New in the Redhead Paper Shop

I have recently added several new items, including one I designed initially as a custom order for a returning customer. Check them out!

Hello 2024

First up is my annual “Hello New Year” sticker page. I’m going for growth energy with my green stained glass “Hello 2024” set!

2024 Moon Phases

Next up is a full-page single sticker updating one I had last year. Oddly enough, the 2023 moon phase sticker didn’t sell too well, but the 2024 Moon Phase sticker has already outsold last year’s!

2024 Full-Page Month Calendars

This last one was a request from one of my long-time customers, and I’m always happy to design things for them. They wanted a 12-sticker set of each month on a full page. I decided they would be a great addition for the store.

These are sized to take up most of a page in an A5 notebook. Honestly, my handwriting is probably too big for me to use this, but I know there are lots of people out there with smaller handwriting than me!

New Shop Items for 2023

I’ve added a few new items to my Etsy shop just in time for 2023!

Hello 2023 New Year Set

Image of a keyhole in a door with light shining through. Over it is a banner saying "Hello 2023". Added to the main image is a key, a dip pen and bottle of ink, and a bank of lit candles.

I’ve recently started celebrating my personal new year in October, my birth month. But it also feels weird not to acknowledge the traditional new year in my planner. So here’s my set for 2023! I decided to go with a theme of “opening the door on a new year” and combine that with light to symbolize hope for the coming months.

The main sticker is roughly 3.8″ wide by 5.3″ tall and features a keyhole shining with light, a key, lit candles, and Hello 2023. Candles, keys, a magic potion, and a hand holding a 2023 planner add accent stickers.

Order here.

Celestial Themed Set

I designed this set to use with washi tape I got in an OwlCrate* box a few months ago, and I really love this set.

This is a 5×7 sheet of 24 stickers themed around celestial energy and magic. Decorate your collection page with pretty crystals, feathers, and candles. Two larger stickers illustrate moon phases.

* Not an affiliate link, I just like them.

Order here.

Moon Phases 2023

And speaking of moon phases… I always mark the first quarter, full, last quarter, and new moon on my monthly log, but I found a nice graphic depicting the phase of the moon on each day of 2023. (For the northern hemisphere, at least!)

This is a 5×7 sheet of 16 stickers themed around the 2023 lunar calendar. The main sticker is 6.5″ tall by 3.6″ wide. Additional stickers portray individual phases of the moon and include several stars as well!

Order here.

New colorways for Month Tabs

And finally, because I like having new Bullet Journal colors every year, I also like having matching month tabs! I made a brown & green set for my mom, whose current BuJo is dark green. I also made a set of purple tabs some time ago for a custom order, and meant to get that listed as an option for people as well.

Order here.

 

A harvest sticker set from Redhead Paper on Etsy to celebrate autumn

Autumn Goodies in the Shop!

I’ve probably mentioned before now that autumn is my favorite season, yes? Well, I’ve been working on new products, and one of my favorites is is my three-sheet Autumn Harvest set!⁠

A harvest sticker set from Redhead Paper on Etsy to celebrate autumn

Harvest vegetables, leaves, fall picnics, candles, apples, fall foliage, and autumn scenery all make an appearance in the Autumn Harvest set. Use these Bullet Journal stickers to celebrate a season of coziness this autumn. Add that fall mood to your planner pages and Bullet Journal. Celebrate Samhain and honor the equinox. Embrace a sense of gratitude for the harvest season. Some of these stickers are large autumn scenes and some are smaller embellishments.

My Autumn Mood set is another I created recently, trying to emphasize the warm and cozy aspects of autumn. You can also get an entire bundle of all of my Autumn stickers, and buying the bundle saves a little money instead of buying each listing individually.

Autumn mood stickers from RHP - boots and bats, lanterns and pumpkins

These Bullet Journal stickers are perfect for busy Bullet Journalists who LOVE the flexibility of the BuJo system but don’t have time to draw fancy spreads and want more time for drinking cocoa, reading comfort books, and sitting beside the fire.

Check out some of my seasonal bundles and best-sellers for more stickers at even more value!

A photo of Lent stickers designed for the Redhead Paper Etsy store

Observing Lent With Bullet Journal

Lent is coming up soon–Valentine’s Day is also Ash Wednesday this year, so it’s just a week away! I love the observance of liturgical seasons, including Advent and Lent, and I want to make it more intentional this year.

