Junk journaling has been growing a lot on social media as of late, especially on TikTok, Instagram and Pinterest. Today we’ll be going over junk journaling: what it is, its benefits, how to start, the supplies needed and much more!
WHat is junk journaling?
Junk journaling is a crafty hobby using ephemera or “junk” and other stationery goodies to create a creative memory time capsule. Junk journaling combines scrapbooking/collaging with regular journaling to create a perfect mixture to solidify and keep memories.
Unlike scrapbooking, junk journaling is focused primarily around free items you collect in your everyday life, like napkins, flyers, postcards, concert wristbands, etc., making it extremely inexpensive and accessible.
I’ve only recently discovered the term “junk journaling,” but it’s a practice I’ve been doing for years, accidentally. I’ve always been the sentimental type to keep ticket stubs and photo-booth strips and have enjoyed gluing or taping them into journals in order to write about the experience and my emotions on what happened.
The Benefits of Junk Journaling
Writing by itself is extremely beneficial for a person as it allows us to understand ourselves better.
Joan Didion once said, “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”
Writing allows us to work out what we are feeling and thinking and allows us to better digest our own emotions. Now, to combine this with art, a medium often used to put your finger on things you cannot put words to, makes this practice the perfect combination of creative and reflective.
I find that it’s an extremely relaxing activity that allows me to slow down and think about my memories, usually good memories, but not always. Journaling about bad memories can be extremely helpful as well as it allows you to fully process how you’re feeling and put it into words. With whatever you can’t manage to put into words, you can put into the art aspect of junk journaling.
According to Mayo Clinic’s article “The intersection of art and health: How art can help promote well-being,” we learn that art has been proven to help increase serotonin levels, increase blood flow to the part of the brain associated with pleasure, foster new ways of thinking and imagine a more hopeful future. It’s been proven to improve overall well-being, quality of life, interpersonal relationships, freedom of expression and emotional resilience.
According to Positive Psychology’s article “5 Benefits of Journaling for Mental Health,” the mental health benefits of journaling include reduced anxiety, improved awareness and perception of events, better-regulated emotions and better or encouraged awareness.
Physical, cognitive and emotional benefits of journaling include lowered blood pressure, better mood, improved psychological well-being, higher student grade averages and lots more. All of these benefits are for journaling alone, yet combined with art (a practice proven to also be beneficial towards the human mind and body), it makes it even more so. Not to mention it’s also just plain fun.
The process
So where do you start? I say start by collecting. Collecting not only ephemera and junk but also ideas and inspiration. Inspiration can come from anything in life. If you see a leaf and you look at it for a while, thinking “Wow, that’s a really nice leaf, it’s beautiful,” that can be inspiration, do something with that.
Make a page about leaves, pick up leaves on a walk and glue them in, write about the colors and the beauty of the leaves themselves. Then, write about the walk, the weather, how nice it was or what you thought about on your walk. Be on the lookout for not only little paper goodies and junk, but for ideas and memories that you would want to write about.
My favorite thing about junk journaling is the writing, so I may be biased, but I feel like one of the most important parts of junk journaling is the way you can write about anything, and, just like that, it becomes meaningful. You can take something that means nothing to most people and write extensively about it to the point where you give it meaning. Isn’t that beautiful?
I love that you can look around and find beauty in anything around you, in the adventures you go on, in the words you speak and the conversations you have, in the aspects of nature you observe and ponder and more. There is so much to write about if you just pay attention.
Don’t worry about the final product or everything looking perfect.
Sylvia Plath once said, “The thing about writing is not to talk, but to do it; no matter how bad or even mediocre it is, the process and production is the thing, not the sitting and theorizing about how one should write ideally, or how well one could write if one really wanted to or had the time.”
It doesn’t matter how good your junk journal pages are in the end; the point of them was the process of creating, the aspect of slowing down and reflection, and the benefits it brings. All of these were accomplished as long as you wrote something, as long as you glued something down or created a collage or piece of art.
Junk journaling as an archive
Virginia Woolf once said, “Nothing has really happened until it has been described.”
What better way to preserve a memory than combining both the written word and art? Like scrapbooking and journaling, junk journaling is a method of preserving memories, only it’s not through one single medium.
Junk journaling uses both the mediums of writing and art in order to preserve thoughts and memories, allowing them to be better solidified and remembered. If you had to look back on a memory and remember all its details, you’re more likely to remember if you’re looking at both writing and memorabilia/art.
