Plan With Me | April 2023 — Lydias Journals

This month I decided to go with a more interactive design, which is WAY out of the usual for the particular journal I am using. In the months prior (in this journal) all of my themes and spreads have been fairly minimalistic and used only one color - brown. To incorporate my monthly color but still make a fun theme, I chose to use pink, yellow and of course brown.

Supplies used:

Pigma MICRON 05 fineliner
Pigma MICRON 08 fineliner
Staedlater watercolor brush pen, light pink
Zebra MILDLINER, brown
Zebrea MILDLINER, yellow
Pencil and eraser
And my journal, of course!

Cover Spread

I always make my cover spread first, this way I know what to model the rest of my theme after. This month, I wanted to use thick lines and basic cursive font to add some fun.

For the design, I went with a cute, basic floral pattern. To enhance this pattern, I used the same size thick pen as I used for the font and colored it in with this months color scheme of yellow, brown, and pink.

Sketching it Out

The first step in any planner making involves sketching and some math. In order to make sure my sections are equal, I must count and divide the dots in my journal to come up with two columns. For example, two equal columns in this particular spread meant that each side had to be 13 boxes across.

Next, I needed to decide what the layout of the spreads would be. I could go with boxes, squiggly boxes, circles, ‘naked’ boxes…. there are so many options! For this particular spread, I went with one-sided boxes, incorporating a little bit of that minimalism I mentioned earlier.

Because the layout I decided to go with ends up with 8 boxes (instead of 7 for the days of the week), I made my first box a weekly habit tracker and notes section.

At this point in the planner-making, I am still only using my pencil and eraser. This way, I can go back and change things.

Adding Some Flare

After sketching and outlining the layout, I need to find a way to incorporate my design for the month. This is always alot of fun, because it makes each page a little more ‘you’! For this theme, I decided to continue my cover spread design onto the header and ‘notes’ sections.

During this ‘flare’ stage, I also decide what font I think will look best on each page. For this theme, I decided to continue my cursive that was used on the cover spread into each day’s title.

I am still only adding my design using a pencil, because I want to be able to see my full vision on paper before making anything permanent.

Tracing

This part is fun and relaxing, because it takes barely any brain power. We already did all of the heavily lifting in the sketching stage. Now all we need to do is trace!

I used a slightly thinner pen to trace the lettering and the floral design, then went with my thickest pen to trace the one-sided boxes.

Add Some Color

Now, using the pre-chosen color scheme, I color all of my pages in! As you can see, the first two steps are way more involved than the latter.

I decided that only coloring in the floral design was not cohesive enough, so I added a stripe of brown marker to the header for each day. I thought this added the perfect amount of subtle color to the spread!