Top 10 Creative Ways to Use a Journal

1. Sketching Journals

These Journals are becoming increasingly popular. For the artists within, a sketching journal is great for keeping a visual record of special trips you have taken or experiences from your day to day lives.  Jemma Morrison (NZ) enjoys using her Paperblanks journal for her sketches and therapeutic art and also sticks leaves and flowers that have meaning into her journal for memories.

2. Relationship Journals

Relationship journals can be a great communication tool between partners. Within the pages of your journal you will learn about yourself and your relationship.  Paperblanks fan Vikki Smith (UK) uses her Paperblanks as a relationship journal, recording special moments and her thoughts and feelings throughout her relationship.  Vikki writes, “You will never forget them and flicking through it will always remind you why you love each other.”

3. Vocabulary Journals

Elfriede Tillian (UK) uses her Paperblanks Journal as a Vocabulary book, “There’s plenty of space for side notes on pronunciation, little illustrations to help me remember or simply interesting facts about a specific language.”  Whether you choose to record your words-of-the-day or just jot down unfamiliar words you as you encounter them, keeping a vocabulary journal will help reinforce new language. The very act of writing things down helps us to remember, plus you’ll be able to look back through your journal whenever you like.

 4. Travel Journals

In today’s modern world of Blogs, SMART phones and Ipads it is possible to recount your travel adventures to a public audience but keeping a travel journal offers you a private place to document your emotions and feelings throughout your excursions.  Keep memories of the places you visit in words, pictures or lists. Record your thoughts, ideas, stories and drawings while you are on the move. Writing in a journal is also a therapeutic way to remember your experiences in a very personal and unique way.

5. Dream Journals

According to experts keeping a dream journal can be beneficial for your health.  Physicians and therapists have been able to diagnose serious problems by reading dream diaries of their patients. Unrecognized health problems or relationship issues often are clearly apparent in a journal.  Dreams can be a great source of entertainment, but many people don’t recall them. Writing them down can prove to be more entertaining than any sitcom as the night visions are dramas played out on the stage of ones own mind.

6. Recipe Journals

Perfect for people with a passion for food and experimenting.  Keeping a recipe journal can be fun and entertaining, jotting down your new ideas for recipes or improvements made to old ones.  Keeping your recipes safe in a journal means they can easily be passed through a family from generation to generation and family members can add their own ideas.  Your cooking/recipe journal also could contain reminisces, restaurant experiences and cuisines encountered on your travels.

7. Garden/Nature Journals

By keeping a garden journal and observing and noting what’s happening in your garden, you’ll begin to see patterns that you might not otherwise spot. Garden journals can be as formal or as casual as you like. Your garden journal can be a comprehensive reference tool for you to use in planning future years, or it can be a simple memory book to look back on.

8. Memory Journals

Writing down stories and adventures from your life will make a special family keepsake to pass down to your children, grandchildren, and will certainly be cherished by future generations.  Looking back and reading past entries will transport you back to times you might have forgotten.  Steph Lockett (AUS) gifted a friend with a Paperblanks for recording memories of someone they lost which is now being passed to other family members to write their own memories.  Eventually the journal will be returned to be kept forever as a keepsake.

9. Planning Journals

In your journal you can ask yourself what you really want out of life. You can consider various options and then plan to make them happen. So many people have grand aspirations and ambitions, and so few actually end up achieving them. Keeping a planning journal can help give you the motivation to keep striving for your goals. With a journal, you can plan out every step towards whatever goal you wish to achieve or any change you want to make.

10. Everyday Inspirations

At Paperblanks we use the art and history of the world to draw inspiration for our covers designs.  Twitter follower Michele Pace (IT) likes to use his Paperblanks journal to write everyday notes and quotes from her favourite books. Carrying a journal with you means you won’t miss out on recording moments that inspire you.