Mia
Writing in a journal can be beneficial to your mental health and happiness. The world of journaling offers endless options for those who wish to keep their thoughts and feelings, as well as secrets, safe from prying eyes.
By creating your journal, you can make sure that it matches your style and personality perfectly, all while ensuring that it protects the valuable content you’ll be storing within its pages. It’s been scientifically proven that journaling improves self-confidence, reduces stress, and increases your overall happiness. It can even aid you in getting a better night’s sleep. A journal is a place for your thoughts and feelings, a place for answers, insights, questions, and reminders. A journal can be as simple or fancy as you like; have fun with it by adding embellishments, materials, and more.
Here are creative ways to make your journal, from getting a photo album cover to making stencils on fabric. There are plenty of unique ideas here to choose from, no matter what kind of journal you’re looking for.
Photo Album Cover
If you’re a scrapbooker, you probably have at least one drawer of different-sized photo albums, mostly unused. Why not turn them into journals? The pages are already there, and with a bit of work and glue, you can create something that’s both beautiful and functional.
Paper Flowers
Indoor plants have a lot of decorative value, but when you don’t have access to outside gardens, it can be tough to find plants that can adapt. Paper flowers are a great substitute, and their arrangements look great in every space. They’re also easy on your budget. If you wish to not make paper flowers, you can buy dried flowers from stationery shops since it’s used for scrapbooking.
Stencils on Fabric
Cut out designs or words from sheets of stencils and then stick them onto fabric, such as T-shirts or pillowcases. Use different stencils for each design and combine several designs on one piece of clothing. Stencils are also used in any craft project where a pattern needs to be repeated many times. You can use stenciled pieces as covers of your journal. The possibilities are endless with fabrics and stencils.
Embossed Pages
Embossing is a crafty way to make your custom design book. You can have embossed pages in your journal by using embossing folders which you can buy at local art or scrapbook supply stores. Cut some sheets of paper that will fit inside an embossing folder and place them on top of regular paper between two clear sheets of plastic material.
Recycled Cardboard Sheets
Cardboard makes for a unique blank slate. Find yourself some cardboard (old boxes, cereal boxes, magazine covers—any cardboard will do), cut it into strips, and glue each strip together to form one solid piece of cardboard. After you have that, use markers or crayons or paint pens to color your masterpiece, and voila! You have a one-of-kind journal. It’s even more special if you find used/discarded boxes on your walks around town.
Fabric Covers
You can pick up a variety of fabrics at your local craft store. If you have something specific in mind, such as a floral print or canvas texture, bring in some sample swatches to help guide your choice. If you’re using fabric that isn’t pre-made for journal covers, use double-sided tape along the spine and outer edges of your book so that it stays together when opened.
Reused Gift Wrap
If you’re making a journal for someone else, why not reuse some old gift wrap? You can get creative with wrapping paper by using patterns entirely different from your gift and then using it as a front cover or back cover. Just make sure you have enough left over to use it as a spine. If there isn’t enough gift wrap left, perhaps look at using other options such as fabric scraps or newspaper clippings. Try searching thrift stores and garage sales for interesting book covers in unusual materials.
Decorative Tapes
One of the easiest ways to make your journal is with decorative tapes. You can go for patterned or plain colored tapes or a mix of both. Or you can even use wrapping paper and see how well that works out. It’s nice because you have a lot of control over what it looks like in terms of design.
Making your journal might not seem like an easy task. It’s probably one of those things you wish you could buy but can’t because you have no idea where to even begin. But it turns out creating a personal journal doesn’t require fancy tools and years of experience—you can do it with ease and make something truly unique.
