How to choose a Bullet journal theme, even when you feel stuck - March setup

Sometimes, while laying in my bed, I look at Pinterest and I see a beautiful washi tape, an interesting sketch or a fun sticker. This gives me inspiration on how to do some of my next Bullet journal themes. I then pin them and also write it down so that when the time comes for me to do my theme, I don't have to think too much.

This was not that time.

For my March setup, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do. Everything I saw others do did not exactly feel like me. At first I thought "it's still early, by the time I have to do it, surely I will find something to inspire me". But nope. Last week of February and I still had no idea.

From the title of the post you now know that I did in fact decide finally what I was going to do and that I am going to share with you how. So let's do it!

Main Bullet journal page - March

Browsing my Pinterest

The first thing I did was browse through the pins I already had. Surely, if I had them saved, it meant there was something I liked there. And yes, there was something - a nice title and an idea for a main page structure (which you can see here). Ok, so that's not too bad. But I still need to decide on several other things - like colors and shapes, before I do my theme.

Events in that month

This next part took me so long. I usually get inspired by thinking about what happens or what I will be doing in the following month. This way, the theme will be inspiring me to work on it throughout the month. But I don't know what I will be doing in March. Probably not travelling. Mostly what happens is flowers bloom, but I am not exactly a huge flowers kind of girl. Then again, exactly because of that, I never do flowers as a theme. And since March is a kind of month for trying new things, I wanted to push myself and give them a chance. But which ones? I had to consider one more factor before I could decide - colors.

Calendar Bullet journal page - March

Going by colors

Another major factor in all my themes is the color association. When I think about a month, which colors pop into my mind? This of course can change, but it's usually consistent for the next month. Also, it should be different from last and next month so that I don't get bored. For me, March had to be something red. But since it's not my favorite of colors, I didn't want too much of it, so I needed one more. Green? No, I did mint green last time. Purple? Nah! Yellow? Hmmm, maybe, but not too bright. In order to actually decide, I usually take my pens and markers in those colors and swatch them to see if I like something. Luckily I did find yellows and reds I liked, so I had my colors! One more decision to go.

Mood tracker Bullet journal page - March

Shapes

Last part of choosing a theme is shapes. Ok, so I decided to do flowers and I wanted them red and yellow. But what flowers are yellow and red and mostly bloom in March? For this, I literally googled "March plants" and then scrolled endlessly. I really liked the variety of daffodils, but they didn't have red. What else is red? I forgot! Ladybugs! Perfect! Small, red, and works with the theme! Immediately I looked at pins of how to draw ladybugs and daffodils and after doing some quick sketches, I knew I had my theme. Finally!

At the end of this long process is the easy part - drawing the theme. Above is a video of me doing exactly that for the main page of the setup. I hope you enjoy it as well as this post! 😄

In the next one, I will share my weekly setup and then after that, I will post a few more scrapbook pages. Leave your email above if you don't want to miss that or follow me on instagram and tiktok @zhilopolis.