It’s that time a year that those of us who keep reading journals are gathering our supplies to create next years iteration. Some people start with completely blank dot grid journals, some go for premade reading journals, heck some just keep single sheets or bookmarks with their review on them.

I’m personally in the blank dot grid journal camp, but mostly because I like to be able to fully customize it how I want. That being said, I thought I would share some of my favorite supplies.

Dot Grid Journal – I personally prefer the Paperage A5 dot grid journal, it’s a good price and the paper has a decent thickness. I’ve been using a Paperage for the last few years and been very happy with it. The pages are not as thick as they could be, so heavy marker/pen might bleed through a little, but I’ve only experienced this a small handful of times.

As to what pages I create, I typically have a few set monthly pages that I create myself, then once all of those are accounted for I use a mixture of premade templates and hand created designs for things such as challenges, genre trackers, best books of the year and more.

If you’re looking for more structure there are tons of options available, such as The Clever Fox Reading Journal, or other styles of reading journals that already have templates set up.

Markers – Now, everyone has their preference when it comes to what they use to write in their journals and I’m no different. I primarily use Tombow Twin Tones, I love that they have both a marker tip and a fine tip, but also use a lot of gel pens and other markers (Grabie is another great brand that I use a lot).

The Tombows are also great if you’re wanting to create templates with art, or go back over a guideline with a thicker tip. I’ve used them in all of my journals and they’ve been great.

Washi Tape and Stickers – I definitely like making page spreads on my own, but I also really like to decorate pages with stickers and washi tape. This could range anywhere from a washi tape border, little stickers dotting the margins, or even full page stickers. They could be decoration, or in some instances you can buy full page stickers that are spreads of their own (such as Sweet Bean Plans’ range of reading challenge pages and large bookshelf pages). My reading journal is very much a mix of all these things.

There are always other supplies you may want to use too, in my challenge section I often use page tabs to help me flip to certain sections more easily, or I might use a special paperclip to mark a specific page. With reading journals (and any journals really) it is all about your own enjoyment.

If you’d like to see the supplies I mentioned above as well as some other items I recommend, check out my list on my Amazon Storefront titled Reading Journal Essentials!

Are you setting up a reading journal for next year?

Happy reading (and journaling)!

*Disclaimer: Amazon links included may be affiliate links that I receive a commission on if purchased through.