DIY Kids Journal Tutorial
When I started my first bullet journal, my children wanted to look through the notebook, pens, and stickers. I made them journals from a few sheets of paper and left the pages open for lists, drawings, plans, and whatever else they wanted to keep.
My older daughter used hers to plan a camping trip. She made a packing list, wrote down things she wanted to do, and drew a small calendar to count down the days.
Here are the pages she made:
I liked seeing how she made the notebook her own.
I added a scavenger hunt for our campsite and taped it inside the front cover.
Both children brought their journals on the trip. Before bed in the tent, they spent about half an hour writing about the day.
A few folded pages gave them somewhere to keep their ideas and memories.
Easy DIY Journal Tutorial
You can make the same kind of journal with paper, a cover, a stapler, and elastic. An adult should handle the stapling and check that every staple is closed securely.
Materials
For the journal shown, I used:
- 5-6 sheets of paper, I used US letter size
- 1 sheet of heavy construction paper (I used 24x34 cm paper)
- A piece of flat elastic (about 9-10 inches)
- A stapler
For printed pages, use the free Kids Summer Journal PDF.
Instructions
1. Fold the sheets of letter-size paper in half across their width.
2. Place the folded pages on the construction paper. Leave about half an inch, or roughly one centimetre, around the three open edges, as shown.
3. Fold the construction paper along the spine of the inner pages. Leave the extra strip on the right; it will hold the elastic later.
4. Open the pages and cover. Align the folds and staple twice along the spine. Use a suitable supporting surface beneath the paper and keep hands clear of the stapler.
5. Press both ends of each staple inward with a coin or similar tool. Check that no sharp ends remain exposed.
6. Add a length of flat elastic to keep the journal closed. The photographs show the elastic I used.
Cut it about an inch longer than the journal's height.
7. Fold the extra strip of the back cover inward, using the front cover's edge as your guide.
8. Staple one end of the elastic inside the top of this fold and the other end inside the bottom. Bend the cover slightly if you need room for the stapler, then check the staples again.
The finished cover should look like this:
The folded flap also gives you a place to tuck a pencil. The printed pages in these photographs are from my free Kids Summer Journal. Use those, plain paper, or a mixture of both, and let your child decide what belongs inside.
