Love Letters Journal - tutorial

A few months ago, my mom told me that she wanted to keep a journal of letters to my little sister (who was a senior in high school).  She wanted to write to her about every time she was proud of her and how much she loved her.

Then, more recently, one of my cousins started a private blog of letters to her daughters.

I decided that I should start a journal of letters to my boys.  Not something that I write in everyday necessarily.  Just somewhere for me to write to them when I'm proud of them, and about the funny things they do and say.  Even if it's just a quick one line about something that happened, at least it won't be forgotten.  When I give it to them one day, I want them to know how much I love them and have always loved them.  I want them to know that I loved them and worried for them and thought of them and enjoyed them everyday of their lives.

I started with 3 composition notebooks.

(They go on sale for back to school at Wal-mart and at Walgreens for 49 cents)

Then I cut their names out of contact paper, using my cousin's silhouette that I borrowed.

Contact paper is perfect for this because it sticks, but it doesn't do any damage to the cover when you pull it off.

Then I chose a color for each boy and started painting.

The contact paper sticks so well that I didn't need to worry about being careful.

The lines stayed sharp even though I put a lot of paint on.

After it dries, just pull up the contact paper.

The paint scrapes off the cover really easily, so be careful.

Because it scrapes off, if there are any mistakes, just take a q-tip and scrape it off.

Since I didn't want it all to scrape off, I coated it in a clear-coat sealer.

I think that modge-podge would have been perfect to seal it in, but I couldn't find mine :)

Then, just start writing...

Keep the journal somewhere convenient so you won't forget to write. 

Try making your own.

One day, it will be a treasure for your kids.