Essential Diary Crafting Supplies Under £20: A Beginner's Kit

A diary becomes yours the moment you start sticking things into it. The good news is that the supplies which make the biggest difference are also the cheapest. A reliable pen, a roll of washi tape and a glue stick will carry you through your first year of diary crafting far better than a drawer of expensive bits you are too nervous to use.

Everything below can be bought for under £20 in total, without waiting for a sale or hunting down discounts. Nothing here is specialist, nothing needs a craft room, and a supermarket, stationery shop or single online order will cover it.

Pens: two good ones beat ten cheap ones

Your diary is a written object before it is a decorated one, so the pen matters most. For everyday entries, a fine-liner with a nib somewhere between 0.3mm and 0.5mm, in black or dark grey, is hard to beat. It dries quickly, writes neatly at small sizes and rarely shows through diary paper. A second pen in a colour you actually like gives you headings, dates and margin notes.

Ink type is worth a thought. Water-based inks are cheap but can smudge under a highlighter or a damp brush. Pigment inks are more water-resistant and worth the small extra cost if you plan to paint or highlight over your writing. Gel pens are lovely to use and slow to dry, so give them a full minute before you turn the page.

Test any pen on the back page before you trust it:

• Write a line, wait thirty seconds, then drag a highlighter across it.
• Write on both sides of one sheet and check for show-through.
• Try it over a scrap of washi tape. Some inks bead on the coating.

Keep the one that behaves. Supermarket multipacks of fineliners often do the job perfectly well; you do not need an art-shop pen to write a shopping list.

Washi tape: the hardest-working item in the box

Washi tape is thin paper tape on a low-tack adhesive. It tears by hand, peels away without taking the page with it, and can be written on. That combination makes it the most useful thing you can buy for a couple of pounds, and a multipack of plain colours plus two or three patterns will cover almost everything you want to do in your first few months.

The uses you will reach for most often:

• Borders along a page edge, especially where a photo or ticket sits slightly crooked.
• Tabs sticking out of the side, so you can find a favourite page quickly.
• Fixing in light paper — receipts, till slips, a pressed leaf.
• Blocking out a space you want to fill in later.

Two warnings. Bargain tape can be too sticky for thin diary paper, so test a strip on a spare page and leave it overnight before trusting it near something you care about. And tape dislikes heat and sunlight; store rolls in a tin rather than on a windowsill, or the adhesive will turn gummy.

Glue, tape and getting things to stay put

A glue stick is the workhorse: clean, quick and ideal for paper on paper. Buy a small one, because they dry out long before they run out, and use a light zigzag rather than a solid outline. Press for a few seconds, then let the page dry flat before turning it.

For anything heavier than paper, a small bottle of clear-drying PVA is useful. Double-sided tape is the neatest option for photographs and cards, since it will not wrinkle the way liquid glue can. Washi tape and paper tape work as adhesives in their own right, with the advantage of being removable if you change your mind.

A few habits save a lot of mess:

• Work on a scrap sheet, never directly on the page you are decorating.
• Glue the smaller item and press it down, rather than gluing the page itself.
• Close the diary under a heavy book for ten minutes if a page has gone wavy.
• Keep glue away from the spine edge, or the diary will not shut properly.

Scrap paper and supplies you already own

Before buying patterned paper, look in the recycling. Envelope linings, ticket stubs, old maps, wrapping paper, magazine pages, brown paper bags and leaflets all cut down beautifully, and they carry the texture of your actual life. A shoebox or a sturdy envelope kept beside your desk is enough. Sort nothing; just add to it whenever something interesting passes through your hands.

If you do want to buy paper, a pad of thin patterned sheets or a pack of small origami paper costs very little and gives you plenty to cut from. Thin paper lies flatter in a diary, while thick card adds bulk fast and makes the spine splay. Keep your offcuts, too. A handful of triangles, circles and narrow strips is more useful than a whole sheet you feel reluctant to cut into.

The small extras that earn their place

Once the basics are in place, these additions make daily use easier rather than merely prettier:

1. Page flags or sticky index tabs. Cheap, endlessly useful, and they mark a page without committing to it.
2. A short ruler or small stencil. For straight lines, boxes and simple repeated shapes.
3. Small functional stickers. Dots, dates, weather symbols. Buy a sheet you will use rather than a themed pack you will admire and never open.
4. A white gel pen. The quickest fix for a mistake on dark paper or washi tape.
5. A small pouch or tin. Everything in one place means you will actually use it.

Skip the rest for now. Die-cutting machines, professional markers and specialist papers can wait until you know you want them.

Building the kit without overspending

Aim for a kit you can carry in one hand. Start with what you already own, then add in this order: one good pen, one glue stick, one multipack of washi tape, one small stack of scrap paper. Use that for a fortnight before buying anything else. You will quickly learn what you reach for and what sits untouched, which is better guidance than any shopping list.

Set your limit before you shop and write it inside the front cover of the diary. It is surprisingly easy to spend twenty pounds on washi tape alone, because each roll looks small and individually reasonable. Buy in multipacks, split a pack with a friend if you only want a few patterns, and treat patterned paper as something to be used rather than saved for a special occasion that never quite arrives.

Finally, keep the kit

Photo: ds_30 / Pixabay