Here is a journal I made for a mom with a newborn and a preschooler. She is busy (aren't we all?) and wants to document life and I thought this could be the perfect spot to jot down notes. The idea behind this journal is it can be used daily, weekly, months or whenever you think about it. It is meant to be simple. There is a page for every day of the year but no year marked in the book which means you could use this journal for a year, two years, etc. It's really up to you. What I love about this book is that it can be filled with notes, drawings, things collected and much, much more. Wouldn't it be fun to give a child this book and they can document their life for that year? I left the cover plain so that it can be decorated in the way this mom wants.
Here is how I made it.
- school notebook (found at the dollar store) taken apart
- created bundles (signatures) of 5-10 pages and made sure the fold was crisp
- stacked all the signatures together
- stamp every page with month and day
- make front and back cover out of chipboard (decorate if you want)
- score front cover approx. 1" from spine edge
- decide how many holes you want (this is more of a personal preference thing)
- I drilled the holes into the book - nice and fast
- binding was a Japanese bookbinding technique (I followed this example but there are lots more options if you search)
And there you have it, a great journal for yourself or someone else