I spent some time over the weekend thinking about how I want to observe Lent this year. I haven’t made any decisions yet, but thinking about it gave me some ideas for stickers to create.

Last year I gave up alcohol, which was a big deal because I was drinking a lot (more than I should have) last year. In the time since I have pretty much stopped buying alcohol for home. When I visit Indiana wineries with my mom, I tend to buy a couple of bottles, and I’ll probably still do that. I might have a beer with my burger when I eat out, and this Friday I’m taking a friend out for margaritas to celebrate her leaving a toxic work situation.

Aside from that, I’m just not drinking much, so giving up alcohol wouldn’t be that much of a sacrifice. And Lent is supposed to be about giving up something that you’ll actually miss. I can’t give up caffeine because I want my coworkers to stay alive. So maybe chocolate. We’ll see. I’m still thinking. Maybe I’ll give up spending money for 40 days!A photo of Lent stickers designed for the Redhead Paper Etsy store

Anyway.

I designed some stickers for the collections I want to create: “What am I giving up and why?” and “Lenten Scriptures and Readings” I made some stickers for the specific holy days of the season: Shrove Tuesday, Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday. I also have a few decorative stickers with symbols from Lent, like palm branches, lilies, and crosses.

I’ve thought about making a Lent tracker, but I haven’t been able to come up with a design I like. Maybe I still will, but for now, I’m going to list the stickers without a tracker–and if someone buys the Lent stickers and I’ve made a tracker I like in the meantime, I’ll send them the tracker too!

Do you have Lent traditions you enjoy? Share them in the comments!

Redhead Paper’s Story

Today, I want to share Redhead Paper’s story with you all.

I’ve talked before about why I bullet journal. The system works for me–it’s flexible, it allows me to use the parts I like from other planning systems (like GTD), and it makes me mindful of what I need to be doing and when. I’ve been using the bullet journal system for almost three years, since March 2014. I’ve never used a single planning system that long!

Of course, once I started keeping a Bullet Journal, I realized one of the strengths, for me, was the way I can use it as a sort of scrapbook as well as a planner. I love scrapbooks, but I have a huge backlog of things to put in scrapbooks. With my Bullet Journal, I just use a little adhesive or washi tape to stick things like photos and ticket stubs right into my planner.

And stickers. Oh, my gosh, stickers!

Stickers with mailboxes and letters designed for InCoWriMo. Stickers are a huge part of Redhead Paper's story.

My #InCoWriMo / letter-writing stickers with some of the notecards I’m going to use this year.

I needed Stickers

At first, I bought planner stickers from other people. I loved the stickers I got from Mila Print Shop (sadly not open at the moment) and Boho Berry Paperie. After a while that got expensive. Anyway, I wanted stickers that other people just didn’t make.

I started investigating. There had to be an easy way for these Etsy sellers to make the stickers I loved so much. I did some Google searching and discovered the Cricut. Question answered!

I needed so many stickers, and other people probably needed those same stickers. I talked to my mom, whom I’d introduced to Bullet Journaling early on. Then I talked to some of my friends who were getting into Bullet Journaling. They all had stickers they wanted.

Redhead Paper’s Etsy Story

I ran some numbers and decided it was a chance worth taking. I talked to my dad, who agreed to invest in the business by actually buying me a Cricut, and I started experimenting.

Three months after I got my Cricut and started feeling comfortable with it, Redhead Paper came to life.

What I have in my Etsy Shop

I have about fifty listings in Redhead Paper right now. One of the first things I made was a set of daily date stickers. I know, it’s kind of basic, but having a sticker that tells me it’s Wednesday, January 24, 2018, makes my life a little bit easier on a daily basis.

Turns out, lots of people need daily date stickers for their bullet journals! These stickers are consistently high-selling items, so I know there’s a need!

I also started experimenting with habit tracking. All the habit trackers I’d seen on Etsy in the past were oriented horizontally, which meant I had to turn my bullet journal sideways to read them. I designed my habit tracker to be vertically oriented. I’ve had a lot of great feedback from people about that.

Habit Tracker created by Redhead Paper on Etsy

Part of the Habit Tracker I designed – you still have to turn it sideways to fill it in, but for tracking purposes on a daily basis, you don’t!

