My Illustrated Faith Summer Camp 2022 Paper Bag Journal

In the Bible journaling community that I'm part of online, it's time for summer camp! And what better way to spend the summer months than diving deep into God's word and having some fun while you do it? That's what Truth Camp is all about, and that includes making my own adorable paper bag journal.

If you've never made a paper bag album before, it's super easy. Start with four paper lunch sacks of any size. I used the largest ones I could find for this album since I'll be journaling in it.

Lay them flat and alternate which side is up and which end is open. This makes for a more interesting book because the bags aren't all pointing the same direction.

Then fold them with a tight crease and stack them up.

Now it's beginning to look like a book, complete with pocket pages for those important notes.

Punch two holes for the binder rings, equal distance from the top and bottom of the fold.

Ta da - a mini album! But wait, there's more!

The camp kit came with embellishments packaged in their own bags, so I used them as additional pockets in the journal. How simple to just slide them in and punch matching holes.

Since they're all different sizes, all I had to do was line up the bottoms and trim the tops to fit.

 

After I designed this camp-perfect cover and covered all the pages inside with decorator paper, I measured and printed off my own journal blocks for each page.

So each page looked like this before adding the embellishments.

And they look like this after the embellishments. I added my own fibers to the tags and used lots of layers and clusters to add some camp-inspired details.

Each week of camp has its own devotion book, so I tuck those into their spots in the album, keeping all my notes and devotions together.

My journaling and answers to the devotions' questions have their own spot in that week's pocket (bag opening) so they're tucked away for safe-keeping.

The finished journal for the first month. It's full of all the things I've learned from four weeks of Bible study in the book of John, and I can't wait to get the second one finished so I can work through the next set of devotions ... and the truth shall set you free!