I started my very first journal at age 6. The entries went a little something like this…

“I ate oatmeal for breakfast. My brother and I played in the backyard. Mom made cookies. I ate half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch.”

I think I have several little girl diaries filled with similar entries, riddled with misspelled words. Once in awhile there’s a nugget to treasure where I talk about how I was feeling or what was going on inside my head. But mostly I have a very detailed record of what I ate, who I played with, what I was doing in school and why my little brother was annoying at times.

The journaling habit has stuck with me. I have piles of them now. There are some dry spells where I hardly wrote a word and then I make up for it with summers like the one in 2003 when I spent three months in New York City and filled half a dozen notebooks. It was actually that trip where I first started decorating my own journal covers. When you write as much as I do, you can’t afford the expensive leather-bound journals. Instead I purchase these nifty composition notebooks that usually run anywhere from $1 to $2.50 a piece and then I find lots of pretty scraps to decorate the covers.

 

Supplies:

Composition Notebook (shouldn’t be more than a few $)

scrapbook paper

old magazine clippings

cut outs of favorite quotes

clear packing tape or clear adhesive paper

 

Once you have your collection of fun materials, simply snip, cut and arrange to your heart’s content. Once everything is laid out, I usually just use regular tape and fold it over on itself and stick the pictures down. They don’t need to be glued because you are going to cover everything with the packing tape or adhesive paper so that you’ve created a protective casing that will endure spills and such. You can also use double-sided tape or glue if that suits better.

Because I usually make these spur-of-the-moment, I almost never have sheets of adhesive paper available so most of my journals are covered with long strips of clear packing tape. The goal is to cover the entire thing with the tape, overlapping each strip so that the finished product has a protective plastic coating and you don’t have any flaps of paper sticking out that can get caught, torn or otherwise marred. If you are careful about applying the tape, you can hardly tell on the finished project that it’s not one continuous piece of coating. However, I will admit that it’s much easier and a little tidier looking to use the sheets of adhesive instead.

There you have it, start journaling. I like to theme my notebooks as I usually have several going at one time. I have my personal journal and also one that I have fondly dubbed my “angry” journal where I am working through some issues and need space to complete some assigned counseling projects. I also have a housekeeping journal that has lots of sticky notes, and paper clipped sheafs of stuff in it. This is where I keep my lists of household chores, groceries, menu-planning and all those other reminders that have to do with keeping my home in order.