DIY Journal Cover using Heat Transfer Vinyl!

Hi Friends! I have an easy and quick tutorial for you today. I think the hardest people to get gifts for are teenagers! Do you agree?? Most of them just seem to want gift cards or electronics which can be expensive, so when trying to get birthday gifts for my kids' friends, we always try to personalize something. For girls, a personalized DIY journal cover is a great gift idea. I know my daughter has quite a few and uses all of them. She can never have enough!

There are a lot of beautiful journals out there but I wanted to try to see if I could make one by adding heat transfer vinyl on it. It worked and came out cute!! If you don't have a Cricut or other cutting machine, another option would be to get a hardcover journal and mod podge pictures on it. With heat pressing on vinyl, you can add any design you want!

Materials for DIY journal cover

faux leather journal - I got this basic black one here
heat transfer vinyl - Click Here To Visit Expressions Vinyl
Cricut Explore Air™ machine or other cutting machine (Cricut machines are amazing! Check out my Ultimate Resource Guide of Cricut Ideas here!)
Heat Press or iron

First thing you'll want to do is pick the images you want to add to the DIY journal cover. In Cricut Design Space, I added or uploaded images that represented the recipient.

Cut them all out of heat transfer vinyl - make sure to check the mirror setting so it flips the images.

I used my

Put the images where you want them. Close the heat press. I used Siser Easyweed and started with a temperature of 280. (You might want to test the heat on the journal first to make sure it doesn't melt!) Press for 5-10 seconds and see if you can pull off the plastic.

Mine didn't come up perfectly on everything. The more intricate designs needed another press. Try to press for the least amount of time so that you don't get the indentations of the plastic. Once you remove all the plastic, place a teflon sheet (click here to see one I use) over the whole thing and press it again.

Do same thing for back side.