I love decorating my Bullet Journal with washi tape, especially as a backdrop for my page titles, but I’ve had multiple occurrences of smudging after writing on washi, which has left a should-be pretty page, a mess.

I also used craft-store banner stickers on my future planning and experienced the same challenge. Luckily, I started spending a little time testing out pen/washi or pen/sticker combos before tackling this spread.

Now, before anything touches the book, I’ll put a small piece on a post-it or scrap paper, and test my pen or marker with it. I let it dry for about 30 seconds to a minute, and then give it a swipe. This may seem like a pretty simple or obvious practice, but it’s saved me (and my BuJo) on multiple occasions. And I have yet to find a tape or sticker that an ultra-fine tip sharpie will smudge on (the marker and not the pen).

Pen’s tested (in order of left to right):

Please note: I love each of these pens/markers for different reasons so these smudges are not a reflection at all on the quality of the tool.

Have you found any good tips/tricks to prevent smudging?