Hi friend, Elizabeth here from @thejoyfulsojourn on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok! Today we’re jumping into the gorgeous marigold-covered notebook with lavender pages from the Summer 2025 seasonal subscription box! I’m sharing 12 unique layouts plus a bonus idea, to get you inspired (and maybe a little less intimidated) to break into your colored paper journal!

Supplies - use discount code "JOYFUL10" to save 10%  at Archer and Olive!

• Any sized journal – today I’m using the A5 journal in the quarterly seasonal sub box from summer 2025
• Decorative elements like Pens, stickers, Stamps and kit club remnants you have in your collection.
• Tools – the stencil is a stand out for today’s project!
  
  

Weekly Planning Examples

In this first example, I used dashboard black box stickers to create a randomized spread on the page. This is for those who want to write on white and have an excess of paper stickers in their stash. I used the antique floral Archer and Olive Kit Club for the decorative elements like flowers, as well days of the week and dates. I also grabbed my vintage camera stickers from a previous Archer and Olive release and layered those on top as well. I used the alpha stamps from the summer 2025 sub box to spell out the month.

I want to point out that in both of these weekly examples, there really isn't a lavender color in the stickers. Yet when you put everything down, it looks really cohesive. I love the way these two layouts turned out, and I hope that they encourage you to try a planner spread on lavender pages.

Changing things up, I wanted to see how citrus colors would look on the lavender paper. Here I doodled out a weekly dashboard spread with week days on the left page and functional lists on the right page. This is definitely a more playful and ‘risky’ color combo but after more clean and moody weeklies, I kind of like the whimsy here!

Monthly Neutral “Black and White” Calendar

Next I wanted to try a monthly layout, specifically with washi material stickers. If you’re like me, you may be collecting stickers in this material known for laying down seamlessly on white papers (and without adding bulk to a spine). While you’re not going to get the melting-into-the-paper look, you do get a lovely frosted appearance! Here I used a stencil for my monthly layout, then added ‘ploops’ of washi stickers around the page, cutting them out of the daily squares so they look like they’re behind the boxes. I’m not sure what it is exactly, but the more I look at the layout, the more I can convince myself it’s just black and white!

But What About Our Favorite Seasons?!

Ah seasonal things, especially in the “-ber” months, am I right? We love it! And you might be looking at lavender pages and thinking there's no way that this notebook is going to get me into October, November, and December. Welp, CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! Let’s see what we have here…

I typically like to have an hourly time block in my daily planning pages, so here I've created a schedule with room for to-dos and notes. The stickers I used were from the Attic Treasures Collection from Fall of 2024. Zero purple or lavender in these stickers, but somehow they work with the lavender! It’s academic, it's giving me Harry Potter vibes, and crazy to remember it’s on lavender paper. The more you use the notebook, the more you decorate and write, the more distracted you are by the USE of the page, than the color of the page.

You can’t get much more simple than this daily journaling page. I took a piece of paper from an Archer & Olive memo paper pad and adhered it to the page with pumpkin and autumnal themed washi stickers. I wanted to see how kraft paper would look on the lavender paper as well, so chose a kraft-colored month sticker. Looks like fall to me!

Moving from the autumnal colorway to Christmas and the holiday season, here are two spreads I created using more Christmassy colors like red and green, and exclusively pen.

On this first side, I created a Christmas wish list with a doodled tree, packages, and ornaments.

I know a lot of people do more journaling and memory keeping in December, so I created a mock up “December Daily” spread ready for pictures or journaling. I created my own boxes with pen, dashing them out because I’m in my stitching era, and doodled mistletoe and lights at the top. Don’t judge my mistletoe that looks like cherries – we work with the colors and the skills we have!

Let me say the obvious here - both of these are Christmas-themed spreads and they are on lavender paper. So I am not adhering to rules about what colors can and cannot be used on lavender paper! Both pages achieve Christmas for me!

Creative Listing and Collections Pages

If it's unlikely that you would want to use lavender pages for planning or daily journaling, I want to share with you some specialty collection pages we often see on white paper – transformed on lavender.

First, I created a one-a-day gratitude log. If you wanted to turn this into a gratitude notebook, I think it's an excellent idea because there's no seasons associated with it. You could do this on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis! In this example, I kept it really simple – two pen colors, and one line a day for 30 days of gratitude.

This travel page was left open ended for your ideas to roam! This notebook could be used exclusively for travel, or you could create specialty pages for packing lists, travel location wish lists, or travel memory keeping. I used the Tuscan-themed Archer & Olive kit club here. I love that the papers in the kit club are a B6 size because they nestle perfectly inside the A5 and can be framed out by the washi sample in the kit. The die cuts were a fun addition to the page to keep it cohesive in theme.

Everyone loves a collections notebook – it’s one of the most frequent things I search for online when looking for notebook inspo. They’re a great way to track and memorialize the things that we’re doing every day. A movie watchlist is a common collection layout, so I wanted to try it out on lavender. This was really simple to make, I just framed out the two-page spread with pen, and used fancy alpha letters for my header.

And just for funsies, I doodled a little film reel in the lower corner. Acrylic paint pens like acrylographs work great on colored paper!

Another typical collections page you might see is a to-be-read list, and here I used a ruler to create a three-dimensional looking book where each page can have a book title and rating on it. You could make a layout like this for every month, or you could have this be an annual tracker if you're someone that doesn't read quite as much.

We don’t see collections pages on colored paper very often, so I hope these examples encourage you to give it a try!

I've showed you 12 different examples of how the lavender pages can be used to create planner pages, journaling pages, collection pages, and seasonal pages. After all is said and done, if colored paper isn’t your jam but you want to use your stash, use your notebook as a swatchbook!

Here I swatched the winter collection stamp set (disregard my imperfect impression due to swatch method)! You can swatch stamps, washi, and pens – whatever you own! I’ve found that keeping a swatch book gets my creative juices flowing and allows me to more easily ‘shop my stash’.

Because I’m a firm believer that any notebook can be used for any purpose, I've provided a list of 30 suggestions to get you thinking about how you may want to use your colored paper journal. 

Share how you’re using your colored paper notebooks on social media by tagging myself and Archer & Olive with your project using: @archerandolive @thejoyfulsojourn @archerandolive.community #AOShare #archerandolive

If you’d like to see greater explanation for each spread and view the pages ‘in real time’, head on over to the Archer & Olive Channel now!