val's notebooks
Junk Journaling
I'm a journal girly. I love writing and documenting stuff about my life and because I struggle making friends, notebooks and books are a central part of my mental health process.
I became interested in junk journaling during the pandemic, when I was looking for handcrafting hobbies that weren't crochet, embroidery or painting. I already had an art journal and made a couple of altered books, so when I was watching videos about bookbinding, the topic basically crossed my path. I was fascinated and instantly fell in love. Fast forward to 2025 I have more junk journals that I could ever use lmao.
But what is a junk journal? Well, Margarete Miller has a great video that basically summarizes my thought process about the practice and expands on different ideas about how to use them. However, since you're reading this, a junk journal is a journal (duh) made out of materials that in any other circumstance might end on the trash: loose paper, receipts, junk mail, old postcards or photos, magazine pages or specific images, book pages, old drawings, etc. A lot people use “digitals”, digital pages or images that other people sell or offer as freebies, they tend to come in thematic packs and you just print them and use them. I personally don't do it because 1) I don't see the point or the correlation with the “junk” part of the journaling and 2) even if I wanted to use them, printing ink is absolutely expensive. So yeah, a junk journal is made out of junk, stuff that other people consider as trash but that you collect for whatever reason.
“OK, I want to make one but I don't know how to use it” is an usual question and the answer is pretty simple: in whatever way you want to. I, for example, use mine mostly as diaries, but a couple of them were commonplace books and my next reading journal is going to be a specific junk journal I made last year. Some people might collage on them, or use them as planners, others are more into creative journaling and there's even people that only make the journals per se because they love putting papers and materials together but not necessarily want to fill them with something.
Junk Journaling might sound silly and like a lot of work but if you like collaging or art journaling give it a try because it is relaxing and really fun.
Here are some of my favorite journals and spreads:
Some resources I've collected over the years
☆ megjournals makes absolutely beautiful collaged journals. If you need inspiration and love flowers, she's your number one option.
☆ ShanoukiArt mostly has art content but she also makes and fills junk journals. The best option for art inspiration. She recently did a series called My Big Fat Pink Journal, where she basically shared tips in how to decorate a junk journal with a color theme.
☆ Nik the Booksmith has neat and pretty journal tutorials. Nik is one of those who makes absolutely professionally junk journals. Seriously, they might look like old books but in reality are junk journals. She also makes miniatures which are really cute!
☆ Johanna Clough is your go to for "journal with me" videos. She also makes and sells pretty junk journals.
☆ Joie de fi is the queen of pockets. Seriously, she has like a hundred tutorials on how to make pockets out of book pages. I love her a lot. She took some personal time for herself in 2024, but this year she came back and is on fire!
☆ Roxy Creations is the channel you need if you don't want to journal alone. Just put her in the background and work your magic. You don't even need to follow her tutorials, just create. BUT, If you want tutorials, she hosts the Roxy's Weekly Challenge where she basically brings a weekly tutorial covering different types of ephemera making.
☆ Pam from The Paper Outpost is your granny crafter. She has so much wisdom, content and good sense of humor that you won't get bored listening to her.
☆ I have a weird relationship with Barbara from 49dragonflies. On one hand, I love that she's so creative and dedicated to her craft but on the other one I kinda get frustrated and overwhelmed with how many products she uses, but that's a me problem. Recycling for Junk Journals series is a gem and I will always thank her for getting me into making softcover journals out of paper bags. Also, her laugh is so contagious and cute.
☆ PinkOddBird is for the weird and gothic people. Seriously, I love her spooky content.
☆ Even though Tracie from Tracie Fox Creative uses a lot of digitals, her content is really accessible for those who don't use them. I love that she experiments a lot with different techniques and materials.
☆ 1134 Press is THE place for the ones who love eclecticism and relaxing content. I seriously recommend Brie's Junk Journal Basics series, it's just such a different approach to the craft.
☆ I recently discovered Kathleen Mower but her content is amazing. She shares a lot of tips and her journals are definitely designed to write on them, which is a huge bonus for me.
♡ Artful journals: making and embellishing memory books, garden diaries & travel albums by Janet Takahashi.
♡ Adventures in bookbinding: handcrafting mixed-media books by Jeannine Stein.
♡ Unique handmade books by Alisa J Golden.
♡ Expressive handmade books by Alisa J Golden.
♡ The art of the handmade book: designing, decorating, and binding one-of-a-kind books by Flora Fennimore.
☆ Wikimedia Commons has hundreds (if not millions) of public domain images that you can use in whatever porject you have. Here's a video that I found useful for how to use the site.
☆ The Internet Archive hosts a variety of images from different libraries and museums, many of them are public domain. I personally like to visit the Flickr Commons collection because all the images there a free and legal to use for whatever purpose you have.
☆ At the MET they have curated a collection of over 400,000 copyright free to use images that are released under the CC0 - Creative Commons Zero license. That means no cost to you to download and because of the CC0 license, you do not need to give any attribution. The MET collection is called Open Access and it is another resource for how to find free public domain images.
♡ what to write in your journal
♡ Book Lovers Junk Journal
♡ JUNK JOURNALING? NOT REALLY, BUT SORT OF
♡ Junk Journal made from JUNK and FREE stuff
♡ FREE Finds for Junk Journals
♡ Eclectic Modern & “CLEAN” Junk Journal
