A Guide To Bullet Journal Supplies For Beginners - the paper kind

By A Mystery Man Writer

Last updated 09 May 2024

A Guide To Bullet Journal Supplies For Beginners - the paper kind

So imagine this. You’ve decided you want to start a bullet journal. You know how to set a bullet journal up and use it to stay organised. But then you realise there are certain bullet journal supplies you need to buy. A notebook and a pen are obvious. But starting a new bullet journal seems like the perfect excuse to go buy some brand new stationery. You can easily become overwhelmed by researching bullet journal supplies. Despite what many websites claim, you don’t need any fancy supplies to start bullet journaling. I would recommend you start a bullet journal with whatever you have at home before going off to buy new stationery supplies. So today I’m going to share which bullet journal supplies I would recommend for beginners. The basics are obvious, paper and something to write with. But some other stationery supplies can be useful too. What if you decide to start getting fancy with your bullet journal. What are the best supplies to add to the basics? I have a rundown of everything in this post. A GUIDE TO BULLET JOURNAL SUPPLIES FOR BEGINNERS HOW TO BULLET JOURNAL If you’ve come across this post and have no idea what a bullet journal is. Other than it being an organisational system. I would recommend you start off either by reading The Bullet Journal Method or by visiting the official bullet journal website. This is where you will learn about the bullet journal system and how to set up your bullet journal. In the beginning, I would recommend you stick quite closely to these bullet journal rules. Over time the way you use a bullet journal will change and you can customise it more to your specific needs. If you’re just starting with bullet journaling I would recommend you don’t go out and buy a new notebook at this stage. Find a notebook or paper, use the things you have around you to set up a bullet journal and learn how the system works. After you’ve been using it for a few weeks you can then start thinking about buying a new notebook and stationery supplies. I know the idea of a bullet journal sounds great, But reading about something online is very different from using it. It’s much better to try out the bullet journal system before you start to buy lots of stationery supplies. One of the great advantages of the bullet journal, unlike paper planners, is that you can try it out first. THE ESSENTIALS There are a few basic supplies you will need to buy when starting a bullet journal. This being a notebook and a pen. Unless you’re planning on trying a digital bullet journal but I wouldn’t recommend that to beginners. From this starting point, you can then go on to buy more elaborate stationery supplies for your bullet journal. Just remember that you don’t have to go buy everything on this list. Your bullet journal can be as simple or as elaborate as you want. MORE LIKE THIS: How To Start A Bullet Journal Don’t get disheartened at all the pretty bullet journal pictures on Instagram and Pinterest. It’s possible to use your bullet journal as a creative output. But the main point of using the bullet journal system is to keep yourself organised. NOTEBOOK If you’ve decided bullet journaling is right for you one of the first things you will have to do is buy a notebook. There are many many options to think about when choosing a notebook. One of the first things you should think about is the type of paper you want to use. For most people, this is dot grid paper. But I prefer gridded paper. The type of paper you want will largely determine the type of notebook you buy. One of the most popular dot grid notebooks is the Leuchtturm1917. This is a great notebook, I’ve bought a number of them in the past. The notebooks are quite durable and have a high page count. This means they will last you a long time. MORE LIKE THIS: My Favourite A5 Notebook From MD Paper Leuchtturm makes an official Bullet Journal notebook. My advice would be to not buy it. There are very few differences between the bullet journal Leuchtturm and a regular Leuchtturm1917 notebook. One of the only notable differences is that it has Bullet Journal written on the cover of the notebook. You don’t need to pay extra money just for this. If you don’t want to buy a Leuchtturm notebook there are many others to choose from. One of my personal favourite notebooks is the MD Paper notebook. As far as I’m aware the MD Paper notebooks don’t come with dot grid paper. So you will have to choose between lined and gridded paper. I’ve been using my MD Paper notebook as a bullet journal for almost a full year now and I love it. I would say I prefer this notebook to the Leuchtturm. PENS Again when it comes to bullet journaling you don’t need any special pens. The likelihood is you already have a pen lying around somewhere so don’t need to go out and buy anything special. When I’m writing I like a black gel pen. Muji branded pens are one of my favourites. The pens work well, the ink doesn’t bleed through the paper of my notebook. They also last for quite a long time. I’ve only been using Muji pens for the last year. One of the only problems when it comes to Muji is getting them. There are very few Muji shops in the UK so you either need to be lucky enough to live close by or you will have to order the pens online. MORE LIKE THIS: My Favourite Pens For Bullet Journaling If you don’t want to use a gel pen you could always look at something