My 2024 New Bullet Journal Setup - Vintage Storybook Theme

Bullet Journal 2024
Written By Erin Smith

Starting a fresh new journal for a fresh new year is something I look forward to so much! It’s no secret I love a fairytale storybook vibe, and with my new Mellow Days watercolour page journal, I’m challenging myself to use paint in every layout for I create for 2024 - starting with this one. It’s a combo of jewel-toned gouache, stamps and gold acrylic paint marker, and I’m so happy with it! Watch the video below to see how I did it - it’s easier than you might think! Or scroll down to see all the details up close, and get links to everything I used.

Cover Spread

I knew I wanted to make an impact with my cover spread, so I’ve gone for a bold two-page pattern. I looked up lots of vintage leather-bound storybooks for inspiration! I masked off the boxes I wanted to paint with washi tape so I’d get a nice clean line, mixed up my perfect deep purple gouache shade and painted it in an even, solid block. Once it was dry, I added gold paint to a large floral-patterned silicone stamp and stamped it directly over the paint. It was such a big area that the paint marker would be starting to dry on the stamp by the time I finished colouring the paint onto it, so I had to work in sections, but I still love how it looks! I added numbers in a fancy font, a border and some filigree corner stamp… and that was it! It was actually pretty quick!

Future Log/Year at a Glance Spreads

I couldn’t choose between royal purple like the cover spread, or a deep emerald green for this setup, so I took it to my channel members… and they were split between them too! I decided to do both, and alternate between the colours for each spread. The calendar spread features this lovely deep forest green. I’ve added bars of decoration on the left and right sides, used a Dutch door so I’d only have to decorate each side once, and finally made use of these gorgeous ornate letter stamps I picked up from a market when I was in London back in January. Don’t worry - I found them online so you can get your hands on them too! There’s a link at the end of this post.

I’ve kept things minimal with simple calendars and black pen for all the functional planner parts of the spreads. All my long-term events, reminders and birthdays will go on these pages! I’ve also added enough for the whole year, even though I’ll most likely set up a new journal for the second half of the year.

Goals Page, Social Media Tracker Page

The beginning of the year is when I like to think BIG for my goals! I’ve given myself a page for goal-setting, divided into three categories: personal, financial and business. I’ll revisit these midyear when I set up a new journal, which gives me a chance to adjust them if necessary.

The social media tracker is for keeping a log of my Youtube and Instagram stats each month. I’ve also left space for one more platform, in case I decide to get into TikTok or another platform later! This tracker I’ve kept to six months - last year I had the whole year on the tracker in my journal, and it got annoying having to get my old journal out at the end of every month so I’m planning to keep things to the current journal for 2024!

I’ve switched up the decoration for this spread so they sit at the top and bottom of the pages and mirror each other across the spread.

Cashflow Tracker Spread

This one is a must-have for me! My layout from last year worked really well, and I've improved on it further for 2024. It has space to track income from my different income streams, to track the progress of my savings and investments, and to track my spending over the whole year, sorted by category. I really like knowing exactly where my money comes and goes so this spread is one of my favourites to set up, and to use! The biggest difference from last year is that I added a column for the opening balance of each of my savings and investment categories, and I’ve kept it to the first half of the year rather than having the whole year on one spread. I’ll set up a fresh cashflow tracker spread in my second journal for the year, to cover from July to December.

Decoratively, this one is very similar to the calendar spread from earlier, with vertical bars on the left and right.

Content Planner Spread

I call this one a content planner, but it’s mostly just for Youtube planning. Since I post videos once a week (on Friday evenings Australian time), and sometimes I have sponsorship obligations to consider that mean I need to finish videos early so they can be reviewed, I like planning out which videos I’ll post and when. It helps me make sure I’m getting ready in time, gets me thinking about when I’ll schedule livestreams, and shows me where there are gaps in my schedule that I need to brainstorm for!

That said, this layout would also work for so many other purposes! You could use it to keep track of assignment due dates and exams for school or university or college, a project planner for work, a one-stop list of all your friends’ birthdays or anniversaries, a bill tracker for annual bills, or just a regular future log.

I’ve taken my decorative inspiration from book spines this time, with these cute frame stamps!

Monthly Reset & Highlights Pages

I’ll admit it - sometimes housework things, life things, regular things get away from me in the tangle of self-employed life as a photographer and content creator. I’m hoping this monthly reset page will help me with that - at the beginning or end of each month (I haven’t decided which yet) I want to set up a monthly reset routine (as pictured here) so I can hit the ground running and stay on top of the boring stuff! Things like cleaning out the fridge, cleaning up my car, digitising receipts, decluttering my stationery - if I stay on top of it, I’ll have a much calmer space to work in all through the year.

Swatch Page & About my New Journal

I always have to have a swatch page in my journals! This is where I place little scribbles of each of the pens in my collection, so that I can quickly refer to them and choose the best matches when I’m getting ready for a new monthly theme. It’s especially important for this new journal, since it’s paper is not like any journal I have used before!

My first journal for 2024 is the Mellow Days Reverie A5 journal in sage, with watercolour pages! These pages have a slight texture, a cream colour and lovely sepia brown dots. I wasn’t sure if my pen colours would look different on this paper to the white, smooth pages I’ve used before, so having a place to test my markers was really important to me!

Erin Smith
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