Choose a page in your Grimoire.

You can decorate this page in any way you like. Or you can leave it plain.

Take a piece of pretty paper. It could be wrapping paper, scrapbooking paper, or even a thin piece of cardboard that you’ve painted or decorated in some way.

We are going to make a pocket using this piece of paper, cardboard, cardstock, or whatever you are choosing.

You might want to make the pocket tall enough to contain many letters to yourself. Maybe you don’t want more than one letter to yourself per pocket. Do what makes you feel good.

Cut your material to fit the width of the page. Apply adhesive—this can be double stick tape or glue—to three sides of your material, on the inside. Apply glue sparingly so it doesn’t squish everywhere inside the pocket and adhere too much to the page beneath it.

You can also add washi tape to the outside edges, the three you are sticking down, to make sure it stays better if this appeals to you.

You want to make sure the top edge has no glue and is open so that you can put letters and so on into the pocket to store them for when you need them.

Next, pick some paper and something to write with.

Write yourself a letter that gives you encouragement for your bad days, for your sad days, for your down days. Whatever it means to you, write to cheer yourself up.

Maybe you want to write a draft first, so you can take statements like ‘ignore your bullies’ and turn them into something more along the lines of, ‘you are amazing,’ ‘you’re doing you’re best/keep doing your best,’ and so forth. Make sure your letter is full of positive statements about yourself, to yourself.

You want to be able to come back to this letter whenever you are feeling down and read it. You want to encourage yourself, to give yourself hope, to remind yourself of the good in your life. You don’t want to come to find encouragement and end up finding a letter you wrote detailing all the things you need to do that you haven’t and why you suck for failing to do all those things. Do you see?

Remember, you are coming back to this letter whenever you need to, so you don’t want to seal up the letter or anything like that.

Fold your letter up. Stick it in your pocket. And there you go.

Now, you can write something on the outside of your pocket to remind yourself what the letter is about. Use stickers or just a black pen. Whatever floats your boat.

Also, you do not have to stop at a single letter. You can write several letters of encouragement. You can make several pockets stacked on top of one another on the same page.

Cut one pocket larger. Cut the next pocket an inch shorter. Cut the pocket after that an inch short. And so on. Glue the tallest one down first. Then the next tallest on top of that. Always align the bottom edges of all the envelopes, so that the tops always show that extra inch of space between pockets so you can stuff your letters and any mementos you might want to into the pockets.

Create as many pockets as you want.

Write a letter, or two, or more, for each pocket.

You might not be able to visibly label every single pocket and be able to read it clearly with this method, but don’t let that stop you.

Another idea would be to decorate an envelope to put your letter in, and stick that envelope into your pocket. You don’t have to decorate your envelopes. You can simply label them if you like so you know what is inside. Or maybe you want to write something more along the lines of ‘when you feel x, read this”, something of that nature.

Remember, decorate does not mean you have to cover every spec of space on the envelope. Adding a sticker, or a bit of washi, if that is enough for you, then that is enough. Maybe you want to draw a little smiley face, or maybe a stick figure. It’s your journal. Your Grimoire.

Do what feels good and right to you.

You can never have enough encouragement. Write as many letters as you want.

Remember this is your Grimoire. Create as many pocket pages as you want, as you need. Write as many letters to help yourself get through the days as makes you happy.