I used Photoshop CS, but the instructions should be the same for PS6 and PS7. You can modify this to work with other programs too.

Here is what we are going to make:

Sample of what the finished mat looks like

Let's begin!

Create a new document, 4x6 in. – 300dpi – white background.
If you wish to make it a color besides white, you can choose your color and flood fill. (In Photoshop, click on the color picker in the tools palette and choose your color. Click ok. Then, do ALT+BACKSPACE to fill with the foreground color)

Screen cap of tools palette

I added a rectangle at the top and the bottom to put in a title and emphasis journaling. Here’s how you do that:

• First, zoom out to get a better overall view of your mat. Click CTRL-(MINUS SIGN). That should zoom you out. Do SHIFT-CTRL-N to make a new layer. Click ok to close the dialog box. This should put a new layer in above the one you started with.

• Now, hit the “D”-key to set the colors back to the default and hit the “X”-key to switch the foreground and background colors. Top box in the color picker should be white (foreground color) and the bottom box should be black (background color).

• Now, click on the selection marquee tool (see diagram-it’s in the tools palette, top left and looks like a dotted square). Click and drag to create a rectangle to your liking. Make sure you have your new layer selected (click on it in the layers palette to ‘highlight’ it). Fill the selection (the part with the marching ants around it) by CTRL-BACKSPACE. That should fill the rectangle you made with white. You can do CTRL-D to deselect and get rid of those marching ants. If you want to move your rectangle to a different spot, do it now.

You can add another rectangle to the bottom of your journaling mat the same way.

Now, merge the visible layers by clicking SHIFT+CTRL+E. That merges the layers into one.

EXTRA STUFF:
If you want to fancy it up a little, you can use your brushes and stamp or brush on some designs. I added some grungy brushwork to mine.
You can add texture to your mat by using filters or Photoshop’s FILTER>TEXTURE>TEXTURIZER filter. Adjust the settings to your liking. I used Xenofex2’s crumple filter for mine.

All done!