Planners and journals for a 12-year-old

September 24, 2019 6:15 AM

Looking for a planner or journal for a relative. Bit baffled by the range and variety out there. I have seen these questions: Day planners for the inexperienced and Planner Inspiration for Weirdos, but they are a few years old. Do I buy a journal and stickers and whatnot separately? Is there a range that is especially popular with teenagers? Relative is a little bit kawaii and a little bit weird, with arty interests. We are in the UK so trying to avoid anything with high international postage costs. Thank you.
posted by paduasoy to Grab Bag (12 answers total)

I think a blank bullet journal with some nice art supplies would be fantastic for an arty kid with specific planning interests at that age. And its flexible enough that she can use it for some other interest if she wants.
posted by AlexiaSky at 6:27 AM on September 24, 2019 [1 favorite]

There might be something here

Lemon Cat with bonus free shipping in the UK
posted by Ftsqg at 6:30 AM on September 24, 2019

To make it more planning specific the book The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future by Ryder Carol is a guide to give with the journal and art supplies.
posted by AlexiaSky at 6:35 AM on September 24, 2019

I was sent to Paperchase UK during a trip to London with instructions to purchase a cute planner for my son's gf because the UK shops had a much better range of witty stickers and covers - and we live near a Kinokuniya. The small child accompanying me went mad with stationary-greed and came out with a bag full of notebooks as well. I would either take the child directly in and give them a relatively generous budget that could include stickers and pens, or ask them their favourite colours and get something in that range.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 7:00 AM on September 24, 2019 [4 favorites]

This may be more of a project than you want to take on, but the first planner that I ever used effectively (sometime in junior high, I think) was one that had been made for my school and was built around the school's academic schedule.

Rather than running January-January it started in September and went through the end of the school year. It had all the academic holidays in it, each two-page spread covered a 5-day school week, and the day was blocked out by the school period/class schedule rather than simply in hours. It was just printed on normal letter paper and spiral bound, the sort of thing you could do in any copy shop. It was superbly useful.

I've never seen one so specifically tailored for students for sale, and unfortunately I don't know the exact program that was used to generate it (some enterprising member of the PTO produced them, as I recall), but there are a lot of planner-creator software packages and templates around. If you were so inclined and could get her schedule, you could probably create one that would be more relevant to her life than a normal 'adult' Daytimer would be, using an Excel template like this or Word one like this, customizing it appropriately, and sending the result to Staples or another shop for printing/binding.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:00 AM on September 24, 2019 [1 favorite]

I think you could search Etsy for phrases you think might work (maybe “weird planner stickers” or “Kawaii”?) and then filter by UK sellers and free shipping.
posted by elphaba at 9:27 AM on September 24, 2019

Response by poster: I think I may have put this badly. Relative has plenty of blank notebooks and sketchbooks already, and a school logbook. I was thinking along the lines of something Relative can use to structure writing or time, possibly with prompts or with ideas for lists or exercises. Maybe Relative or I have the wrong word with journals, or I've misdirected people by mentioning stickers. Apologies.
posted by paduasoy at 11:40 AM on September 24, 2019

She might like Burn After Writing (for Teens) where you get daily prompts and ideas in a structured format.

Alturnatively, if you're feeling crafty, you could buy a blank journal and personalize yourself for her by using some of the thousands of writing prompts for students online! You can organize it for the school year and include some fun stickers and maybe a pack of Tombow brush pens so she can doodle and decorate it on her own. If you do, get a journal by Scribbles That Matter -- they have bleed-proof paper so ink won't show on the other side.
posted by ananci at 1:21 PM on September 24, 2019 [1 favorite]

I'm very fond of the book "Draw Your Day: An Inspiring Guide to Keeping a Sketch Journal". It's also a very attractive aesthetic item in and of itself to page through.
posted by past unusual at 2:35 PM on September 24, 2019 [1 favorite]

I wrote that Planning for Weirdos question and made a Pinterest board out of it.

As for Kawaii aesthetic: do you have a Daiso near you? It's a Japanese dollar store that has shops everywhere in the world and they have TONS of stationery items. Japanese and Korean stationery shops may have what you're after: Notebook Therapy, Kawaii Pen Shop, JetPens

Keri Smith has a ton of books with creative prompts - mostly geared towards visual art but I'm sure writing also works. This BuzzFeed list of journals that are fun to use seem to be what you're looking for.
posted by divabat at 11:35 PM on September 24, 2019 [1 favorite]

(this is exactly my jam especially around that age so if we're on the right track I can go hunting further)
posted by divabat at 11:38 PM on September 24, 2019

Sorry, one more: the term you want is "guided journal". Chronicle Books has a ton of examples - they unfortunately don't ship outside the US, but what I've been doing is searching the titles to find a local seller (Booktopia seems to have them).
posted by divabat at 11:46 PM on September 24, 2019 [1 favorite]