This article was reviewed by Renee Day. Renee Day is a Crafting Expert and Content Creator based in Michigan. She is a master of paper crafts, and also specializes in brush lettering, journaling, embossing, stamping, stenciling, doodling, and crocheting. Her Instagram account, thediyday, has over 300K followers. She published a book called Creative Journaling: A Guide to Over 100 Techniques and Ideas for Amazing Dot Grid, Junk, Mixed-Media, and Travel Pages. The book contains 52 projects, from crafting colorful pages to creating dot grid, junk, mixed-media, and travel journals. She also created Chunky Letter Calligraphy, a 30+ page (PDF) all about lettering. She runs a thriving Amazon Storefront, where she curates craft supply collections for her followers. She previously worked as a photographer, capturing engagement sessions, weddings, boudoir, and landscapes. She received a Master’s Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy.
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Whether you're journaling for personal reflection, planning your day-to-day life, or capturing memories, this wikiHow article will teach you how to design a personalized diary that reflects your individuality.
Steps
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1Create a design on Canva.com. Open Canva on your web browser or the app. Click Create a Design on the top right corner of the page.
- You can see many design types, like presentation, doc, etc. But 'diary' is the best since it is a diary's size. Diaries come in different shapes, however, so you can either select a different type or just type a custom dimension by clicking Custom Size on the bottom left of the search section.
- If you want to make your cover page with an image in the background, you can click on Import Image, or select one of the images you uploaded on Canva before. It can be a photo of yourself, your family, your favorite band, or anything. It's all your wish! You can start a blank design if you want to add an image later.
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2Browse templates (optional). Canva offers many different templates. It offers good templates for single-line books, different fonts, different stickers, and even different styles like kawaii, colorful, etc. It offers a color palette(which you can change), a font style, and a format(which you can change too) The templates may offer a space to add an image and much more! If you are a person who is lazy to create from scratch, templates are for you!Advertisement
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3Start by customizing the cover. The cover is very important for a diary. You can customize it any way you like. Do whatever suits your style.
- You can add some colour, graphics, images, text, etc. You can either upload your own content or add Canva's premade media. Alternatively, you can generate new media using 'Magic Media', an AI tool, to create media based on what you write. You can also write your text, change the font, font size, and font colour. Feel free to use your imagination.—It's your diary!
- If you are using a template, you can make changes in fonts, colors, etc. Sometimes you might end up changing the entire template, but that's okay! There is no rule on what to change and what to not. Templates can either be for inspiration or to make work easier.
- You can also look up ideas on the internet. YouTube and Pinterest are good sites.
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4Create the pages on which you will write. First, make your standard page upon which you will write your entries. You can add single lines if you want, decorate it with graphics, etc. Then, make duplicates by clicking the Duplicate option found above the page. The number of duplicates should be slightly more than the number of pages you think you will need. 100-200 pages is usually the sweet spot.
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5Add any special pages you want. Some people like to add pages for calendars, To-do lists, schedules, birthdays, life hacks, and more. You can add as many pages as you like and decorate them appropriately.
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6Create your back cover. Then, decorate it as desired.
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Print the pages in PDF format. Staple or bind them and you're ready to write in your diary!
Expert Q&A
Tips
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Keep the front and back cover the same colour and keep the same font throughout the diary.Thanks
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Calendars, to-do lists, and planners are good choices for special pages.Thanks
Things You'll Need
- Device to access Canva
- Printer