My daughter made some lovely art journals recently. She made some to give as gifts and some to use for herself. She watched a few tutorials online and then wanted to make her own.

How To Make DIY Art Journals

First, she gathered the materials and tools needed. She used resources we had on hand. She used recycled cereal boxes and granola bar boxes, glue, paper, decorative ribbons, foam stickers, pen, pencil, ruler, scissors, hole punch, cotton swabs, and markers for this project. She has plans to make more varieties of art journals using different fabric covers, beads, and sequins too.

Next she cut different sizes of boxes open, laid them flat and trimmed off what she did not need. Then she laid them flat on the paper to measure and leave a ledge of paper for folding over and cut off any excess paper. Then she glued the cardboard to the paper. Then folded over the ledge, creased the paper ledge, and glued the folded over portion to the cardboard.

She tried two different applications for glue. She tried using liquid glue spread with a q-tip on some of her projects, and she used an extra strength glue stick on another projects. She said both types of glue worked fine, but the glue stick dried a little nicer than the liquid glue as it tended to leave a wrinkle if she applied too much.

Next she cut different lined and colored papers to the desired size. She used a variety of plain, colored, and lined paper to create lots of opportunities for sketches, water color paintings, doodle art, and areas to write her thoughts on.

She hole punched the papers, and the outside covers.

Then she attached the papers to the cover with ribbon.

She inserted the ribbon through the holes and lined up the papers and repeated this a couple of times.

After several times of inserting the ribbon with her fingers, she found it was much easier to insert the ribbon with a large sewing needle.

These little books are so fun to make. Besides using these for art journals or writing journals and giving them as gifts, they would also make wonderful ABC books for younger kids, or use to write a story book, or make them into prayer journals too.

Next she decorated the outside of the art journals. On some of the journals she used foam stickers and ribbons, and on others she also used Magic Stix Markers by The Pencil Grip to make her designs.

Be sure to read the post about our experience using these markers to find out more.

She added in mini-pockets and mini-envelopes to the inside covers of some of the journals.

In some of those she plans to store special items like admission tickets to museums or pictures from flyers from she visits and in others she wants to put a pencil and eraser for sketching.

We also cut out some one time use watercolor paint pallets from unused activity books. You can find these at most stores in the dollar or coloring book section.

With these one time use paint pallets, all she needs is a dab of water and either a cotton swab or a paint brush. She can paint lovely watercolor pictures with the six colors that are included, and then throw away the little slip of paper and swab when the paint is used up.

We eventually plan to make reusable watercolor paint pallets with up cycled Altoid Tins and various lids, gum containers, and pill boxes. These are so cute!

These portable paint kits could be held in place inside her art journal with a rubber band or elastic ribbon.

In the future, she would like to add stamps, fabric and lace, buttons, beads, and sequins too. She will use her hot glue gun for embellishing the journals with these things.

I am sure she will have a lot of fun filling these books with colorful thoughts and art projects.