Good morning, today I am sharing my top 10 must haves for bullet journaling. While these are my favourites, there are tons of options out there and that’s the beauty of bullet journaling, you have the freedom to do whatever makes you happy!
1. Dotted Journal
So my favourite and a classic is the Leuchtturm1917 Dotted A5 hardcover journal, their off white pages are fairly thick with little ghosting (depends on the pens/markers you use). Any journal you have works, whether it’s lined, grid, or blank. Another great option, with pure white heavy weight pages with no ghosting are the Archer and Olive journals (though they are quite pricey and I’ve heard shipping to Canada and duty is expensive). For a while I was using a cheap dotted notebook I found at Micheals for about 9$.
2. Sakura Pigma Micron Fineliners
These are my go to series of pens/fine liners. I use 02 and PN (plastic nib) for most of my writing in my bullet journal, 005 is great for fine details, 02, 05, 08 are all good for titles, lines and boxes. Another great cheaper option is the MUJI gel pens , while I haven’t used these yet I hear great things about them.
3. Steadler WOPEX pencils + Eraser
Okay I know having a favourite pencil is a little extra but these write beautifully and work well for sketching out spreads plus they rarely break (even after dropping them countless times .. oops) and not to mention very budget friendly especially for the quality. The eraser that comes with is super smooth and doesn’t leave any lines. Bonus they are eco-friendly too!
4. Bic Velocity .07 Mechanical pencils
These have been my go to pencil for anything I have to write since I was in grade 2 (not even an exaggeration lol). Unless I am drawing I will always choose a mechanical pencil, I find it so much more convenient, precise and uniform.
5. Brush Markers
We can’t talk about bullet journaling and not mention the most coveted tool, the Tombow Dual Brush pen. If you have never used a brush pen you are missing out. Great for laying down some colour throughout your spread and doing some hand lettering/calligraphy. A smaller tip brush pen that I also use a lot of the Tombow Fudenosuke hard tip and Fudenosuke Color in grey (works great for creating a shadow behind lettering) great for titles and anything you want smaller than the classic dual brush. A couple other options are the Zebra mildliners brush pen (great colour selection) and the Sakura Pigma Micron Brush pens.
6. Sakura Gelly Roll – White
This is great for writing on dark media (and craft paper), doesn’t cause any ghosting and also works great to fix small errors. It works best when you use a light hand, and since it is a gel pen it takes longer for it to dry so be carful.
7. Circle template
If you don’t have one, then you need one. It saves so much time and makes your spreads more crisp and put together. Tbh you don’t need to buy one, just cut circles out of a piece of plastic or cardboard (like from a cereal box).
8. Back Post it & Washi tape
I saw Caitlin Da Silva use these a while back and just recently got my hands on them and I love it! The Sakura Gelly Roll pens work well on both.
9. Ruler
A ruler. Not much else to say but a clear one is a good choice if you don’t currently own one.
10. Glue tape
Revolutionary! Okay that was a bit dramatic but it is super helpful if you like to use craft paper or sticking stuff in your bullet journal. Tombow has one but honestly you can find them at your local dollar store or Walmart. If you are very into gluing/taping things then I suggest the Scotch tape runner, it is quite large and initially pricey but will save you money in the end because the refills are much cheaper.
Thank you for reading. Have any suggestions? Leave a comment below.
~Tori Scherle~
I love the Sakura Pigma Micron pens and the Tombow pens. I ordered an Archer and Olive Bullet Journal but as I live in the UK it took 5 weeks and I was charged customs tax which made the whole process ridiculously expensive. The notebook is gorgeous, but probably not worth that amount of money haha! Loved the post!
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