Do you get homework over the Summer holidays?  We don’t but reading and writing practice is encouraged.  With the best will in the world I know I’m not going to sit down with Anya and start practicing writing every day or even every week.  We get enough homework during term time so we all need a break 😉 But I do think it’s a good idea to keep in touch with writing and reading so I thought I would make her a Summer diary where she can write what she does every few days.  Last week I rounded up some fabulous fruit crafts which inspired me to make these fruity DIY Summer diaries for Anya.

Anya loved the idea of making fruit inspired DIY Summer journals and chose strawberry, pineapple and orange as her fruits.  If you’d like to make these, read on.

What you’ll need:
A6 notebooks
A4 coloured paper in red, yellow and orange
2-3 sheets thin green card
black pen and brown and white coloured pencil
scissors
tape or glue (optional)

Begin by covering your notebooks with the coloured paper.  When I was in school in India, we had to cover all our school books or there would be big trouble.  With so many years of practice I can now cover books with my eyes closed!  But in case you haven’t done it before, here’s how:

Once the books are covered, you can stick or glue the inside flaps down but I prefer to leave them just folded without glue or tape.  Next I needed to make the books look more like the fruit they were meant to be.  I drew leaf shapes on my green card – just using a pencil.  This isn’t meant to be precise or perfect so just draw freehand.  I drew three different types of leaves – one for each fruit.  And then I cut them out.  But I wanted to create a bookmark too so I cut a long piece of card with the leaves cut out at the top as the picture below shows.  So you not only have a DIY Summer diary but also a super cute DIY bookmark to match.

To finish off these fruity DIY Summer diaries I used a fine black pen to add seeds to the strawberry, a brown coloured pencil to line the pineapple diary and a white coloured pencil to add a touch of white to the orange diary.

My favourite journal is the strawberry one – I might even make one for myself!  If you’re looking for some more fruit craft inspiration, check out my round-up of some of the best.