For my internship over the summer, I moved across the country to DC where I knew no one and found myself living alone in the heart of the city. Knowing I would have time on my hands, I was determined to start a new hobby to fill my free time. But with only my clothes and my toiletries with me in DC, what craft could I choose that required few materials and produced a product that was easy to take home and took up little space?
Junk journaling only requires a notebook, a glue stick, and scissors. The finished product is a notebook with creatively composed brochures, tickets, receipts, and other scraps that can document your time spent or simply serve as a creative outlet.
I could not have chosen a better city to start my new hobby. DC is the land of museums and with that comes an endless supply of free handouts and junk journaling materials. My summer in DC also happened to be the 250th birthday of the United States, so there was no shortage of special events and celebrations to attend with their own pamphlets, pins, and stickers.
As I met new people through my internship, attended events, and explored DC, junk journaling offered me an outlet to record my adventures and process everything I learned throughout my experience living in the nation’s capital.
I’ve always liked collecting handouts and other mementos but with no way to organize them and no good place to put them, they are quickly lost or forgotten. Junk journaling creates a product that is easily stored and always in progress. Each time I add a new page, I look back on the previous pages. Unlike my camera roll that I rarely revisit, my junk journal is constantly evolving and will never simply take up storage or gather dust.
The act of carefully piecing together objects, finding the best composition, integrating drawings and words to tell a story is fun and addicting. There is something special about combining mediums to create a story that becomes a story in and of itself. But to fill a book, you must be patient and continue adding to your journal. You can only add entries as fast as you have the materials to journal with, which motivated me to go on more adventures around DC.
One of the best parts about junk journaling is that it is only for you and is not something that is displayed on a wall or posted online for everyone to see. There is no pressure to create a masterpiece. You junk journal for yourself and after creating a page, you close the book and return it to its shelf. You get to decide if you want to share it with others and if not, it’s only an ordinary notebook.
I recommend junk journaling to anyone looking to start a new hobby. There is no doubt that after my summer in DC, I am going to continue to expand my journal until I can fill every page. Not only does junk journaling provide an outlet to process your life, it also turns into a book of memories that you can look back on. While living in DC, it was easy to miss family and friends and at times, wish I was somewhere else. But looking back in my journal, I remembered all of the experiences I had and people I met in DC that made my summer memorable. Starting your own junk journal is as easy as picking up a notebook, a glue stick, and a pair of scissors. So what are you waiting for? Get started!
