My Favorite Bullet Journal Themes: 2018-2020 BuJo Flip Through
Looking for some Bullet Journal theme ideas? Check out some of the ones I created in my Bullet Journals for 2018-2020.
I started my first Bullet Journal in 2018, so this is a fun way to go down memory lane as well.
I’ve been Bullet Journaling since 2018, and at the moment, I’m on my journal number 3, and almost about to move to number 4.
So I thought it would be fun to look back at all the themes I have done so far and share with you all which ones I’d rate as my top three.
A little note here – I actually only have 2 journals with me. My very first journal was not made in a good notebook. It only lasted me 4 months, and then it literally fell apart.
When we were moving out of China, I had to make sacrifices, so my very first journal was sent to be stored at my parents’ place.
But that was a bit of a training journal anyways, the two journals I’ll be looking through here are the ones where I really went full-on and started developing my style.
I’ll also include blog posts for all the themes that I was writing about. You can see there more pictures and sometimes even theme inspirations from other creators.
There is also a YouTube video at the end of the post of me going through all the pages, so be sure to scroll down and check that out!
Ok let’s dive in!
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Bullet Journal Themes In Journal 2
This was finally the moment for me to invest in a good journal and at the time I chose a Nuuna journal. I fell in love with the journal designs, their pure white paper, and the smaller dot grid.
I don’t think I could ever go back for my daily planning to a different journal. This is it for me.
But! The paper really isn’t as good as they promised, so there isn’t much experimenting I could do there creativity-wise.
Nonetheless, it works perfectly for me and what I need from my day-to-day planning journal. If you want to learn more about it – check out my detailed Nuuna journal review.
I also had to protect it and I got a custom made cover from Cocoa Paper. I still keep my journal in that very first cover I bought.
Ok, time to look into the themes!
August 2018 – Unicorn Theme
I wanted to start my journal with a bang, and what can be more magical than unicorns!
To this day this is probably my favorite theme and definitely my favorite take on unicorns.
I was so worried about creating this theme – first proper theme in my first dream journal!
I’m pretty happy to see how it came out eventually, and it helped me very much to go through a tough time. I was in the process of looking for a new job, and that really wasn’t going as well as I wanted.
READ: Unicorn Bullet Journal Setup – June Plan With Me
September 2018 – Cartoons Theme
That month I received some stickers as a gift, and I thought it would be cool to include them in my Bullet Journal.
I have never used stickers properly in my journal before, and I don’t think it looked that good when I did it in September.
But it was a very cool month for my weeklies because I tried a lot of new types of weekly setups.
READ: Plan With Me: September Bullet Journal Setup
October 2018 – Halloween Theme
This is probably the most popular theme I ever did in my Bullet Journal. You guys seem to really like my take on spooky stuff!
It was a lot of fun creating it and that’s when I first discovered the effect of a white gel pen on top of black. And how much that white gel pen can help in fixing mistakes!
For me, it was very fun playing around with all these creepy doodles and fun pumpkins!
And if you’re looking for more pages like these, check my post Spooky Octobre Bullet Journal Inspirations.
READ: Halloween Bullet Journal Setup
November 2018 – Black And White Floral Theme
This was the month when I finally got my floral drawings book by Alli K. Her tutorials are amazing and flowers are absolutely incredible.
Really, if you want to learn how to draw flowers this is a great book to have.
For me, I still think florals aren’t my strong suit. I felt pretty uncomfortable creating this theme. Especially in black and white.
But no way back, I had to power through and I did. At least it helped me to improve my floral skills.
READ: Floral Bullet Journal Setup – November Plan With Me
December 2018 – Christmas Movies Theme
This was a very ambitious theme on my part. I decided to create pages based on some of the most popular Christmas movies.
I feel like my monthly pages worked, but I couldn’t pull out the same cool style on my weeklies. They were very functional but probably not as epic as I had it in my mind.
READ: Christmas Bullet Journal Setup – December Plan With Me
January 2019 – Pigs Theme
As you see, I didn’t really start my journal in January.
First of all, I rarely have just one journal per year. And secondly – December is already a very busy and convoluted month, I really don’t need the extra stress of setting up a brand new journal.
Ok back to the theme – I chose a pig theme because 2019 was a year of a pig! They are easy to doodle, and can be very cute, and with me living in China at that point, it made sense to create something around the Chinese calendar.
This theme was my husband’s idea, and January was also the first month of my new job.
So there are a lot of positive emotions connected to this monthly setup.
February 2019 – Twin Peaks Theme
In January we started watching Twin Peaks and I was all over that show. Yup, I didn’t watch it when it came out, so it was my very first time experience and I was absolutely obsessed.
That’s why we have this as my theme for February.
The only problem was – I didn’t expect my new job to be so very demanding! In the end, I don’t think I gave enough justice to how awesome this theme could’ve been.
Maybe I should consider doing it again at some point…
March 2019 – Boho Theme
This theme was so much fun to create and so simple, actually!
