Get The Look: January Monthly Setup

I'm back again with another Get the Look!

This is a tiny throw back to last month (even if it felt like a year!).  To kick off my monthly themes as Taylor Swift's albums, January had a Reputation theme!  I wanted to start the year with the Reputation album for a lot of small reasons, but mostly because it includes my favorite song, (and one of my last Eras tour surprise songs!), New Year's Day!  I love the sentimentality of the song, and one of my favorite lines-"Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you", seemed like a good fit to kick off embracing my word of the year-celebrate.  Mostly, it's just one of my favorite albums, so starting January off with it seemed fitting. 

So, how did I make this spread? As I said in February's post, this is a little bit of a new style for me.  I typically have a quick, easy way I set up my monthlies, but these are a wildcard.  I love how blending the different concepts of the album came together, so I'm excited to see how they evolve over the course of this year!

As I also said last post, when I post the items I use for the layouts, I'll be posting as direct of links to items that aren't from my shop as possible.  I also will not be mentioning any tools I used for the layout, such as washi to hold down the stencils, pens/markers used, or the brushes I use for applying ink.  I'll do another blog post soon talking about the tools I use for stenciling, so keep an eye out for that! 

For now, though, here is how you can get my January monthly setup look: 

Starting with my "cover" pages for the month, I pulled together some stencils that fit the theme of the album.  I started with the Friendship Bracelets Monthly Header Stencil Jan-Apr , though I could have used any of them because instead of the included letters, I chose to bring a little more rep into the mix by using the Old English Font Stencil for the JAN letters.  From there, I also like to include an at a glance calendar, which I got from our Journaling Basics Stencil. 

After that I used other stencils to add Reputation-style flair to the spread!  For an impactful background, I used the Fish Scales Stencil with various shades of green and black Distress Oxide Ink, then layered the Distressed Music Bars Stencil and the Popping Champagne Pattern Stencil to the sides of the pages. While the snake pattern stencil I used in this layout isn't currently available in the shop, I actually wanted to use this one, the S Snake Pattern Stencil and couldn't find it in my stencil storage!  I think the S Snake Pattern fits the reputation vibe even better than the one I used!  Finally for the stencils, I used the New Years Eve Layout stencil to add the glass/bottle & fireworks.    I finished off the spread with a variety of stickers I had in my stash! (I'll link those at the end!)

For my calendar layout, I started with our Squared Brush Boxes Calendar Builder A5 Stencil. To get this look, I typically chose 3-5 colors of Distress Oxide ink and randomly apply them to the boxes. With the last color, I try to make sure the entire box's area has been covered and blend them a bit.  This gives me a lighter, water color-type look that I really love for my calendars.  I do this technique practically every month and it hasn't gotten old yet.  After that, I used our Old English Font Stencil to write the month at the top of the calendar. Once the base of the calendar is set, then I get to be a little more creative.  All over the background of the calendar, I used the Fish Scales Stencil with very little ink to set a background that I can build off of.  To do this, I will typically take some of the leftover ink from earlier (In this case, the ink that was left on the stencil from doing the cover pages!) and a bit of ink from my brushes.  It creates a very subtle pattern that works perfectly here! (And it reuses ink I'd have just cleaned off too!) From there, I used the Lips Pattern Stencil with various pressures to create the lips at the top left of the calendar.  On the right side of the calendar, I used  the Cracks Stencil to mimic the cracks on the Eras tour stage when Taylor sang Delicate!  

Once I'd finished this, I completed the look with stickers and dated my calendar! (Again, I'll link the stickers later!)

On one of the inside pages of my monthly setup, I made a mood tracker!  For this one, I used our Champagne Bottles Pattern Stencil and traced the pattern on the whole page.  I dated 31 bottles 1-31 then used ink to color in the others as "background".  The dated bottles will be used each day to record my mood.  (I have a separate sheet I move month to month with my color key!).   I then used the Old English Font Stencil to write "JAN" and lettered the rest of the text on the top with pens and markers.

The final page of my January setup is a "One Good Thing a Day" page.  I use this page to list one good thing that happened or made me smile each day.  Sometimes this is tough to find something, but I find that it's a good practice in gratitude.  When I'm having a really really really bad day? Sometimes just getting off of work or getting into bed (or taking a nap!) is my good thing.   Sometimes it's that I ordered carry out so I didn't have to use the mental energy to cook.  It's not always going to the Eras tour!  As my word of the year this year is 'celebrate' I'm using it as a way to celebrate something on each day--even when it's so seemingly insignificant.  To make this page, I started with the Distressed Music Bars Stencil and inked a very light pattern of this on the side. After that, I just numbered 1-31 on their own lines and lettered the top!

I will admit, this layout intimidated me. It was the start of my albums monthly layouts and one of my favorite albums.  Sometimes it's really good that I do these on lives--I feel like I have to keep my panic together a bit.  I started out really not liking this spread.  However, as I added more and played with colors and placements, it definitely came together way better than I even hoped for. Part of the thing that brought it together was definitely the amazing Reputation themed stickers from Sugar Pop Fizz. I have several sheets from this collection, so pulling out where each sticker came from would be a hassle.  If you're planning on doing a project like this, though, I would DEFINITELY check out Sugar Pop Fizz!  I'll be using their stickers a lot this year! 

To hold my "dutch door" pages on my planner, I love the TipIn Tape from Lauren Phelps Designs. You can absolutely get this look by using a small line of glue (like a glue runner) on the edges of the pages & sticking them to the pages in the notebook, then folding them over.  That being said, the TipIn Tape gives me way more room and versatility of writing on the backs of each pages, so I'll be using this for a long time!   My current notebook is an A5 dotgrid from Archer & Olive (I also use their notepad pages for the dutch door pages, but they're currently unavailable). 

Finally, I used several shades of Greens and Black Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Ink.  This is my preferred ink for planning as it's blendable and won't bleed through your planner, no matter how thin your pages are. You can find this at most craft stores & online shops, but in case you need an amazing independent store that supports Planner (& Scrapbook!) meetups & communities, my local favorite is Scrappy Chic. 



As I've just finished all of our PBC orders, this weekend I'll be working on updating our socials and YouTube channel to include the lives from both of our first two "Get the Look" months on Youtube.  Once they're up, I'll update both posts to include the links to the videos of me making these spreads!  As always, however, you're more than welcome to let me know if you have any questions about this!  I'm really excited to work on my March spread soon!

Happy Stenciling!
<3 Courtney