The writing brings back all the thoughts and feelings you were experiencing, while the memorabilia/art brings back the sensory experience and can bring you back to the moment visually, where all of a sudden, you’re right back where you were whenever this memory took place.
In a world so digital and online, it’s amazing to have an analog or physical archive of memories, ideas and thoughts. I’ve seen this quote in quite a few places, and I feel like there’s a reason for that.
“Don’t let social media be your only method of documentation.”
In this modern age, I feel like we’ve lost the meaning behind a lot of physical media and the benefits that it can have.
The tactile experience of hand-writing something on a piece of paper and physically gluing in tickets and papers brings you into the moment and slows you down. It ties you more to the piece you’re creating. You did something here. You didn’t just take a picture and leave it to rot in your camera roll. You took this memory and created something out of it. You documented it and all that you felt in that moment.
You get rid of the act of passive documentation and archiving through physically creating your junk journal spreads. You become more involved and engaged in your own memories and, in turn, your own life.
The supplies
As mentioned above, the supplies needed are minimal. The basics include a pair of scissors, glue, tape, a notebook and all your accumulated junk. While plenty of people enjoy using extra bits and bobs like washi tape and stickers, none of that sort of stuff is required, making this hobby very beginner-friendly.
That being said, who doesn’t love a bit of indulgence, especially in something as pretty and exciting as stationery? I personally love getting stickers, washi tape and memo pads to include in my junk journaling.
And the best part is, you can get even more from the experience of shopping for this kind of stuff. You could make a whole junk journal page about your stationary outing, including the receipt and maybe the shop’s business card, and write about your day, what you found and what you’re feeling.
The junk
Here’s the really good part, the junk itself. You may be asking the following questions: “How does one start collecting junk?” or “Where does it come from?” You may even be saying, “I don’t even go and do anything, I don’t have anything to journal with.”
This is where creativity comes into play. Sure, we can all figure out that we can journal with photo booth strips or concert wristbands, but what if we don’t go to concerts or we can’t find any photo booths? This is where creativity comes into play.
There is bound to be materials around you somewhere. If you’re a student, it’s likely that all over campus, there are flyers and newspapers and papers that you can use to talk about events you went to or even just for letter titles.
Don’t forget about the post-it note to-do list you made this morning, which can be junk in your journal. We all have to eat, so you already have one method of getting junk, whether it’s asking the cashier to print your grocery receipt or taking a customized napkin from the restaurant you’re eating at.
Most of all, you can use this as a motivation to go and do stuff. I understand what it’s like to feel like you don’t actually do anything or experience anything in life the way others do. That it feels like all you do is school or work and then sleep until the next day. Use junk journaling as a motivation to make time to go out and do something. It doesn’t even have to cost money and it can be entirely alone.
Go to a local coffee shop and grab a cup holder. Bring a pencil and paper and go around tracing or sketching over different textures to trace the pattern onto your piece of paper. You could even bring around a stamp pad and use different objects you find around as stamps, like using a leaf or a flower as a stamp or even just put it in your junk journal by itself (a leaf bookmark would be so cute).
What I’m getting at here is that there are many things you can do, and let this be your motivation to go and do those things. Don’t be afraid to use the internet for motivation and ideas, it’s what it’s here for. See what other junk journalers are doing and using. There is a community around junk journaling that is, in general, pretty welcoming and accepting, no matter your skill level, method or process.
Final thoughts
Overall, I’ve found that junk journaling is a beautiful and meaningful creative hobby that can preserve memories as well as serve as a creative outlet. It’s an inexpensive and accessible medium with a multitude of benefits of junk journaling and plenty of reasons to start. Don’t be scared to take that step and try it out.
Trying new things can feel weird or uncomfortable, but the best part about junk journaling is that the outcome doesn’t matter; whatever it is, it’s yours.
Don’t be afraid to use junk journaling as your excuse to go out and experience life as well. Go to that coffee shop even if you have no one to go with. You can do all the fun things you romanticize and dream about by yourself. I know it may sound sad, but in reality, it’s your mindset.
It’s important to be able to enjoy time spent on your own and to enjoy your own presence. Going out alone isn’t sad and weird; it’s a “solo date” and you’re doing it to bond with yourself and become your own best friend. Keep an eye out for a future article where I’ll talk about experiencing life, even if you’re on your own.