a bit of mental preparation!

January Calendar Spread

The washi tape I used in this theme really drew some of the spreads together - like this one! Originally I’d been planning to leave lots of negative space on all my spreads, but as I set things up I knew it was looking a bit wonky and strange. The size of my frames really restricted how many I could fit on the page, so this rich blood-red washi from Muji (which came in a pack of three with a grey and a beige) really filled that extra space beautifully and boldly, but without overwhelming things. Phew!

I kept my functional calendar on the smaller side to allow lots of space for painting, but still large enough to be useful through the month. This spread also features the only landscape-oriented artwork in the whole theme!

Content Planner Spread, Spending Log & Spare Page

This series of pages turned out to be… small disasters! The content planner especially!

If you look closely, you can see the content planner header is on a separate piece of paper. Before I’d decided to introduce the washi tape, I’d lettered that heading in a different spot - but the placement of the paintings (which I obviously can’t move) and the calendar didn’t allow me to add the red washi in a way that felt like it would balance the visual weight of the paintings on the right side without still looking a bit weird and un-thought-out. I opted for a solid washi border instead - and if I could move those two pictures in a little on the right side, I would! It also made my original header look a bit silly, so I re-lettered it on the offcuts from some of my 2024 new journal setup’s offcuts from the Dutch door pages and stuck it over the top. A little cream-coloured correction tape helped out here massively, too.

The spending log had a similar but smaller error - since this page was too full to allow any painted decoration in a frame, I just added washi as an afterthought - but the heading wasn’t centred well, and the washi makes that even more obvious.

The remaining page is a spare one before heading into the weeklies - I wanted to be certain a painting was featured somewhere on the spending/spare spread so I centred it on the right page, and I’ll use the space around it for… something. At the moment I’m thinking maybe a new morning routine or evening routine list!

Weekly Dutch Door Dashboard Spreads

I introduced this weekly system in December and it worked so well! By incorporating my mood and habit trackers on my weeklies, with Dutch doors cut away so I can see those trackers at all points of the month, I’ve eliminated the out-of-sight, out-of-mind issue I was having with them throughout the end of last year. I use my weeklies a lot, so by ensuring I also see my trackers while using my weeklies, I’ve been much better about filling them out. Win win! It was tricky to work the painting element in here, but I managed to squeeze two square/circular ones in!