Book Review: Creative Journaling by Renee Day

About the Book:

Spark your creativity and keep yourself organized with the beautiful pages and easy-to-follow instructions of Creative Journaling. With 52 projects, from simple tricks, like making your own washi tape, to more ambitious projects, like crafting a custom planner, you’ll soon have the best-looking to-do list around.

Author Renee Day will take you on an artistic adventure as you take on each new task and become an expert on amazing DIY ideas! You'll learn to work with watercolors, acrylic paint, brush pens, and much more as you personalize your stuff, making things uniquely you. 

Going beyond basic tools, this stunning book offers tips, tricks, and creative ways to transform your notebook into a treasured life companion, including:

• Ornamental lettering
• Personalized habit trackers
• Colorful calendars
• Decorative headers
• Customized productivity lists
• Inspiring artwork
• Creative future logs
• Unique planning pages

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My Thoughts:

Creative Journaling by Renee Day divides into four main sections: dot grid pages, junk journals, mixed-media projects, and travel records. I gave this book a complete read-through in a few days. Each project includes step-by-step photos of the process, plus a completed example photo. I loved this format! It makes it so much easier for me when I can see something in-process, not just the finished project. Now, about each part:

Dot grid journaling stands as the first and largest section of Creative Journaling. I have seen beautiful dot grid pages on social media, but they always seemed too difficult to create myself. However, the author’s clear and easy to follow instructions made the projects feel doable. Planners and scheduling projects dominate this section, but other projects such a reusable meal plan layout and a gratitude log add a little variety.

Junk journaling (aka an altered book project) is new-to-me. This section looked fun, but seemed more complicated to do and I haven’t tried any of the projects yet.

My favorite section of Creative Journaling was the mixed-media journaling. This section is mostly about creating page layouts and there are so many projects in this section that I want to try: the tissue paper layout, the hot glue layout, etc! They look so pretty!

The traveling section contained gorgeous projects with precise and clear instructions. However, I don’t travel so it was not applicable to me.

The last section, DIY accessories and papers, offers some very cute and fun projects. My daughters and I tried out the Shaving Cream Paper project and we had a blast! It was messy, but so much fun. The papers turned out beautifully. (See photos) This section is, in my opinion, more kid friendly. Most of the prior sections are teen or adult level, but things like yarn tassel paper clips and stained paper towel paper are projects they can do and enjoy!

In conclusion, I am very pleased with Creative Journaling: A Guide to over 100 Techniques and Ideas for Amazing Dot Grid, Junk, Mixed-Media, and Travel Pages by Renee Day! The girls and I are looking forward to doing more projects from this book! Five stars!

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this product via the Amazon Vine program. All opinions in this review are my own.