5 ideas to decorate your journal that will boost your creativity (for writers and artists!)

 A journal is something extremely personal but also helpful, not only for remembering things and dates but also for keeping track of your personal goals and your adventures. If you are a creative or just a busy person, dedicating a small amount of your time to decorate some pages of your journal is a great way to reduce daily stress and boost your creativity. 

Here are four easy ideas to enrich your journal, the reflection of the life you are living at the moment.

1. COLLAGE WITH MAGAZINES

 The collage is a well-known and fun technique. It is in fact, a form of art that doesn't require colors and paint. You just have to take some old newspapers or magazines and select the images that you like. Then, crop and assemble them. Before your eyes, surreal situations and characters will appear. With a pen or a marker, you can also add some doodles to fill the rest of the page.

How you can do the collage:

1. Find some landscapes or picture images to use as a background

2. Add  images of objects and animals

3. Finish with faces and figures

If you like, you can also add printed texts and images:

a page of my journal with a printed text

2. CAVIARDAGE

Caviardage means "blacking out" in French. We can see it as an act of "censorship" of a text to extract a poem. I think it is similar to highlighting, but you have to cancel something to bring out what interests you. It is the best solution if you have the writer's block or need to write a poem for one of your classes at school or college. It works best with a novel or a textbook, but if you are like me and hate the idea of ruining one of your precious books, you can scan and then print a page of one of your favourite novel.

How to do Caviardage:

First, you have to skim and scan the page and find the words that catch your attention the most.

Then, underline those words and copy them on a piece of paper. Read what came up and see if the words together make sense. 

Repeat the passage as many times as you want, until you select all the words for your new poem

When you are satisfied, cancel the sentences with a black marker  and only leave the words you have chosen. 

Add articles or pronouns if you like, but try to use only the lexical words of the text.

The final product should look like this: 

The poem:

Beneath the possible

a young illusion overpowered London

an infatuated idealist

evoked memories of his own tragedy

happened to earn shillings

in Prison, a stroke

it was impossible to survive,

and so London moved on

3. POP-UPS (for artists)

This technique is reccomendent to artists who have already a lot of experience and time to dedicate to their journal. But the effort is worth the results because pop-ups are colorful, majestic, and breathtaking origami. You bring images out of the page, in 3D. 

Here's an example of a popup:

credits to @JunniSun Studio on youtube- click here to see her tutorial 

4. BOOK TRACKLIST (for writers)

Write down all the books you want to read and annotate the novels you liked the most and the ones you hated. My suggestion is to explain the reasons why you loved or hated those books. This will keep you motivated to read (a fundamental activity if you want to become a writer). Focus not only on the plot but also on the style the author has used, the characters, and how they were described or acted in difficult situation. Paying attention to this kind of "details" will surely help your writing skills.

I simply write with a black pen on my journal the thoughts, but you can put a little more effort into making the page aesthetically pleasing if you like.

5. VISION BOARDS

This idea is similar to the collage. The only difference is that you have to do some research on Pinterest with all the products, places, and experiences you want to have in the future, print them, and glue them on the page of the journal. This is also known as a manifestation board, because apparently if you see everyday images of what you desire, the chances to obtain them in real life are higher. This idea is perfect for a journal because it helps you remember your wishes and goals.

Examples of vision Boards (the images are from Pinterest):

Examples of vision boards for your next vacation:

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Thank you so much for reading this article!💜