I did a second spread in this planner I intend to use for 2027. It's as amateur-looking as the first spread, but I've decided I'm having fun with it.
It's nice to have a creative outlet that doesn't involve words. It's a great way to get my head in a creative space without any pressure and to allow my thoughts to wander. Plot problem? Let's decorate a page and let the subconscious work on it while I decorate paper.
Yes, I'm really bad at art. I'll never be good enough to be happy with what I produce, but as long as I can let that go and be satisfied with the process, I think it's a win.
I repurposed a 2026 planner that I didn't use. It allows me to use stickers, not only to re-date the calendar, but to decorate the blank pages behind it. I'll never be a bullet journal person for my personal planner, but this planner set up? It's really a bullet journal in an old Erin Condren planner. This let's me revisit a process I thought would be fun, but just didn't work for my day-to-day life. Since my writing planning is minimal, this works for me.
Oh, and it also lets me use my Tombow marker collection, which has mostly been underutilized.
This is my latest attempt at decorating. The spread is for July 2027.
Title page with seagulls at the beach. I used the image on the sticker box and just taped it down.
My 2026 calendar set up for 2027. Since it was originally a Sunday start and I prefer Monday start, I really only need to change the day labels for the dates to be correct, but I wasn't passing up the chance to use colorful date squares.
This is the monthly dashboard layout. I'm not really using that this year, so it'll probably just sit blank, but who knows?
July 1st is a Thursday, so the first spread only needed four days. There are eight check boxes. Each represents 250 words. To check all of them off, I need to write 2000 words. The box at the bottom of the page is to record my total word count for the day.
These four spreads allowed me to create a scene with markers and stickers. Many of the ideas came from the Hubman and Chubgirl YouTube channel, but since I'm using my planner for a different purpose than most people are, I frequently diverged.
Here, I used the journaling card and some washi sticker strips to decorate the final page of the month.
