Creative Journaling: A Guide to Over 100 Techniques and Ideas for Amazing Dot Grid, Junk, Mixed-Media, and Travel Pages

by Renee Day

Spark your creativity and keep yourself organized with the beautiful pages and easy-to-follow instructions of Creative Journaling.

With 52 projects, from crafting colorful pages for dot grid, junk, mixed-media, and travel journals to making your own washi tape, tabs, and paper, you’ll soon have the best-looking journals around.

Author Renee Day of the popular Instagram @thediyday takes you on an artistic adventure, guiding you with step-by-step photos and instruction, as you learn how to incorporate amazing DIY ideas into your daily planning! You’ll learn to work with a variety of materials—acrylic paint, brush pens, stencils, stamps, 3D gloss gel, scrap paper, and more—as you personalize your stuff, making things uniquely you. 

Going beyond basic tools, this stunning book offers tips, tricks, and creative ways to transform journals and hardcover books into treasured keepsakes, including:
 

• Ornamental lettering
• Personalized habit trackers
• Colorful calendars
• Decorative headers and cover pages
• Customized productivity and bucket lists
• Inspiring artwork
• Gratitude logs
• Unique planning pages

Even if you have a limited amount of time or supplies, you can create eye-catching journal layouts. It’s time to get creative!

• ISBN13: 9781631066399
• Publish Date: 14 January 2020
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Rock Point
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 208
• Language: English

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Creative Journaling by Renee Day is a tutorial guide with illustrations for bullet journaling. Due out 14th Jan 2020 from Quarto on their Rock Point imprint, it's 208 pages and will be available in paperback format.

The instruction and tutorials here are easy to follow and the book is accessible and appealing. The introductory chapters (~8% of the content) cover general ideas, materials, and techniques. The following chapters give overviews over specific types of journals (dot grid, junk journaling aka altered book multi-media, mixed media, travel journaling, and more). The book also includes a fairly comprehensive resources list for further reading and learning.

The author's writing style is encouraging and positive. One thing she said really stuck with me:

As a kid, I’d collect journals but would never use them in fear of ruining them. After my collection started to grow, I would use my least favorite journal from the bunch first while keeping my favorites in mint condition.

This is 100% me. This book has so many nice short 1-2 page suggestions and tutorials to vary the look and use of the pages with inks, washi tape, different layouts and more. I found a lot of inspiration here to use in my own journals with which I'm becoming braver and more confident. Mostly, I'm having a blast actually learning and *using* my journals.

Five stars. This would be a superlative choice for a journaling friend, especially bundled with some gorgeous washi tape and pens/markers.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.