Creative Reading Journals
Blank and dotted journals provide a creative outlet to track your reading
Hi readers,
For readers, the coming new year can light a desire to track the books they read. It’s fun to start a reading journal at the beginning of each year, and it’s even more fun to start a reading journal for the first time. Last week’s newsletter had many options to keep track of your reading the old-fashioned way, by pen and paper.
The journals I featured were all pre-printed with someone else’s idea of what a “good” reading journal should be. Does any pre-printed journal allow you to track everything you want to track in the way that you want to track it? Probably not; that’s why creative reading journals are getting a newsletter of its own, a newsletter devoted to blank and dotted journals that you create your reading journal in.
You are in charge of what you put in your reading journal and you are only limited by your imagination. You don’t need to have art or creative skills, all you need is a desire. There are all kinds of tools to help you create the reading journal that makes you happy, even if you don’t consider yourself a creative person. This newsletter will give you options for the journal, tools to decorate your journal and lastly, pictures of beautiful journals that users have designed to meet their journaling needs.
Let’s get started with the journal itself. There are blank, lined, and dotted journals that you can use to design your journal to track your reading. The advantage of lined and dotted journals is that you can use the dots or lines to help you keep your designs straight and use up the entire page with your creativity. Blank and lined journals can be found almost anywhere, so I won’t list links for those. Listed below are a few links to dotted journals at various price points.
Probably the most well-known dotted journal is the Leuchtturm 1917 dotted journal. This journal is a favorite used by fans of Ryder Carroll’s book The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future. These come in different colors and page counts to fit most readers’ needs. If you are new to a dotted journal, you can start with a less expensive one to see if it is something you’d enjoy doing, and then you can upgrade to more expensive ones.
Here are links to a few more that would certainly allow you to create your reading journal— Hulytraat Classic Dotted Notebook (2 pack), a journal with a pretty cover Bullet Dotted Journal Notebook, a spiral-bound journal that will lay flat Rettacy Dot Grid Notebook Spiral (3 pack), and a link to an Etsy page that allows you to support small businesses when you buy your journal. As the saying goes, “just google it” with various search terms, and you will find many options to fit your needs.
Now that you have your journal, let’s explore some tools used to decorate it. If you are creative and talented, you may not need any of these tools; if you are like me, these tools help you create the pretty pages that keep you coming back to make more pretty pages. My favorites are stencils, washi tape, and stickers; I’m sure there are more decorative items available, but these are the ones that I know the most about. You can find these items at craft stores, but I’ve also found that Etsy is the best place online to buy these items and all the links below are Etsy-related.
Here are links to a few shops that have stencils for creating different types of pages for your reading journal, the Moxie Dori Shop, the Order of the Planner Shop, and the Beauty by Starlet Shop.
Here are links to a few shops that have washi tape for decorating your reading journal pages. These links will give you ideas to all the different possibilities for washi tape, the Dream Chase Art Shop, the Josey Tsao Shop, the Studying Bunny Shop, and a link to many shops with bookish washi tape along with other types of journaling washi tape.
I think my favorites are the bookish stickers. Here are links to a few shops with stickers to decorate your reading journal along with your book cart and anything else that needs a little bookish love— the Flying Giraffe Studio for a larger sticker for a book cart or your computer lid, the Breann Designs Shop, the Downtown Digital Co Shop, and a link to many shops with bookish stickers, both large and small.
Now that you have your journal and some cute tools, here is some inspiration for your creations. Below are several Instagram accounts that show pictures of the reading journal spreads that they have created. It is so fun stalking other reading journal creators; you can get so many gorgeous design ideas from them. To find more on IG, search for reading journal hashtags such as #readingjournal, #readingjournalspread, #readingjournalinspiration, #bookjournaling, #readinglog, #readingbulletjournal, and search hashtags you find on specific posts as those can lead you to other hashtags you might not have thought about.
I could go on and on, but I’ll stop here with the IG accounts. You can find examples of very simple to very detailed and complex designs and everything in between. I love looking at the different types of spreads, and these accounts can provide so many ideas to help you set up your creative reading journal. I didn’t forget about writing tools as part of this process. There are a bazillion different types, I don’t have any favorites, and I’m an expert on none. If you have favorites, I’d love to hear what those are in the comments. If you already keep a creative reading journal, I’d love to know all about it and see pictures of your spreads. If this newsletter has inspired you to begin, let me know about it in the comments below.
I had so much fun putting this newsletter together and going down all the rabbit holes I found through the hashtags and IG accounts above. It makes me want to try a creative reading journal again, even though I know I don’t have the time to keep this up at this point in my life. When I retire in less than two years, I may try this again; it would be so fun.
So far, I’ve written about two different types of reading journals to track your reading; the next newsletter is the one most of you have probably been waiting for, digital and electronic reading journals. There are many different apps, spreadsheets, and digital journals available to track your reading, some you’ve likely never heard of, and I can’t wait to share all of this with you. If you have friends and family who are readers, I’d love it if you would share this newsletter with them so they can get caught up on the first two newsletters before the third one on December 7th.
Thanks for coming along on this journey with me week after week. I love all things reading, and I am so happy to share my love of reading with you. Readers are the best people, and I appreciate you so much. Happy reading!
Some of the links in this newsletter may be affiliate links. That means that if you click through and purchase anything, I may earn a small commission. This costs you nothing and helps me feed my voracious reading habit, and for that, I thank you.
It’s true that “Blank and lined journals can be found almost anywhere”, but Redbubble is my go-to for these, as they have thousands of user-created cover designs available. I own about two dozen different ones and I like the quality. The spiral-binding and covers are very durable, and the pages are a good weight. They include a pocket page in the rear for any loose notes that you want to keep within your journal, and I think they are 120 pages.
You can also make your own design and sell it to the public, or place it in a private store for personal purchase or gifting to friends. I’ve done the private route and it’s easy to do. I just bought a dozen of a personal design for Christmas presents. In your own private store you can set your $ markup (your commission) to zero and buy at cost for yourself, even cheaper if you find a Redbubble sale. (If you sell to the public, you would leave a $ markup for your commission.)
PS- I’ve been talking about the spiral-bound notebooks but they’ve recently added 128-page hardbound journals to their offerings, which I’m trying on my next purchase. I have nothing to do with Redbubble, but I’m a huge fan of their notebooks. I use them for different things, writing notes and journals, travel notes and planning, reading notes, notes-to-self, random thoughts, you name it.
Whoa! These are gorgeous! I LOVE the idea of a reading journal for kids too. What a great way to spend time with what you've read! So creative and immersive.