What is in a Journal?

"What you don't use, you loose" seems to hold true for creativity as well as many other areas in life. I can tell that I have allowed a slow slip of my "artsy side" over time. My ability to brainstorm ideas (even for seemingly uncreative subjects) has wavered. What can be done to stop this you ask? I believe the answer can be found in doing something creative each day. 

One way to accomplish this is through the use of a journal. When I was in school, a journal was a notebook where students were forced to write about a subject that the teacher provided each day. The idea was brilliant, but the actual writing for me was a total nightmare. Children seem to have a natural creative flow, but something happens to them when adults try to force children to conform. Why couldn't my school journal have had stickers, had random drawings, be written in colored ink, be written in upsidedown, or be about the subjects that I daydreamed about in class? As an adult, I realize that the restrictions placed on my creativity as a child may be contributing in some hidden way to my struggle to be creative as an adult. Has it happened to you too? 

Recently I have started seeing on the internet a hybrid between a journal and a scrapbook called a smash book. Kristina at http://www.kwernerdesign.com/blog/?p=6929 has made one to plan her home office/craft room. A smash book could be made for gardening, cooking, baking, home design, clothing design, doodling, painting, writing poetry, crafting, sewing, traveling, writing music, or recording the events of a day. This may be the perfect journal for me (even better than Pinterest) to gather my ideas. The possibilities are limitless.