Nature Journal

Ellie's Homemade Nature Journal

Ellie and I took an afternoon last week, hiked and searched for treasure, and glued our finds in our nature journals! She loved this activity, especially since there were no "rules." Gluing flowers right on the paper was fine.

We brought along a mason jar with water for paints, watercolors, crayons, and glue. I brought a black, waterproof pen to write in our journals and document our finds.

I had my own spiral-bound watercolor journal, but I didn't have one for Ellie. I made her one by doing a basic bookbinding. I stacked three 9"x12" pieces of watercolor paper on top of each other, then folded them in half. Using the fold as the "spine," I used a tack (though a nail would work better) to make holes in the spine and tie yarn through the holes to hold the "book" together.

Including the cover, there are 12 pages, which ended up being plenty, as Ellie only really finished 2 pages on this one trip. We could make more books for each outing if needed, but this should get us through at least a few more hikes! It was also so nice to just sit in the grass and paint. So relaxing! Therapeutic time for Mommy too!