A friendship journal is one of the best gifts that a person can receive. They are special because they are hand made with lots of personal thoughts behind them. Friendship journals are a nice way to show your pen pal how special they are to you and how much their friendship means. These journals show your friends that you value their friendship and you know their likes, dislikes, hopes and dreams. These books make wonderful Christmas and birthday presents. Here are a few things to remember when creating a journal.
Talk About Your Culture
Most pen pals try to look for people from other countries and cultures to write too. When you are creating your friendship journal, make sure you talk about your own country and the traditions of your people. For example, if you are from the Czech Republic your friend will love to hear how every summer solstice there is a huge parade and celebration in the town of Cesky Krumlov that lasts for one week. Talk about why the tradition or celebration happens and what you like about it. Try to include a picture or two (postcards are good ideas) that shows something special about where you live.
Talk About Being A Friend
Discuss what being a good friend means to you. Tell your pen pal why they are a good friend. Perhaps you are someone who can write poetry. Create a poem that is about your friend and add it to the journal. If your friend did something special for you, or made you feel really good about yourself, tell them. Is there something you admire about your friend? Do they have a quality that attracts you to them? Let them know what is unique and special about themselves. Do you have a special memory to share with your friend? Create a ‘Friendship Village Tour’ in your journal where you take your friend for a walk through the village and stop at a few important shops along the way. Shops can include security, trust, love, honesty, respect, value, compassion and more.
Share Your Creative Side
First of all, pick out a journal that you can add lots of great things too. Scrapbooks are perfect for this. Don’t worry if you do not like the picture on the journal or scrapbook because you can cover that with plain paper and decorate it yourself. To start your journal off with something special, create a friendship page by using your name and your friends name and decorating it. You can always find some colorful stickers to decorate your pages with. If you do not want to use stickers, draw pictures and color them in with bright cheery colors. Write a story for your friend and include pictures to help tell the story. How about drawing a picture of your friend. Even if you do not know what they look like, it would be fun to imagine and to draw what you see in your head. Create a friendship card and paste it to one of the pages in the journal. Your can even design and decorate a special page with all your own pen pal information on it. This way your friend will always have a resource to turn to when creating things for you. Your pen pal friend will love turning the pages to see all the wonderful words of friendship and colorful designs.
The Sky Is Your Limit
There really is no limit to what you can put into a friendship journal. Add recipes, crafts ideas and instructions, drawings, special occasion cards, poetry, short stories, pictures from magazines, cartoons, stickers, bookmarks, address labels, pressed flowers, etc… Once your friendship journal is complete, simply package it up and send it off to your friend. I can assure you, they will be pleasantly surprised and very happy.