DIY Travel Journal

If you know me even a little bit then you know I have a small (but bigger on the inside) obsession with Doctor Who, and what he means for traveling. Also I very much love River Song, period. So when it was time to get a new travel journal I decided to make my own and model it after River's from Doctor Who.

If you'd like to learn how to make your own, just keep scrolling, scrolling, scrolling.

To start I got a plain black journal with blank un-lined pages on the inside. Sketchbooks from Wal-mart work really well. This one is about 4.5 in x 7 in. 

You will need:

• Acrylic paint in Black, Dark Blue, and a slightly lighter Blue

    I used - Apple Barrel Matte Acrylic from Walmart in Admiral Blue, Too Blue, and Black

• River Song's Journal Template edited to your needed size and printed on to plain printer paper.

    I used this template (by katien22)

• Sponge tip brush
• Foam pages in either black or blue
• Craft glue, or Foam Glue

To begin size the template to your journal size. Print it out, line it up on the journal, and cover it with foam glue using the sponge tip brush. Do the same on the other side. While it dries use another copy of the template to cut out the raised pieces in the foam page.

Once the glue dries, use the foam glue to glue the pieces on to the template. While the glue is still a little wet use a Q-tip or your finger to get rid of excess glue. Once that side dries do the same to the other side.

After both sides are dry, it's ready to paint. Use the black acrylic paint to create a base coat.

After that dried I used a mix of both blues to create an antique look. Don't worry if it looks really dark while wet, it will dry much lighter.

See! Much lighter.

Once the front and back had completely dried I added small squares to the binding to give off an antique book effect, and tea stained the pages.

To tea stain pages heat up a bowl full of water adding 2-3 tea bags and use another sponge tip brush to lightly brush tea on each page. I won't lie, this is a pain staking process and it took me several hours.

Once that was finished, and dried I added Doctor Who quotes to random pages throughout the book.

Tada!! All finished.

I hope you found this helpful. It's okay to be extra geeky when it comes to travel journals.