A quick Google search shows that journaling has many benefits. For some folks, the amount of writing involved in a traditional journaling session is a daunting prospect. Creative journaling may be a good outlet for those who prefer less writing. It’s also good for short bursts of memory keeping. Sometimes creative journaling is referred to elsewhere as “fauxbonichi,” a reference to the memory keeping style made popular by some Hobonichi users. I prefer to use the term “creative journaling.”
While you can certainly purchase and use a Hobonichi for your creative journaling, you can also take a much more inexpensive route. Whatever size and type of notebook you prefer works. If you are on a budget like me, you may want to try your hand at turning a basic composition notebook into a creative journal. These notebooks currently run $1.25 at DollarTree and just under a dollar at Walmart. If you keep an eye on back-to-school sales, sometimes you can stock up on them for much less.
Since fall of 2022, I have completed four of these types of journals. I am currently working my way through a fifth one. I have taken inspiration from YouTubers Rebecca Hoot and Rainbowholic. Rebecca makes creative journals out of composition books, and Rainboholic does kawaii and creative journaling in her Hobonichis. I’ve also gathered inspiration from junk journalers.
PREPARATION
Some preparation is necessary before you begin to use your composition notebook as a creative journal. Please keep in mind that, ultimately, your journal is yours. Options that work for me may not work for you. Things that I love to do with my journals may drive you up a wall. I’m giving you some basic ideas. Run with them as your own creativity dictates.
BINDINGS MATTER
You can use a glue-bound composition book, though you will not want to remove any pages from it. Removing pages could weaken its structure and potentially cause it to fall apart completely. A stitched or sewn binding seems to work better for me. If you open the notebook and can see stitches between the pages, you have a stitched binding. The composition notebooks sold by DollarTree and Walmart are both stitched, though I prefer the ones from DollarTree because they tend to lay more flat.
REMOVING PAGES
To prepare your sewn-bound notebook, start at the front, count six pages, and remove the seventh by carefully tearing it out. You can set the page aside once it has been removed. These can be saved to cover mistakes in your journal or for some other purpose.
Mark your place and flip to the back of the notebook. Again count six pages and remove the seventh. You should be removing the second half of the page you tore out of the front; therefore, it should come out of the book with much less effort. Set the page aside, mark your place in the back, and return to the front place you marked earlier.
Repeat this process, moving from the front of the book to the back, and moving toward the notebook’s center. When you are close to the center, stop removing pages.
The purpose in removing these pages is to make room for the things you will be adding as you journal. In the process of memory keeping, you may glue down, tip-in, or tuck in bits of ephemera – ticket stubs, receipts, the sleeve off your Starbuck’s cup, a program or brochure, photographs or other items – and it will add bulk to your journal. As you can see in the picture above, what starts as a slim notebook can puff up significantly. Removing some pages can help take some of the stress off the notebook’s spine and give it room to expand without weakening its structure.
You can adjust the number of pages you remove. This may vary depending on how much “stuff” you find yourself adding in. It may also depend on how many pages you need in order to cover a specific time period. My journals usually cover about a month-and-a-half. Your mileage may vary, especially if you don’t journal every day, or if you use more than one page per day. You may have to experiment to find your sweet spot. If you need more pages, try removing every eighth or ninth page. If you need less pages, you may want to remove every fourth or third page. Just be sure to remove the same page from the front and the back as you work toward the center so that your notebook stays even.
GLUE YOUR PAGES
Next, you will glue your pages together. This will make for a thicker page and will help maintain the integrity of the book’s structure. Wet or liquid glues are not recommended for this step, as they can cause wrinkling or buckling of pages. A glue stick, which is fairly dry, is recommended for this procedure. I use Elmer’s Craft Bond Extra Strength glue sticks, but you can use whatever glue stick you prefer.
Start at the front of your notebook. Turn page one over so that it is laying on top of the inside of the cover. Use your glue stick to apply glue to the face of the second page (see picture at left). I usually run the glue stick across the top and bottom edges of the page and then the outer edge. Finally, I make diagonal lines from one corner to the other until the page is nearly covered. The process seems to go smoother if you drag the glue stick in one direction rather than attempting a back-and-forth movement, which can pull your page. Depending on how aggressive you are with your glue stick application, you could tear the page.
Once the top of the second page is covered with glue stick, carefully turn page one back over on top it. Use your hands on top of page one to press firmly and smooth the two pages together to help them adhere to one another. Continue this process throughout your notebook, adhering page three to page four, page five to page six, and so on, until you reach the back of the book. If you lose concentration and make a mistake, don’t sweat it. It is perfectly okay to glue three pages together. It simply makes for an even thicker page.
WASHI THOSE EDGES! (optional)
If you wish, you can go back and apply washi tape to the outer edges of your pages after you’ve finished gluing them together. This can have a nice decorative effect, but it also helps ensure your pages remain glued together. Measure a strip of washi tape slightly longer than the height of your journal. Position half the width of the washi tape at the outer edge of your page. Carefully fold the washi over the page edge and adhere the other half to the back side of the page. Use scissors to trim off excess at the top and bottom and to round the corners if needed or desired.
Washi can be added to the edge of every page, intermittently, or not at all. If your pages start to separate later, you can try to add more glue stick to the opening and re-adhere the edges. A tape runner may also be helpful for this purpose. Whether or not to use washi on your page edges may be something you want to experiment with. You may not like the way it looks or feels. You may not own any washi tape. This step is completely optional.
If you do decide to use washi, you may also want to apply a strip to the center seam of a two-page spread to help reinforce your journal’s structure. Once again, you can do this on every page, intermittently, or not at all.
