travel journaling DIY envelopes

   Hello everybody! Today I'll be finishing off my travel journaling series with this post I have for you today on how to create little envelopes that you can glue into your journals. If you haven't yet, you can read my previous travel journaling posts here, here, and here.

You will need: A piece of paper, scissors, a pencil, glue or rubber cement, and a circular template.

First, if your paper has a patterned side like mine does, then I would recommend flipping it over so that any leftover pencil marks will be on the inside of the envelope, not on the outside. Place your circular template on top of your piece of paper and use the pencil to trace around it.

Next, use your scissors to cut out the circle. Bend (not fold) your paper in half and make a slight crease in the middle just so you can see where the center of the circle is.

Flipping your paper over to the backside, fold in the two sides to the center of the circle, fold the bottom up, and then the top down. Take a look at the pictures to see what I mean.

And there's your envelope! You might want to unfold your envelope and cut out the corners as shown to make it look neater.

Now apply glue to the inside of the bottom flap and the outsides of the right and left flaps to glue everything together. An advantage to using rubber cement is that you can apply it to the inside of the top flap to make it close and open easily.

Mini Rubber Cement Lesson
If you apply rubber cement to both of the surfaces that you are gluing you will have a very strong bond. If you apply it to only one of the surfaces, it will act like the glue on a sticky note - temporary and easy to remove.

You can make a couple of these envelopes and put them in your travel journaling kit so that you can paste them into your journal at any point throughout your trip. It's nice to be able to not only look at mementos in your journal but also be able to take them out and hold them.

Thank you for reading!

travel journaling inspiration

Sources, left to right, top to bottom.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

1// I really like the simple, hand-drawn, "doodley" feel of this front page.
2// If you prefer drawing over writing, fill your pages with drawings of your experiences. There is no "right" method.
3// Good example of using clippings and mementos in your journal.
4// Great idea for a front page. Print out an outline of the place you're visiting and put it under your paper so that you can trace it. You can then label places you visited. Another idea could be to draw a world map and then use colorful markers to show the path that your journey took you.
5// Very simple journal entries with some maps pasted in. As I said in number 2, there's no right method, so if you prefer writing over drawing, then you don't have to do any drawing!
6// A stylish example of a travel journal, filled with colorful elements that are fun to look at.

I hope you enjoyed this travel journal inspiration from Pinterest. This is the third part of my travel journaling series. Here you can visit my other posts: Travel Journal + Kit, Travel Journaling Prompts + Ideas. Thank you for reading!

travel journaling prompts + ideas

Hello! This is the second post of my travel journaling series. You can read my first post about setting up your travel journal and creating a travel journaling kit here.

Today I have some ideas for you that will hopefully inspire you with your travel journaling!

Prompts:

1// Draw a map of your destination. This could be a nice first page.
2// Your favorite moment of the day.
3// Least favorite moment of the day.
4// Illustrate your day. No writing, just captions.
5// Draw a landmark you visited.
6// What do you wish you would have packed but forgot to?
7// Funny quotes from the people you are traveling with.
8// Write about your day in the form of a schedule (12:00 - Lunch at ______).
9// Bored in a plane or car? Doodle. They're fun to look at later on.
10// What songs did you listen to/hear today?
11// At the end of the trip, pick one place that you would visit again, if given the opportunity.
12// At the top of the page write the date, time, weather, and location. For example (August 5th, 12:45 PM, partly cloudy, restaurant downtown.) You could even draw a little sun peeking out from behind a cloud for the weather!
13// You may not have access to the internet or a post office, but if you could contact your friends and family, what would you say to them?
14// What did you eat today? Where did you eat it? What was it like?


Things you can put in your journal:

1// Plane tickets.
2// Museum tickets.
3// Wristbands.
4// Maps.
5// Advertisements.
6// Postage stamps.
7// Interesting candy wrappers and sugar packets.
8// Photos.
9// Packing lists.
10// Magazine articles.
12// Business cards
13// Receipts

Any other ideas? Please comment below! Also, this is very exciting, I made my first printable! You can print it out, fold it, and stick it in your journal so you have these with you no matter where you go. You can get it here.

Thanks for reading!

travel journal + kit

Last Tuesday I showed you the handmade journal that I plan to use on my upcoming trip. Today I have some tips for creating a travel journal and a useful kit where you can store all of your travel journaling supplies. When you're on the go, you don't have access to all of the wonderful tools and materials that you have at home, but with some planning, you can figure out what you'll need to bring to make your travel journaling experience an enjoyable one.

