In my last blog post I introduced three activities that we like to do as a family here in the mad house. Family scrapbook/journal, family playlists and our activities list. If you would like to read the previous post you can find it here
In this post I will share the downloads to help you get started with two of these activities.
- Setting up a family bullet journal and
- Documenting your family playlists!
Family Bullet Journal
There are many benefits to keeping a journal. You might want to add a bit more organisation to your family life. Maybe you want to create memories and record holidays or achievements. There are some beautiful and inspirational bullet journal ideas out there. I have a Pintrest board dedicated to them which you can see here .
I am a self confessed stationery addict and I love the specialist notebooks and gorgeous fineliner pen sets that people use to produce these glorious layouts. I have included some of my personal favourites in the box at the foot of this post. Please note that the some of the links in my blog are affilliate links which means that I might receive a small payment at no additional cost to you, when you follow the links.
The layouts you can see on Pinterest can be intimidating in that they are soooo artistic. I don’t know about you but I am not at all talented when it comes to art. I love colour and design but free hand drawing is something that I just cannot do. The beauty of bullet journals is that you can create lovely pages just using colours and fonts. You can use stickers and washi-tape if you can’t design/draw your own images. Anything goes!
I find when sharing bullet journal pages with my family, a note book is not the best format. Pages can easily become messy or torn. Also we like to save tickets, postcards, art projects and photos in the journal and notebooks don’t allow space for this easily. For all these reasons I prefer to use a loose leaf format that I can add to and replace easily.
The foundation of most bullet journals is the basic dotted page. This simple format allows you to produce tidy layouts as it provides a guide for boxes, lists or pictures. The first of the free downloads I have for you is therefore this basic bullet journal page. The download includes a title box plus a place to record date and location. The file is available in three sizes. A4 and Letter have just one sheet ready to print. The A5 format prints to A4 paper and has two A5 layouts side by side so needs to be cut down the centre. In my favourite supplies (shown at the foot of the post) I have included the gadget I use to cut these pages to size.
Here are the first three free downloads:
Dotted page - A4 (8783 downloads )Dotted page - Letter (8596 downloads )
Dotted page - A5 (3752 downloads )
Family Playlist
The second of the free downloads I have for you will help you with another family activity. This is where you document a family playlist.
We all have playlists that are favourites for a while before we move on. Recording the reasons for tracks in a playlist make it a permanent record of a time in our lives. Something we can later look back on and (hopefully) smile about!
There are many music services out there that allow you to set up playlists. For example Amazon prime membership gives you music streaming and many other benefits. When we first started to do this the only option was to set them up on an ipod from music in our library. When I was young people made cassette tapes (have I lost you now?)
Having a playlist as a family allows you to record a particular event or period in your lives. Documenting the reasons for the tracks on the list gives you something to look back on many years ahead when you might have forgotten some of the details of that time. If you have any family members who are struggling with memory loss then I am told that a playlist from a period of time in their lives can be a comfort. Note down the reasons or triggers for each song you include in the list. Any detail you include here might be a memory jog in the future.
This download again provides a framework to document the playlist. You can have as many of these as you like in your family bullet journal. They can be shared or individual. They could be playlists from a party or wedding. It could be a playlist from your annual holiday or roadtrip. It might be the sound track to your daily school run. Whatever the reason behind the list, this could be something that you will play again in the future and be taken back to that period of your lives. Once again the download is available in A4 and Letter formats. There is also an A5 format that prints two pages side by side to A4 size paper.
Playlist layout - A4 (8634 downloads ) Playlist layout - Letter (8548 downloads ) Playlist layout - A5 (prints to A4 paper) (8507 downloads )That is it for this week. I will be putting up more free downloads for your family bullet journal in future weeks and also sharing some of the craft projects we are trying as a family. Determined we will spend more creative family time crafting and less time glued to electronic devices! Wish me luck 🙂
Annie.