How to Make a Paper Journal for School

Video Transcript

"So this is going to make a paper school journal that you can use to add your own bits and pieces in it or write your book, do your own diary, anything like that. For this clip, you'll need some different colors of paper, a stapler, scissors, felt tipped pen, glue stick. So get your A4 sheets of paper, put the short side towards the short side, make sure they're really nicely leveled up, the corners match the corners, the edge matches the edge, put it down in the paper and hold it and then run your finger back and press it down. Run it along both ways and that should give you a nice fold that keeps the edges matching up. Let's do the next one the same way. Short edge matches the short edge, corners match to corners, when it's nice and matches, put it down on the table, keep your fingers there to stop it sliding around and run your finger back until you reach the fold, out and out from the fold and check it saves match. That's quite good so that's one, two, I've already done three more, four, five and this is going to be the outside piece. So all of these will be the pages in your new book. Make sure all the folds match together. Now try really hard to get those matching. They need to be top and bottom matched and all the folds matched because that will be the spine of your book and when you've got them matching, get your stapler and catch them with at least four staples going down the spine and every time make sure they've all stayed together, we don't want them drifting apart drifting down, one at that end, one at that end and two in the middle. And when you've done that, you're ready to put the outside cover on so just fold that edge to edge in the same way and your finger back and wrap that around the outside. You may find that this is just a little bit small that the front edges now stick out a bit too much. That's doesn't matter because you've got your scissors ready and if you hold it nice and firm, all you need to do is just trim up and cut away the bit that you don't want showing. We don't need those pieces do we? Just a little bit too big, the fold takes up some of the length of the paper. That's it. Now the last piece that you wrapped around, that needs stapling on to the other layers but get as near to the edge as you can. Don't let that staple go a long way in. And then you've made your own book which can be used as a journal or a diary or a storybook. You can do whatever you want in it. To make sure it's yours and nobody ever gets it by mistake, you can make a nice label for it. So choose some different colored papers and a bit of sticky on the back will make it smart, that can go in the other top and I think I'm going to put another layer to my label to make it really individual. There we are. Press them down and then you can add whatever you're liking. I'm just going to call mine with the title of My Journal. That means you can put your own things in it, perhaps on the outside you can do some decoration to show that this is you. That's how I do a face with a number two for the eyebrow and the nose and this is you smiling. Add the other eyebrow, I don't know if you are a boy or a girl, you can add whatever hairstyle you like on there. This one's wearing a bow tie. So my journal and inside you could stick bits in of your own, you could collect leaves, you could collect photographs, if you collect stamps or tickets from your special visits to places, all of that can go in there and you could put the date on it, you could make a whole series on them, one for every year of your life. And that will keep for a long, long time. That's how to make a paper journal."