I had designed mini month calendars and month tabs for my mom even before I had the Cricut (and cut them out for her by hand). So it wasn’t much of a stretch for me to create stick-on month tabs. My friend Amanda wanted mini calendars, too, so I added those.

In addition to working at a museum and creating stickers, I’m also a fantasy author, and I wanted to have stickers that reflect my love for writing, help me track my writing progress, and more. So I designed those.

My dad also suggested I should get political–and to be honest, I’m pretty sure my #ShePersisted and “Not My President” stickers were what started getting my shop noticed. Those have been pretty popular, even to this day. (And now that it’s 2018, I’m going to have to make some stickers about the importance of 2018 midterms!)

I have stickers to help you decorate for holidays, plan for Christmas, and set goals. I’ve just recently started making hobby-themed sticker sheets. I have gardening, writing, letter-writing, art, and knitting already, and I’ll be adding more as the year goes on. (If you have a suggestion, let me know!)

And that leads me to my big question…

What should I ADD to my Etsy Shop?

I would love to know what kinds of stickers you need!

I have some things in the works–things like vacation planner sets, water tracking, and birthday planning–but I love taking Etsy commissions, and some of those have given me ideas for new listings.

If you need a certain kind of sticker, comment here and let me know!

A set of acrylic drawers with Tombow Dual Brush Pens and Papermate Flair Bullet Journal supplies

My Favorite Bullet Journal Resources

One of my favorite things about the Bullet Journal system is how adaptable it is. You don’t really need any special equipment–any notebook and pen will do. I belong to a few BuJo communities on Facebook, and it’s surprising how often people ask, “Can I–?” on those groups. Yes, you can! You can do anything you want with your Bullet Journal!

That said, I do have some things I love using for my Bullet Journal. In this post, I’m going to share some of my favorite BuJo supplies and resources.

Disclaimer: Some of these links are affiliate links. In plain language, that means I get a tiny amount of money from those items any time you buy–at no extra cost to you.

Notebooks

My favorite notebooks to use for Bullet Journaling are Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks. They have fountain-pen-friendly paper, the pages are pre-numbered, and there’s an index in the front. Leuchtturm 1917 is the notebook BuJo-creator Ryder Carroll chose to make the official Bullet Journal notebooks. At first available only in black, the official notebooks are now available in emerald green.

If you can’t afford a Leuchtturm 1917, though, there are plenty of other good options. I’ve used Moleskine VolantsMoleskine Cahiers, Picadilly notebooks, and even a cute spiral-bound notebook.

Bottom line, if you have a favorite notebook, use that for your Bullet Journal, because Bullet Journal is all about what works for you.

Pens

My favorite every-day-carry pen is a Pilot Hi Tec C Coleto Lumio Multipen. I use .5 refills in orange, turquoise, brown, and apple green because I color-code my tasks and events for context. Orange is one job, turquoise is another job, brown is writing, and apple green is home & personal.

A set of acrylic drawers with Tombow Dual Brush Pens and Papermate Flair Bullet Journal suppliesI also have a Pentel EnerGel black ink pen that I carry every day. The multi-pen and the black ink pen are the basic essentials of my daily Bullet Journal use. I also have a 10-color set of Staedtler Triplus Fineliners I use daily. They live on my desk, in a new five-drawer acrylic set I just got at the Container Store. I like seeing all the colorful pens!

I’ve recently branched out a little more. I bought a set of Papermate Flairs, because so many people seem to love them for Bullet Journaling. I’ve been using them a little, but I can’t pretend they’re my favorites. Still, they’re a good alternative.

My recent treat to myself (thank you, tax refund time) is a couple of sets of Tombow Dual Brush Pens. I got the Secondary set and the Landscape” set, because I decided my Staedtler and Flair sets already had the primary colors covered.

Now I just need to learn how to do brush lettering! I’ve been watching videos on YouTube. Does anyone have a favorite tutorial?

Stickers & Washi Tape

Here’s a caveat: I make stickers and sell them at my Redhead Paper Etsy shop, so of course I love my own stickers!

But there are plenty of other sticker-makers out there I love, including Boho Berry Paperie and Mila Printshop. I also love finding stickers at Michael’s.

I love washi tape, but lately I haven’t been using it as often in my layouts. I couldn’t resist the roll I found at Michael’s on Monday, though: it has sayings on it like, “Dream,” “The time is now,” and “This is your life–seize it and make it amazing.”

 


So those are my favorites. What are yours?