Make your own journal

You should see the stacks of journals I have – I have huge collection of notebooks & journals that I write my to-do lists and notes to myself in.   I recently paid about $25 online for a photo journal which is really beautiful but probably was an unnecessary expense.    Monika Wright has a solution – make your own!   You’ve got to love the crafty, DIY-for-less nature of this project.   She’s chosen really springy colors and springy stamps in anticipation for warmer weather and the months ahead.  Here’s a great tutorial by Monika. 

Gather your supplies:  notepad, patterned cardstock, adhesive, and your favorite PSA Essentials Peel & Stick stamp sets.  After trimming your cardstock to size, score a line to lay your notepad down on the scoring board, score the line, crease, and then place the notepad down again and score the second line.  Crease again. 

Monika prefers to use a glue stick to give her time to arrange the cardstock just where she needs it, lining up all the edges, before it is permanently adhered together.  Make sure you only glue the back of the notepad, staying clear of the gummed area so that the note paper can easily be removed.

Using stamps from several Peel & Stick stamp sets, embellish the lower right hand corner of each page in the notepad in varying shades that coordinated with the patterned cardstock you chose.  You can see here that Monika chose a bumblebee from PSA Topiary, the letter "w" for her last name from PSA Archive, and a flower from PSA Rosettas. 

Monika then created a “belly band” to go on the outside of the notebook which was embellished with more flower stamps from PSA Rosettas.   She stamped and then punched out using two different punches.  Adhere to paper that’s the width of the entire notebook. 

Stop by and visit Monika Wright’s  blog to see more great projects by her!   You've also got to check out her Etsy store - use coupon code ILOVEITALL at checkout, they'll get a 15% discount on total purchase. My favorite stuff of hers right now is the subway art and the mini books.  


Posted to the Making Mondays Marvelous link party at C.R.A.F.T.