OUTER COVER
You have options when it comes to the cover of your journal. It can be left as-is, but that’s not much fun. You could decorate it by slapping a sticker or two on the front and calling it a day, or you could get a bit more creative and bust out the acrylic paints. You can also do what I did for my first creative journal and use Mod Podge to adhere scrapbook papers to the outer covers. I left the spine alone. Cut your papers to size first. Smear Mod Podge directly onto the cover, line up your paper, and smooth it down with your hands. Let dry, then Mod Podge over the top and let dry again. If your scrapbook paper is made of cardstock, this can add extra thickness and sturdiness to the cover.
My other four journals have all been covered with fabric. If your fabric is thin (as is the case with my current journal, the one with the llama on the cover), you may want to apply a couple thin coats of white acrylic paint or gesso to the cover first. Allow the first coat to dry before applying the second one. This will help prevent the notebook’s cover from showing through your thin fabric.
If you choose to go with a fabric cover, lay your fabric out on a flat surface, face down (right side down, wrong side up). If you painted your cover first, be sure it is totally dry. Lay your open notebook on your fabric, positioning it so you can leave a margin on all sides of 1/4″ to 1/2″. Cut the fabric around the notebook using sharp scissors, leaving your margin, and remove the cut-away fabric from your work area. Keeping your journal centered in your rectangle of fabric, turn to the inside of the front cover. Fold the fabric up and over the outer (side) edge of the front cover and use a wet or liquid glue to adhere the folded-over fabric to the inside of the front cover.
Do NOT use your glue stick here, but use something that can adhere fabric to paper (Aleene’s, Fabri-Tac, etc.). You may wish to use some spring clips or binder clips to hold the fabric in place while your glue dries.
Once the outer edge has dried, you can proceed with either the top or bottom fold. First make a cut in your fabric near the spine of the notebook and almost up to the edge of the cover so that you can fold the fabric over the edge of the cover neatly. Use glue as before to adhere the fabric to the inside of the cover and use clips to hold it in place while it dries. Repeat with the opposite (top or bottom) fabric.
Repeat the entire process with the back cover. Your fabric should cover the whole outer cover of your journal, including the spine. You want your fabric snug but not so tight that it pulls at and warps the journal’s cover. Only gluing the edges of the fabric to the insides of the cover rather than gluing all of the fabric down gives some leeway for the fabric to flex as the cover opens and closes. This is just my method. You may come up with something better. If so, drop me a line and let me know.
INSIDE COVERS
Now that the outside is covered, it’s time to pretty up the inside a little. We want to cover the raw edges of the fabric and whatever is printed inside the covers. I usually pick two pieces of scrapbook paper (not cardstock) that coordinate with the cover fabric.
Cut your papers to size, being sure they are large enough to cover the raw edges of the fabric. You can make it the exact size of the inside cover if you wish, or you can leave a little of the fabric showing around the edges. You may want to round the outer corners of your paper as well to match your journal’s corners. Use wet glue to adhere the paper to the inner covers, letting the first dry before adhering and placing the second cover piece.
OTHER TOUCHES
Because one journal usually lasts me more than a month, I like to find cute, free, printable calendars online – one for my starting month and one for my ending month. I print them at reduced size on cardstock so they will fit the inside of my covers. I cut them out and glue them into my covers as pockets, putting a thin line of wet glue on the left, right, and bottom edges and leaving the top edge open. These are useful for holding stickers, receipts, or other items that I might use in my journal later.
To help strengthen my journal’s structure, I often put washi tape over the seam between the cover and the first or last page of my journal. If you use washi anywhere in your journal and it begins to curl up or otherwise decides it doesn’t want to stick and you intend it to be a permanent fixture, go ahead and use wet glue to stick it down and keep it in place.
These touches are completely optional, of course. You may find another way to make use of your inside cover space that better suits your needs, or you may simply decide that you just want to enjoy the pretty paper you affixed to the inside. Remember, this is your journal. You can make it look however you like.
READY TO GO!
At this point, your journal is ready to be used. You may wish to create a title page (or not). A wish list or bucket list page (such as “Things to do this Winter” or “Places to Visit this Summer”) could be fun. You might decide to add a calendar here instead of inside the cover. There are other ways to use this space. Consider borrowing inspiration from bullet journalers.
In my current journal, I not only made the title page above, but I also included a two page spread (at right) for self-care. I decorated it with scraps of patterned paper, die cuts, stickers, stamps, and washi tape.
If you struggle when facing the blank page, you may want to do some light pre-decorating on some pages. I would not recommend pre-decorating every page. You want to leave room for creativity to bloom and space for the unexpected. To pre-decorate, you might add a sticker here and there or glue down some torn or cut pieces of scrapbook or tissue paper to random pages. You might also use patterned or colored cardstock intermittently to create pockets or tuck spots, or you might add a light wash of watercolor to random pages. You can dab on some color with highlighters or markers. All of these things can help break a blank page. They are touches that can also be added later as you’re working through your journal.
Some other optional touches might be adding ribbon, mini tinsel, fringed trim, and the like to page edges. Adding mini pom-pom trim (idea from Rebecca Hoot) to page edges can also be a fun, whimsical touch, but be warned: you might get a little carried away with it. You can add bits of packaging, cut graphics from junk mail, snip cute stamps off mail and glue them in, tip in greeting cards, and the like. Keep thinking outside the box and let creativity lead the way.
GREAT! WHAT DO I DO WITH IT?
Creative journals are usually for hitting the highlights of your day rather than deep diving into interactions or feelings. Your creative journal is a place to play, to record or create inspiration, to practice your sketching, to collect memories. Glue things in, use tea bag packets as miniature pockets or simply for decoration, use envelopes for holding ephemera or tuck-in spots to place personal items in. Use your stickers and die cuts, dust off your rubber or acrylic stamps. Doodle, color, scribble. Create.
This is your space. Have fun with it!