diy : journals

I am a sucker for journals. It never fails when I clean out a tote or a closet that I find about 3 or 4 old journals filled with my ever-changing handwriting and likewise changing dreams. 

A few months ago I met with some great ladies and we started brainstorming for the women's retreat at our church. We knew the focus was going to be on prayer, and we thought it would be great if we could give all the women something to keep that could remind them of what they learned at the retreat. I was volunteered to make whatever it was we would come up. I think it was because I had to be late to the meeting. 

We tossed around bookmarks as an idea and I figured that would be simple enough to make. But then we thought it would be cool if we could give all the women some prayer journals. I thought I could figure that out. 

So I looked at a few ideas on pinterest, combined a few, borrowed my dad's paper cutter, and set to work. 

They aren't huge, but they ended up being a nice addition to the retreat, and I was able to pop in some note headers and verses our speakers would be addressing.

So if you want to make one [or fifty] of these, the instructions are fairly simply:

Cut your paper in half [hamburger style < please tell me you remember these instructions from grade school?], and and then fold your two halves in half again. I used a paper cutter to make the process move quicker, and guarantee a straight cut, but you could easily do this step with scissors. Repeat for the number of pages you want [so 10 pieces of paper would give you 20 halves which would give you 40 pages, is that math right?]

Choose some fun paper or cardstock [or even leather?] for your cover. I simply laid one of my half sheets on it and eyeballed it and cut it a little bigger.

The hardest part: hole punch. If you have one of those sweet crafting punches that can punch through a million pages at once, you're golden. However, if you're like me, this step may be a little trickier if you made a lot of pages and can't punch through them all at once. But however you do it, line your holes up and punch two holes through each page [see picture below].

Then find some fun string/twine and thread it though and tie it in the center of your journal:

Bust out your washi tape and decorate the front. Or don't. It's up to you. I tend to like my journals to have lines in them, so you could maybe try and use notebook paper for the pages if you're like me. However, sometimes it is fun to have wide open spaces… 

There ya go! It would make a fun gift or even party favor for a kid's party with little crayons or something? Have fun!