I love bullet journaling! It helps keep me organized and gives me a creative outlet. Who doesn’t love to create pretty designs to keep themselves motivated?
When I am journaling, I use a select few products to help me achieve the look I am aiming for. A lot of these products are also well-known and liked by the bullet journaling community. Below are the supplies I use while bullet journaling:
Archer & Olive Bullet Journals
Archer & Olive is one of the most notable bullet journal companies. They make amazing journals!
When I first started bullet journaling, I was using the Leuchtturm 1917. It was okay. The Leuchtturm works for journaling, but the pens and markers easily bleed through the papers (especially my Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pens). The paper is so thin that you can see the writing on the previous page. I hated it! As I said, it worked okay, but it is not something I will be buying again.
I decided to try a new journal. I did lots of research and came up with Archer & Olive. The reviews put them at the top of the list for me. Turns out the reviews had it right!
Archer & Olive has a great selection of bullet journals. There are lots of designs and colours to choose from, but the best part about their journal is the page thickness. The pages are 160 GSM (grams per square meter), which is pretty thick. My pens never bleed through. I have even painted a little in my journal and it holds up. Archer & Olive’s bullet journals are amazing!
The only downside to Archer & Olive is the price. Their bullet journals can be costly. Because I live in a different country, the shipping and exchange rate shot up the price of the journal.
I highly recommend the Archer & OIive brand for your next bullet journal! (I am not getting paid to promote this brand. I just really like them!)
Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pens
In my beginner days of bullet journaling, I needed lots of guidance and inspiration. I noticed that everyone was using calligraphy and hand lettering. Soon afterwards, I decided that I needed to try it for myself.
The pens make hand lettering so much easier than before. The pens are designed to glide to create thin and thick lines. The lines depend on the pressure you put on the pens while writing. It takes time to learn how to use them, but they are definitely worth it!
The pens can come in different colours, but black is the most commonly used shade. Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pens are my favourite writing tools out of all the ones I have amassed in the past few years. You will not find a pen that works better for calligraphy and hand lettering. They really make your bullet journal look more professional and pretty.
They typically come in a package of two. There is a soft tip and a hard tip pen. The soft tip pen makes larger strokes, whereas the hard tip pen makes tighter and smaller strokes. Personally, I prefer the harder tip because it is a little easier to control the line.
If there was ever a pen to invest in for your bullet journal, it is the Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pen.
Tombow Dual Brush Pens
Tombow Dual Brush Pens have a similar effect to the Fudenosuke Brush Pens. They are both meant to bend to create the perfect strokes for hand lettering. However, the dual brush pens have much larger tips and they typically come in more colours.
There are so many colours to choose from when it comes to the Tombow Dual Brush Pens. The pens typically come in packages of colour themes, though you can buy them separately. For example, if you want a lighter shade, there is a package with just pastel colours. (It happens to be my favourite colour scheme that they offer.)
The pens are called dual brush pens because they have another side to them. On one side, you have the calligraphy tip. (You typically buy the pens for this feature.) On the opposite end, you will find a little nib, which works more as a regular marker than the other side. It is great for filling in spaces and colouring in your designated areas.
The dual brush pens are basically fancy markers. If you wanted to use markers in your bullet journal, you could just as easily use Crayola markers or something equivalent. You can use other markers for calligraphy and hand lettering, but the Tombow pens are more efficient and easier to use.
The Ultimate Guide to Modern Calligraphy & Hand Lettering for Beginners
Sadly, no one just suddenly knows how to do hand lettering. They do not teach calligraphy anymore in school. Therefore, it is a skill you need to learn to be able to bullet journal aesthetically.
I have to admit I already had some background in calligraphy. I had been working for the past few years to learn how to properly write in cursive. However, cursive isn’t necessarily calligraphy. There is more technique involved.
This guide helps you learn how to do hand-lettering by giving you examples and practice sheets. It has lots of resources to help you improve your calligraphy. Though I am still working on it, the book has helped me improve my writing in my bullet journal.
Because this book is so helpful, it is a fairly popular tool in the bullet journal community. I recommend getting a copy if you are serious about improving your calligraphy and hand-lettering. (Lucky for us, the book is also relatively cheap.)
Micron Pigma Pens
Micron Pigma Pens are some of the best writing tools you will ever find. They work wonders when you are trying to create lines in your bullet journal.
To be able to bullet journal, you are practically required to have at least one fineliner. These fineliners are what you use to create lines and designs in your journal. Even with a minimalistic aesthetic, you will still need to create lines every once in a while.
The Micron Pigma Pens are one of the best-known fineliners in the bullet journaling community. There are others, of course. Yet, the Micron pens write really smoothly. They glide easily on the page. You will typically not find any bleeding through pages from these pens either.
I love these pens! I have used others in the past, but the other pens are not intended for bullet journaling and they bleed through pages. As I said before, bleeding through pages is a big no-no for me. So the Micron Pigma Pens have quickly become my favourites.
You can get them in multiple sizes as well. If you want smaller lines and designs, they go down to 0.20mm in size (which is incredibly small) to much larger pens.
I use these pens in almost all of my spreads. I highly recommend them!
Gelly Roll Classic Gel Pens (In White)
And finally, the Gelly Roll Classic Gel Pens. I recently got these pens, so I do not have as much experience with them as the other items on this list. However, they are great so far.
These gel pens come in white. You might be wondering how you would use white pens. The white gel pens are used on black paper. Some bullet journals come with black paper or craft paper (both of which you can get with Archer & Olive). To be able to write on black paper, you need white pens.
I do not have a black paper journal. Instead, I bought some black paper and some glue tape to add darker areas to my journal. The dark paper adds a nice contrast to my journal, and it looks amazing with the white writing.
These gel pens are not only good for writing on black paper. I also use them to erase my mistakes. I have never been a huge fan of liquid white-out. It leaves chunks on the page, which in itself is hard to cover up. The whiteout tape can be too big depending on what you need to cover up. The Gelly Roll pens are perfect for covering little mistakes without it being too obvious that there was a mistake to begin with.
These white gel pens really are great.
Those were a few of my favourite products to use while bullet journaling. I use them all the time while crafting in my journal. They are 100% worth giving them a try! I highly recommend you check them out. Tell me your favourite bullet journaling tools in the comments!
