I always get a little bit nervous when starting a January spread in a new notebook. For those of you who don’t love journals/notebooks this may seem a little strange so let you help you. You know that new car smell? Well I love the new-notebook smell.
What I hate most about setting up the first monthly spread is the finality of it. The finality of the set up pages at the start of your journal. You can see mine for 2020 here. I always leave 4 pages blank before I dive into the first monthly just in case I find I need to add an annual tracker or list.
I’m also not really into themes but I did stick with a dutch door for the January. I found some gold diamond washi tape but it truly was awful and hardly stuck to the pages so lining it up was a nightmare but in the end I was happy with my bear cover page.
what’s behind the door you ask?
This is a list of things that made me smile in the month of January. I always think of January as a bleak month so I wanted to make a list of all the positive things that happen in the month. The reason I smiled, laughed out loud. Right from the smallest ninja hug from my daughter or catching a frost spiral as the sun rose on a morning school walk.
We are defined by the choices we make.
In 2020 I want to appreciate everything a little more. Take fewer things for granted. I want to know the plants in my garden that I really care for before we overhaul it and I want to look a little further into why I love living where we do so my answer isn’t just the beach but the sunset in winter at the beach at 4 pm. So I’m hoping that this spread will help with that.
My January calendar is minimalist and simple and I really love how it turned out. It has space for important dates or anything I need to write on the left hand side and I do love the geo-bear 😀
I always need my journal to be functional and then something I can pick up when I want to write. I don’t always feel the need to write in my journal daily so I always follow my calendar with weekly setups like the image above and then a space for journal entries or creative spreads as I need it.
I hope this post has inspired some journal inspiration for you. I bet your now thinking about your new notebook smell too 🤣
