26 July 2015

D.I.Y Creative Journal


Hello there! As it's summer I think this is a great time to share a project with you which I recently finished for a friends birthday. My inspiration for this idea came from a trip to Waterstones a couple of months ago. I was with my friend when we stumbled across Keri Smith books such as 'Wreck This Journal'. It was our first time discovering these types of books but looking through it just looked so amazing and creative. I really wanted to buy a box set of Keri's books there and then! But being a typical student short on cash I had other more important things to buy like my grocery shopping. We left the book store with no books in hand, but I kept the idea in the back of my head of creating my own 'creative journal', especially as my friends birthday was coming up and he'd been really interested in the book. That's when I decided rather than buying a 'Wreck This Journal' book I would create something similar yet more personalised as a gift for my friend!


This project has taken me a while, I'd say about 3 to 4 weeks however I did a lot of research, drafting, and knowing myself, lots of procrastinating - but there was 80 pages! What I love about this project is that you can be as random or crazy as you want with ideas, you can add personalised pages made just for yourself or someone else, it's a great activity to pass the time and it really does get you to think creatively! So, let's look at some of the pages inside! Some of the pages are original ideas, and a lot of ideas come from other books (which I will list at the end).

Draw a self-portrait

Ask a family member, friend or stranger to draw your portait

Get anyone to doodle or write here

I think it is a great idea to have a book that allows not only yourself to be creative, but gets others involved too! The book makes a great keepsake, especially if you are the type of person who has memory boxes like my friend does. Looking back at journals is always fun!

Don't keep things bottled up inside of you, keep things bottled up here!

Create activities to do, such as reading a book

Personalise with a corner bookmark, I made a Heartless from Kingdom Hearts

What I love about this particular book I brought is the quality of the paper. I used fineliners throughout and the colour does not go through that much, the paper was thick and excellent quality. The page size was quite large at 255mm x 255mm, but I think this is much better than a smaller notebook which was what I had planned to buy at first. I brought this book from Paperchase and it is a scrapbook, take a look at their selection, they have quite a few with some really nice designs!

Decorate the pages - I used emoticons for this page

Describe a dream. Would you write about your dream or draw it?

Bucket list, provide some suggestions like completing the bucket list and the book!

If this journal is a gift it's great to see what pages they'll create!

It is super easy to create a journal like this as the only things you need are pens, pencils, and your creativity! Okay, you might need some other materials depending on what you are doing, like some card, glue, scissors and a printer but all in all you really don't need much. The pictures above were just a few ideas of pages you could include in your creative journal, and I included many other pages. To make this more personal I included a letter to my friend, he loves cheese so I made a 'Cheese Bucketlist' which included different cheeses to try and review them (cheesy, I know), I even added a basketball game which made use of origami basketball hoops that will fold flat afterwards. Also, borrow ideas from other books! It is difficult to come up with 80 different ideas on your own, so research existing books to find inspiration and ideas. To find ideas I researched different creative journal books and looked up videos on YouTube of people who have completed the book, searching tumblr for uploaded photos of pages from the books, and searching anything and everything about the books on Google. I spent a lot of time doing research, so here is a list of books where you can find page ideas:

  • Wreck This Journal - Keri Smith (I'd recommend any of Keri's books)
  • Anti Journal - David Sinden, Nikalas Catlow
  • 1 Page At A Time - Adam J. Kurtz (I really want to buy this book, it looks amazing!)
  • The Pointless Book 1 and 2 - Alfie Deyes

This was quite a long post so thank you for staying until the end! Also, a shoutout to my friend Shane, I hope you liked your present! I can't wait to see it when it is completed :)

Will you create your own creative journal? Ever made something similar before? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!


1 comment:

  1. omg, you read the pointless book. ALfie Deyes is amazing

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