I think this was also the time I fell in love with Zebra Mildliners. So far, I’ve been using mostly Tombo Dual Brush pens, but the March theme is what opened up my love for Milliners.
Later, I also created a Doodle With Me video for the things I used for this setup, you can check them in the blog post below.
READ: Boho Bullet Journal Theme Inspirations
April 2019 – Floral Theme
One more floral theme, but this time I felt much more confident with my skills, plus florals in color look so much better if you ask me!
Looking back at this theme, it really made me want to do some florals again! I think I haven’t really done a proper floral theme ever since.
READ: How To Use Flowers In Your Bullet Journal + April Plan With Me
May 2019 – Cameras Theme
This theme was my debut on YouTube! That was so scary to do for me, and I couldn’t imagine how much more difficult it will be to plan without having my nose a few mm above the paper.
I think it worked pretty well combining cameras with more florals, and it was a good theme to have in Spring when everything is about to bloom.
READ: May Bullet Journal Setup – Photography Theme
Bullet Journal Themes In Journal 3
May was the last month in my second BuJo – pages ran out! And that couldn’t have happened at a better time!
June is my birthday month, so I thought it made sense to start a new journal as I start a new year of my life.
I decided to start a new journal every June.
Until June 2020 came around. My third journal is much thicker than the one I had before, so it actually lasts me for more than a year. As I write this, I’m in August and I don’t think I’ll be needing a new journal until maybe November.
I could just go with it and start a new journal anyways, but I get really attached to my journals and all the memories I keep in them, so I’ll just wait until it’s time to say goodbye.
June 2019 – Unicorn Theme
I thought I might as well start the journal with the same theme as I did my last one.
I don’t think this take was as good as my first one, but I still have warm memories about it.
I think the issue was mostly that I was so very busy at work that I started using hobonichi weeks for my day to day planning and my BuJo kind of took a backside.
It lasted just a few months though, because I really missed Bullet Journaling.
READ: June Plan With Me – Unicorn Theme
July 2019 – Beach Summer Theme
July is the hottest month in Beijing and I kept craving for some beach vacations, especially since I was working in a school and practically all the staff took the month off to go to Bali or Cambodia.
This wasn’t an option for me, so I decided to add summer vibes to my Bullet Journal pages instead.
This was also the first time I faced a problem with my paper quality since my Zebra Clickart pens were ghosting like crazy!
READ: Summer Themed Bullet Journal Setup
August 2019 – Blackout Book
August didn’t exist in my journal. I got my blackout book and I decided to play around with it.
I really like the blackout book and creating pages there, but I’m still not that comfortable with it, so I didn’t move there as my full-time journal.
Instead, I use it more to play around, create quote pages, and some creepy Halloween setups.
In my actual journal, I created a travel-themed cover and a few pages inside that I really hated, so I just used washi to tape them together.
Now you’ll never know!
READ: Blackout Book And Just Two Pens – August Plan With Me
September 2019 – Back To School Theme
September was a crazy month for us; I’ve just had an almost week-long trip to come to Bolivia from China.
Oh, and La Paz is 4000 meters (around 13.000 feet) above the sea level, so I needed a lot of time to teach myself to breathe and not have a heart attack every time I went up the stairs.
So actually, I thought I’d skip September altogether.
But one day, I just sat down to jot down a short to-do list and ended up creating a monthly setup full of stationery doodles.
I’m really, really happy with this setup, and it was so nice after all this stress to just quietly sit down and plan
READ: Back To School Bullet Journal Setup
October 2019 – Halloween Theme
October was once again back to my Blackout book.
It’s a Halloween month, so it was fun to move back to the dark ages and explore the dark vibe.
I’m still not as confident in my blackout book skills, but it’s always fun to play around with it. And I did experiment a lot with different types of weekly spreads that month.
READ: Halloween Bullet Journal Setup In The Blackout Book
November 2019 – Coffee and Books Theme
This month was awesome! I picked a theme I really wanted to do, and I think it shows how much I loved it.
The idea was to have a different type of coffee doodles on each page, so in a way, it was also educational. My coffee knowledge is pretty limited to a latte or flat white – the two of my favorites.
It was also the time for a horrible thing to happen – I spilled some peanut soup on my habit tracker page. It was a tragedy!
After throwing a fit and crying my eyes out, I fixed it with …. White gel pen! Honestly, this is the best tool you can ever have! The stains are now barely noticeable.
READ: Coffee Bullet Journal Theme Inspirations
December 2019 – Harry Potter Theme
It’s been a long time coming for me to try a Harry Potter theme, and what better time than for a Christmas month.
For me, the magical atmosphere of the books and movies is always associated with Christmas for some reason.
Plus, just look at Gryffindor colors, aren’t they screaming Christmas?
I’ll be honest here – I’m very proud of how this theme came out, and I had tons of fun creating it.
