Journaling: My Daughter's Escape

Do you have a Journal Lover? I do. My daughter and I share quite a few personal traits and I'm so thrilled that we are able to share this together.

Journaling is such a lovely activity because it gives you time to collect thoughts. 
My daughter loves it. She started this a while back at the beginning age of 7, however, her passion for this grew stronger as she found writing to become her escape. After the passing of her grandpa "Papu", my mom and I decided to buy her several journals; A diary, a composition (with free-space to draw pictures), and a plain hardcover journal. We understood that it was difficult for her to express her feelings through words via his sudden death (as she was extremely close to him), so we knew she would enjoy writing and drawing her feelings out on paper. 
Boy were we right. Miss M can sit for hours, writing stories from her imagination or even true stories that are happening or have happened. She opens her heart out when she journals, and I let her. I picture her writing the words while she sits on her bed, or in the car while on a drive... I pretend I can hear her speaking what she writes. It's truly beautiful. She is an amazing writer and her drawings are perfection. This girl is creative. She has recently named her diary journals: The Young Daughter's Diaries (just like her mommy she says).

Here are some ideas you may want to implement for your child's Journaling.

Journal Lovers Gift Ideas

• A Journal – Obviously a journal gift set might include a journal.  The kids and I have loved having our own special little  Art Journal Kits. 

• Inspiration – If you’d like to inspire art journaling, how about a book of Zentangle Basics?

• Great Pens -  Journals start with the pen.  I found this  Sakura Zentangle Pen and Pencil Set that I love because it includes a variety of sizes, and we've enjoyed the quality of these pens for writing.

• Great Colored Pencils – You can really feel the difference when you draw with good colored pencils – they slide over the page nicely and leave richer colors than the pencil of lower quality.  We particularly love our set of  Prismacolor Colored Pencils, we have other brands and I find I notice the difference and will dig through our collection just to find the Prismacolors since they feel that much better to write with.

• Portable Paint Pet – this Water Colors Field Sketch Set can fit in a pocket or, as is my liking, can be stored in a little pouch with your journal so you always have everything you need for a spur of the moment art journal session.

• Interesting Tape or Stickers – Well look at that, it’s Hedgehogs and Cats on tape in a little pen-like dispenser!  Cute, and maybe fun for journal decoration.

• Pencil Sharpener - I’m giving my kids EACH one of these Double Hole Fish Pencil Sharpeners because we are constantly in need of one and these get a good rating – our cheapos are always breaking.

• Glue Sticks – It’s a basic that fits great in a stocking.