else, such as a ballpoint pen or a fountain pen. Ballpoints are great because you can buy them pretty much anywhere and they are usually quite cheap. Fountain pens are more expensive but they are also more customizable. Most fountain pens have thicker barrels which I think makes them more comfortable to hold. They also come with replaceable ink cartridges. This means you have more choices when it comes to the ink you use in your bullet journal. You do just need to be careful that whatever ink you use works with the paper in your notebook. PENCIL/ ERASER If you are going to start bullet journaling I would highly recommend you have a pencil as well as a pen. There are certain spreads in your bullet journal where you probably want to avoid mistakes. These being the monthly views. It is very easy to write a date wrong and if you do it in pen it’s very hard to correct. For these sorts of things, I would recommend you use a pencil. A pencil is probably also something you have lying around at home. Most of the pencils I own are from stationery boxes or I’ve been given for free at various events. Instead of a wooden pencil, you might want to look at a mechanical pencil. I much prefer this when I’m using a pencil for writing. With mechanical pencils, you buy lead refills. You can then insert these into the mechanical pencil. If I’m going, to be honest, I like mechanical pencils because I’m too lazy to sharpen a regular pencil all the time. But again, the type of pencil you buy depends on your preference. Along with a pencil you will want to buy an eraser. There’s no point using a pencil in your bullet journal if you can’t erase the pencil marks. Now the artist in me would say that some erasers are better than others. The truth is so long as it gets rid of the pencil marks it doesn’t matter what type of eraser you buy. RULER I would also recommend buying a ruler. This is something which comes in really handy while setting up spreads in your bullet journal. You don’t need to go buy some super fancy ruler. I have two which I use most of the time. One is a 15cm plastic ruler from Muji. The other is a 15cm steel rule which I bought in an art store. I like the steel rule for graphic design work. But for most people, a simple plastic ruler works just as well. Especially when it comes to bullet journaling, being able to see underneath the ruler can be handy in certain situations. GET CREATIVE Once you’ve got the basic bullet journal supplies sorted out you might want to start looking at something more elaborate. I like having a bit of colour in my bullet journal. I think it makes the pages more interesting. So I have some examples of stationery supplies you can use to do this. MORE LIKE THIS: How I Migrate Into A New Bullet Journal Just remember that you don’t need to go out and immediately buy all these supplies. These are all things that I own but I didn’t go out and buy them specifically for my bullet journal. I don’t use all of these in my bullet journal. It’s just to give you an idea of what you could buy and how they can be used. TOMBOW DUAL BRUSH MARKER Tombow Dual Brush Markers are very popular in the bullet journaling community. These are dual-tipped pens. One end has a brush nib and the other has a 1mm fine point nib. This makes the pens a great choice if you want to try calligraphy in your bullet journal. The Tombow markers use water-based ink. This means you won’t have any problems with ink bleeding in your notebook. It also means you can blend inks on the page using water. This can create some really interesting results. If you’re just getting started with calligraphy the Tombow markers can be slightly tricky to get used to. The brush nib on the Tombows is quite broad. This can make it difficult to get the right amount of pressure on the pen. Once you get used to the pens they can be used to create some interesting headings in your bullet journal. HIGHLIGHTERS Something else which I will use in my bullet journal instead of marker pens is highlighters. I like using highlighters to create really simple headings in my bullet journal. This means I don’t have to worry about spending lots of time creating elaborate bullet journal spreads. Most of the daily logs in my bullet journal consist of the date, then a list of tasks and notes. For highlighters, I use the Zebra Mildliners. I like these highlighters because of the selection of colours. The Mildliners come in 25 different colours, and most importantly they don’t come in bright fluorescent colours. I much prefer these muted colours in my bullet journal. Again these are dual-ended pens. One end has a chisel tip and the other has a 1mm fine point nib. The Mildliners are slightly more expensive compared to regular highlighters. They can also be harder to find because they have to be imported from Japan. But if you get a set of 5 Mildliners they will last you for years. COLOURED PENCILS I like using coloured pencils in my bullet journal, they are probably one of the bullet journal supplies I use the most. Especially to mark tasks as completed. I’m not particularly picky about the types of coloured pencils I buy. The first thing I look for with pencils is the actual colour. Most of my pencils were bought individually rather than in sets. This means I have more choice over which colours I get. I like having colour schemes in my bullet journal so will choose colours which match the Tombow markers and Mildliners that I already own. MORE LIKE THIS: An Art Supply Haul The specific brand of pencils just depends on what