Journals and Junk

The ever-crafty Val

​In the days leading up to my recent birthday, colorful envelopes began appearing in our mailbox. Guessing they were birthday cards, I set them aside to open on the actual day.
 
Except for one. More a card-sized parcel than an ordinary envelope, it intrigued me with its cobbled-together lumpiness. When I noticed it was from my uber-creative friend Val in North Carolina, I couldn’t resist opening it right away.
 
In an earlier email exchange, Val had told me about her latest obsession: making “junk journals” and altered books from bits of this and that. I had no idea that junk journaling is a thing, but it is. Val confessed she’d gotten wrapped up in YouTube videos showing how to make the whimsical little assemblages.
 
More on those videos in a moment, but back to that mysterious envelope.

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The front cover of the junk journal my friend Val made for my birthday

​Inside, I found a mini-journal filled with a most imaginative and personalized assortment of miscellany. The cover was fashioned from a small manila envelope, folded in half, with one end left open to form a pocket for stowing notes and mementos. Val had covered the outside with a tropical print reminiscent of Samoa, where we met as teenagers in the 1960s. Inside were more pockets and envelopes made from magazine and catalog pages, sheet music, and so on, and stuffed with little treasures: maps of Samoa and my home state of Oklahoma, a recipe for Michigan Party Cheese Bake, clipped from some fundraising cookbook, plus other scraps and tidbits with special meaning to the two of us.

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The inside was full of surprises

More treasures to discover

​In the center was a two-page spread of another tropical scene, with Val’s face smiling from the window of a beach house and two little figures like the ones that populated the cartoons she used to draw in our Samoa days. My birthday journal was a delight from cover to cover, one that I’ll enjoy looking through again and again.

Val as a centerfold

Once you venture into junk journaling, you may find yourself desperately needing things you never even knew existed, like this corner-rounding punch

​At Val’s prompting, I decided to try my hand at junk journaling (fully aware that the last thing I need right now is another project, but rationalizing that a hands-on activity would provide a good and necessary break from all the writing and book-related work that’s consuming my life these days. Sound convincing? I thought so.)
 
A junk journal is really whatever you want it to be, but it usually includes some combination of words, pictures, and other memorabilia, such as brochures, ticket stubs, maps, calendars, cards, or whatever else you want to include, all assembled in a helter-skelter way. The idea appealed to my passion for making collages and my tendency to hoard paper memorabilia with which I have no idea what to do.
 
But before I plunged in, I felt like I needed at least a little guidance. That’s how I found myself in the online realm of junk journal inspiration. It soon became clear that, like scrapbooking, junk journaling is one of those hobbies people can go a bit overboard on. I found photos of amazingly—and intimidatingly—elaborate journals, along with lists of all sorts of paraphernalia one might want to purchase, either to decorate the journal (where’s the “junk” in that??) or to use in crafting the journal: pre-made pockets, special paper cutters, fancy papers, bookbinding twine.

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​Yeesh. This is why I tend to stay away from Pinterest and crafting blogs. They’re inspiring, yes, but they also feed my insecurity when I start comparing my slapdash efforts to other people’s lavish creations. What’s more, have you noticed that it’s virtually impossible to find written instructions and diagrams for anything anymore? Learning how to do even the simplest thing requires watching a YouTube video. Or several.

I used Val's design as a model, copying her open-ended manila envelope cover

​​I could see hours, if not days, swirling down the drain. So I set limits. I would watch only enough to learn a couple of things: How to make origami envelopes and library card-style pockets. Then I’d figure out the rest by studying Val’s example and just winging it. This decision also helped with the intimidation factor. Junk journals are supposed to be messy, but some people’s messy still comes out looking a lot more artful than mine. The sooner I stopped looking at videos and started doing my own work, the happier I’d be.

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On a snowy afternoon, I gathered up paper, glue, scissors, magazine clippings, and other supplies to make my first junk journal

​I chose a theme for my journal: Yoga and meditation. Now, here’s where it gets a little woo-woo. I went looking for card stock to use for my journal pages and found a stash left over from previous projects and recycled from other purposes. For my first page, I chose a pale yellow piece that seemed to stand out from the others. I had noticed that some of the pieces of card stock had color on only one side, with gray on the back, so I turned over the yellow piece to see if it had color on both sides.

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The other side

​​​Here’s what I found on the “back,” which had originally been the front: A flyer for classes taught by our beloved yoga teacher Ellie, whose death two and a half years ago devastated our community. Of course I wouldn’t sacrifice that flyer to make an ordinary page, but I’d find a way to give it a special place in the journal.

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​What else I included: Pockets holding decorated cards, with spaces on the backs for writing thoughts or inspiring words I come across in my reading; a freehand mandala I drew when I was going through a mandala-drawing phase; a collection of cards representing the seven chakras; a print of a collage I made for Ellie and another one that she especially liked; an origami envelope, made from Yoga Journal pages, into which I tucked a card with the names of my yoga friends. 

The large flower is actually a card, on the back of which I can write thoughts or inspirational quotes

More little cards, tucked into a flower pocket, and a calming reminder

My mandala and another pocket and card

The chakra cards

The Ellie collage, tucked into a different style of pocket

Origami envelope, made from old Yoga Journal magazine pages

The yogini card

​I’m still putting together my junk journal, and even when it’s “finished,” it’ll still be a work in progress—something I can add to whenever I find something that fits.

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​Will I make others? That remains to be seen, although I already have ideas for several.

​Will you make one? I hope so. And if you do, send me pictures, and I’ll share them in an upcoming blog post.

Want to know more about junk journals? Check out these websites:
A Beginner’s Guide to Junk Journaling
Junk Journal Tutorials For Beginners
What is a Junk Journal? Junk Journaling 101 for Beginners