Create Your Own Journal

You may already be familiar with designing your own worksheets. But when it comes to an entire notebook/journal you’ll leave it to shopping at Target down the journal isle. You see the beautiful journals and think this would be so easy to make. Yet you have no idea where to even start. Here are the simple steps to create yours.

Several programs exist that will print your product and provide a platform to sell through. Some of the programs I have used are KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), Lulu printing, and Vervante. You can sign up totally free and then choose your preferences in design. They all offer print on demand options. Which are great options if you don’t want to invest a ton upfront for your printed products. The digital product is held by the printing company. Then each time a customer orders it the company will print and ship it for you.

Explore Your Ideas

The first step you want to take is to outline an idea. Creating an individual niche for your journal will help a lot with the design and function. Brain dump all of your ideas and then explore each idea on an individual level. Usually, more ideas will stem from the original one make sure you write down ALL of these ideas so you don’t forget them.

Building Your Document

Next comes creating the document with different programs some of which include Canva, Adobe, Paint etc. Before getting started you’ll want to decide the document size. This will prevent you from the tedious task of having to completely adjust margins in the end. I also like to build my brand kit in this step. You can learn more by reading Make Your Life Easy on Canva.

Now that you’ve set up your journal brand it is time to create. I personally like to create a bare bones structure that I can bulk out. Working on my cover page and a few other pages that I use in all my journals. This helps bring clarity to the journal and makes it very easy to create a flow and design. Inside of Canva you can only build the document to 100 pages so be mindful. You also will want to plan your pages, looking at them as a book considering how they will land. Once you upload the PDF into the printing program you will be able to view it as a book.

Finalize and Complete

Now that you have completed your journal you will want to upload the PDF into a printing program. It will prompt you through the process all the way to completion. After you have uploaded your document and ensure that everything meets your standards. Then you’ll be able to choose the price and submit it for printing.

Congratulations, you have now designed your very own journal. Order yourself a copy and then celebrate your new creation.