READ: Magical Harry Potter Bullet Journal Theme Inspirations
February 2020 – Rainbows and Clouds Theme
I have no idea what happened to January. I think we might have been celebrating too much, and I probably just did some small to-do lists in my Hobonichi weeks.
(Psss, actually I moved to a refillable Filofax journal for January, check out my post Refillable Bullet Journal Setup – January Plan With Me)
February, though was there full-on with my blight and happy clouds.
I went for a very simple theme because I was too busy preparing for Planner Con 2020!
I got my visa, got my tickers, and it was all about preparing and planning the big event. I really haven’t been that excited for a while – visiting Planner Con was a total dream.
READ: Clouds and Rainbows Bullet Journal Setup
March 2020 – Self Care Theme
This was so well placed – with the pandemic breaking out and me being stuck in the USA this theme really helped me to keep it all together.
It was a very emotional month full of vivid experiences. I’m happy I had my journal with me to remember it all.
Oh and self-care is such a strange theme; let me explain a bit my approach.
What I did was basically each page was themed after something I like to do as a self-care activity. Like applying makeup, planning, traveling, and eating (don’t judge!).
READ: March Plan With Me – Self-care Theme
April 2020 – Sushi Theme
With all the things happening I wanted to create something cute and happy in my journal, so I went for cute sushi aka my favorite food in the world!
Looking back at these pages, I still remember how therapeutic it was to draw them and how much I enjoyed it.
Should I create a Doodle With Me video on how to draw sushi? Let me know in the comments!
These sushi doodles are actually available for our Patreons as printable stickers, so if you want to get them and tons of other BuJo goodies – be sure to drop by our Patreon and learn more.
READ: Cute and Fun Sushi Bullet Journal Theme Inspirations
May 2020 – Animal Crossing Theme
To keep myself from going insane during the quarantine, I got a Nintendo Switch Lite and Animal Crossing game.
NO REGRETS!
This game basically saved me from just being in the worst mental state ever. And it won me over with its cute designs and adorable characters.
So, of course, it just had to be my theme for May!
I also created Animal Crossing stickers for Patreon if you want to check them out.
READ: Animal Crossing Bullet Journal Theme Inspirations
June 2020 – Simply Gilded Theme
If you didn’t know – Simply Gilded is a little business that created tons of stationery, but mostly washi tape.
I never used washi tape in my journal, but once I got introduced to this brand, I just couldn’t help myself. I had to have them ALL!
I didn’t buy them all, but I bought enough to realize I needed to push myself to use washi tape more and more.
Simply Gilded was also one of the highlights of my quarantined life, so I thought it makes perfect sense to use their products as a theme for my June.
I really went out of my comfort zone for this, but it was an interesting creative journey, and now I know more about how I can incorporate washi tape into my journal pages.
READ: June Bullet Journal Setup – SImply Gilded Theme
July 2020 – Space Theme
A while ago, I started asking my Instagram followers what theme they’d like to see on my next setup, and for July they picked Space.
Be sure to follow me on Instagram so you can be a part of this decision as well!
I wasn’t feeling too inspired – I had to spend two weeks in quarantine in Bolivia in a different city, and it was not a pleasant experience.
But you said Space, so I went with it, and actually I got inspired as I went. This is now a very special theme for me, the time when I kind of had a little rebirth.
Space is actually an awesome theme, and it can be so very easy! All you need is a circle maker, and you can create some super cute pages.
READ: 55+ Space and Galaxy Bullet Journal Theme Inspirations
August 2020 – Fireflies Theme
I’m writing this in August, and the theme you chose is fireflies.
I decided to spice it up with more elements like crystals, stars, and flowers, so it has a bit of a witch vibe. At least that’s what I was aiming for.
For me, this was probably the most difficult theme to tackle. I feel like there isn’t much you can do with fireflies, and I really had to push myself to come up with something more or less unique.
READ: Fireflies Bullet Journal Theme Inspirations
My Favorite Bullet Journal Themes
I hope looking through these was also a bit of an evolution journey. At least for me, it was so obvious how the more spreads I created, the pretties they became.
That’s always going to be like that, so don’t get discouraged if your first journal doesn’t look like the perfect Pinterest images.
Time to announce the final winners!
Favorite from Journal 2
Definitely my very first unicorn theme. It was so special to me, and it always brights tons of amazing memories when I look back at it.
Favorite from Journal 3
November coffee theme. I had a lot of fun with it, and I really like the way it came out.
Overall favorite
Self-care theme. March 2020 was such a memorable and emotionally charged moment for me that this theme is just the most special of them all.
Plus I loved how it allowed me to play around and be very different with each page.
My Favorite Bullet Journal Themes: Video
Finally, if you want to see a huge flip through my two journals with some comments from me – check out this YouTube video I recorded.
What is your favorite theme from all you’ve done so far? Share with us in the comments!
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And remember: Keep Bullet Journaling, and Don’t Be a Blob!
