The Photo Journal is a wonderful way to keep memories of travels, experiences and life together in one place. Adding photographs couldn’t be easier and it’s also a great place to add favourite Instagram photos.

One of the best things about a personal journal is the way in which they can be personalised. This Photo Journal is no different and arrives just crying out for decoration both on the cover and on the inside pages. There are no limits to what you can do to it. Are you into drawing? Why not add your own sketches, maybe from your travels. Do you like to doodle? No need to be an accomplished artist, just doodle away on the front cover just like you did back in your schooldays. Of course you may want a more colourful cover in which case you could cut up favourite images from old magazines and glue them on. There are so many ways you can decorate them, the options are endless.

In our example, the journals, created as a living memory of a year in the life of 2 young sisters, can be written in and added to if the girls wish. We wanted to give the cover decoration a feminine, vintage feel in keeping with the look of the journals themselves; something fun and pretty that the girls will love.

What We Used:

For our journal decoration we’ve used a set of craft papers, some fabric tap, a sheet of typography labels and some rub off letters, all in the same pretty theme. We have two journals, both using the same images but we wanted to decorate them differently. Our craft bits and bobs cost less than £10 but there’s no need to go out and by something special, just use bits from your craft box.

How We Did It:

For the first journal cover we wanted to evoke a feeling of love and special memories so we started by cutting pieces of craft paper to the correct width and layering them in the middle of the book. No need to be too precise here, just apply with a glue stick as you want. Next we added a line of fabric tape and then some typography labels to show how special the journal is. And we’re really pleased with the end result. What do you think?

On the second journal we decided to give a more formal feel, this time adding a title. Again we cut pieces of craft paper to fit the space in co-ordinating colours and then started rubbing off the letters to make the title. This was done quite randomly to give more of a fun feel that the girls would appreciate. Finally we added some more fabric tape for the finishing touch.

Don’t Forget the Inside:

Once you’ve decorated the cover, why not take your artistic skills to the inside pages too. The journal is crying out to be personalised and it’s a great way to add extra memories like travel tickets and other memorabilia. You can even jot down extra notes too. We had our comments printed in during the creation process online so all we needed to do was add a few extra flourishes.

Using our fabric tape we added some photo corners and stuck in a few extra typography labels too.

We hope you like the look of them as much as we do! What would you do to the Photo Journal covers?