First, of course, you'll have to find a journal. You can either buy one or make your own. I have a post showing how I made mine if you'd like to read that but if you're looking for a more detailed, step-by-step tutorial then damasklove.com has a great series on bookbinding. Click on the link to check it out.

This is what my journal looks like:

You can decorate the cover however you want, leave it how it is, or save the decorating for once you get back home. This is a good idea because you might want to incorporate photos and mementos from your trip. You could find a map of the place you are visiting and use that as a cover.

As for initial setup, there's not much that you can do. You can add page numbers for easy reference, create a table of contents, or add some doodles to the pages of your journal. You could label pages with the dates but I recommend doing that as you progress through your trip because it's hard to estimate how many pages you will use up on each day of your trip.

Now let's make our travel journaling kit. Keep in mind that you do not need to use everything that I use, and that you can add your own items.

1// Pen - A pen is probably your best option for writing. It won't fade as quickly as a pencil will but it also won't bleed through the page too much. I really like using gel pens. They're so fun to use because they write very smoothly.

2// Sharpie - If your notebook has very thick pages then you might like to use Sharpies, or other dark black markers. But if not, then it's best to avoid writing utensils that are likely to make the backsides of your pages look like mirror images of the fronts.

3// Highlighters - For highlighting! When you're writing your entries it's great to highlight key words and phrases so that in the future when you're scanning through your journal you can quickly pick up on main events and ideas. I chose a mellow orange color instead of a neon yellow. Those are just too bright for me.

4// Gluestick - You will probably have some photos and mementos that you will want to put in your journal and one of the ways that you can do that is by gluing them in.

5// Paper clips - You can use them to put in photos or keep your place in your notebook, like a bookmark!

6// Post-it notes - Use them for quick ideas, or maybe keep a pad of post-its and a pencil in your pocket on the go for short journal entries and then put the post-its in your journal once you get back to it?

7// Magazine clippings - Before you leave on your trip, look through some magazines for fun pictures and words that you might want to put in your journal later on. Store them in an envelope and keep the envelope in the back of your journal.

8// Little envelopes (not shown) - I've got a tutorial for these coming up next week. You can glue them into your journal wherever you want and put little mementos in them so that you can take them out later!

9// Washi tape (not shown) - Yet another way to put photos and such in your journal. You can also use it to decorate the cover of your journal.

10// Scissors (not shown) -  You might find some things that you'll need to cut out, so it'll be nice to have a pair of scissors on hand.

11// Stamps - Letter stamps would look great for headers and such, and you could also use other travel-related stamps.

Store everything in a small pencil bag or box, and you're ready!

You can also bring some colored pencils, markers, or watercolors for when you have some downtime and have a moment to decorate and color your entries.

Any other ideas for things to put in your travel journaling kit? Comment below!

Thanks for reading!

handmade journal

Today I'll be showing you a project that I've been working on recently. I'm going to be going on a trip soon and I really wanted to have a nice place to document it and so I decided to make a notebook. I've made simple little notebooks by stapling some paper together before, but this time, I wanted to make it really durable and easy to use. I have a book that is all about bookmaking and has lots of step-by-step projects, but I wanted to try it on my own, so I simply looked at some of the pictures and figured it out as I went along.

First, I grabbed a stack of thick white paper and folded each sheet in half. I used a pencil to mark the placement of the holes on one of these sheets. I then gathered up all of the paper used a needle to slowly, carefully punch through it.

Next, I threaded my needle with some yellow embroidery floss and separated the sheets of paper into four groups. I wove the needle through the holes in the stacks of paper and connected them to create one neat pile of paper.

Next, I cut out two cardboard rectangles that were the same size as the pages and used rubber cement to cover them in nice paper. Don't you just love the pattern? I got it from a collection of animal and nature themed scrapbook paper.

I found some old, light blue fabric and cut out a strip of it to connect the two covers.

Finally, I used the rubber cement to glue the first sheet of paper to the inside of the front cover, and the last sheet of paper to the inside of the back cover.

All done!

Making your own journal makes writing and drawing in it just that much sweeter, don't you think? I really want to do this project again, though I'd like to make it much bigger and use it as a general doodling/idea notebook. I didn't use very many pages for this notebook since I figured I wouldn't need that much space for a travel journal.

Thanks for reading!