I’ve done a few posts with bullet journal layout ideas but if you’ve already found your perfect weekly spread and are just a bit bored with the same style, here are some date marker ideas to add some variety to your spreads.

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Bullet journal date marker ideas (minimalist and colourful)

Some minimalist date header ideas…

and some date header ideas with a bit of colour

For variety, use:

• Different pen thicknesses
• Shadowing
• Sticker layering
• Underlining
• Stencils
• Hand writing combined with a sticker
• Box stickers and simple shapes
• 1 colour, 2 colours, rainbow colors
• Layering – dot marker with pen over the top
• Different orders – day of the week on top, date and month on the bottom or visa versa or use 3 lines
• Different combinations of solid lines, dashed lines, dash and dot lines etc.

Supplies I used to create these ideas

• Notebook Therapy stencils (for flags, banners)
• Maggie Holmes dot grid paper
• Frixion Erasable pen in black
• Rainbow 3mm washi tape
• Happy planner 3mm thin washi tape (there are many collections, this is one of my favorite sets)
• Tombow Play Color Dot markers
• Poppin ruler (it’s heavy so doesn’t bump easily)
• Carpe Diem number sticker book
• Highlighters (I did a comparison and swatches for 38 brands in this post)
• Happy Planner essential dates and numbers sticker book
• Sunny Streak Practical Planner Stickers (there are a few days of the week and number sticker sheets in the set – plus many more functional stickers)
• PA stencils alphabet journaling 3 (6 x 6″ stencil that has days of the week and months of the year)
• Happy Planner Colorful Boxes sticker book #594 (many of the boxes are too small for me to write more than 1 or 2 words so they’re perfect for a date marker where you’re only writing a weekday or month). There are plenty of other colourful boxes Happy Planner sticker books
• Frixion erasable stamps

I did the layouts in my DIY discbound bullet journal which you can read about in this post.

Related post: Favorite planning supplies from Amazon

Other supplies I recommended for making date markers

• Days of the week stamps
• Transparent dot stickers (great for putting over the top of dates in planners where there’s no room to decorate but you still want to add some colour)
• Zebra mildliners – good range of colours and more importantly, dual tip. The smaller end is perfect for date headers where you’ll probably be using a smaller size than elsewhere in your planner
• Marker pens – so many available brands, look for 3mm pen tips
• My Favorite thin washi tape for planning
• 3mm wide highlighters for underlining words instead of highlighting
• Oh Hello Co days of the week stickers
• Highlighters – some of my favourites are the Staedtler Textsurfer pastel and Stabilo Boss. There are many more in this post
• Tombow brush pens (make a ‘swatch’ background then write the day and date over the top)
• Days of the week washi tape

Related post: Weekly spread with DIY stickers using the Poooliprint inkless pocket printer

Tips for doing date markers in your planner

• To save space (and time), I don’t always add the month to the date marker. It’s not really necessary if you keep all of the spreads behind a monthly tab, or write the month elsewhere on the spread
• I prefer to use Frixion erasable pens not only because I can erase mistakes and keep it neat, but also because they’re less inky than a lot of other pen brands
• I prefer to use uppercase letters for date headers as I don’t write everything else in my planner in uppercase – it stands out more when I use a contrast of uppercase and lowercase letters
• If I can’t fit the whole word I just abbreviate and use the first 3 letters e.g. ‘Jan’ instead of ‘January’
• My favorite shapes are rectangles, squares, circles and flag banners. I usually use stencils to create the flag banners as it’s much neater than drawing freehand
• Transparent dot stickers are great for putting over the top of dates in planners where there’s no room to decorate but you still want to add some colour
• Always use a ruler for underlining. Make sure you wipe the ruler on a tissue to remove the residue before using the highlighter or pen again
• If you don’t have any fine tip markers, just use the pointy part of a highlighter
• If you run out of days of the week stickers, you can make your own ‘stencil’ – see this post for my hack
• I prefer to write using coloured pen for headings as I almost always write everything else on my spreads in black
• Always make sure pen ink is dry before highlighting over the top, or highlight and then write over the top of the highlighter in pen

More posts with bullet journal inspiration

• Best stencils for bullet journal daily, weekly and monthly spreads
• Favorite brands with functional sticker books for planning and bullet journaling
• 10 best planner supplies investments I’ve made

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