I have long awaited the day I could start my gorgeous Scribbles That Matter notebook. Last month, I finally finished my old bullet journal and could begin filling in these lovely dotted pages.

I thought I’d share what I’ve done so far and compare this journal with my previous, Essentials notebook. This post is not sponsored, I just love my bullet journals!

For my weekly September pages, I took inspiration from Hack Your Journal. Yup, I messed up the numbers (Monday was NOT the 1st…). I didn’t transfer over a lot from my previous journal, except for my bookshelf of books I’ve read so far in 2019. A woefully small list–hopefully I can find time to read more in the coming months!

Scribbles That Matter (Pro version)

Price: £16.99 on Amazon

Pros:

• Dotted pages with numbers! These feel really smooth and nice quality as well.
• Pen holder. I like that I don’t have to bring my pencil case along whenever I grab this journal.
• Pen test page. I love that there’s a whole page devoted to trying out pens and getting ruined in the process. There are other pages like a key and an index too.
• Two bookmarks!

Cons:

• Says the brand on the cover. It’s not a big deal, and it’s less branded than their iconic version, but it’s still not really my style.
• The pages are thick, but not the thickest. I don’t plan to watercolour or marker these, but if I did it would probably bleed through.

Essentials (Blank A5)

Price: £10.99 on Amazon

Pros:

• Cheap for the quality. I bought a two pack, for around £15, but it looks like they’ve stopped this deal.
• More customisable. I bought one with blank pages, and there weren’t any ‘pre-done’ index pages like Scribbles That Matter.
• Discretely coloured. The sleek black cover is very nice.

Cons:

• I did have bleed-through problems when I went over my pen marks a few times.
• The spine ended up trying to come apart and I had to tape it back together. I did take it with me everywhere for almost three years, though.
• I liked the black cover, but if you have black leather sofas, like my parents, it will disappear!

My Essentials journal is filled from cover to cover with the last three years of my life and has helped me remain organised and on-top of coursework throughout. It’s a little sad that it will now retire to live on my shelf. That said, I’ve already fallen in love with the quirky colours and dotted pages of my new BuJo and hopefully it will be just as helpful  in the coming years. Or at least, it will help me remember to blog regularly!