What’s the Purpose of a Junk Journal?

A junk journal is a type of journal or scrapbook that allows creative self-expression by using materials that would otherwise be considered scrap or “junk”.

While scrapbooking has been a popular craft for a long time, junk journals take the creative process a step further by embracing imperfection and disregarding normal conventions.

Junk journaling allows self-expression through bringing together materials you might not have thought would go well together. Rather than following strict rules or guidelines, they celebrate spontaneous creativity.

A Creative Outlet

Junk journals provide the perfect outlet for creativity. They’re especially great for people who don’t like to start from a blank page. Instead, you can gather materials first and then rearrange them to see how they fit together.

Eclectic pages then become a canvas for collage, doodling, embedding objects, and other decorative embellishments.

With no strict rules or guidelines, junk journals foster spontaneity. Their pages become canvases to freely experiment with collage, drawing, pocketing memorabilia, and mixed media.

Layouts can be designed intuitively according to personal theme, month, or mood rather than rigid chronology – like a bullet journal might be.

Stress Relief

Getting lost in the process of cutting, pasting, drawing and experimentation calms the mind and relieves anxiety.

The process of cutting, pasting and embellishing provides relaxation similar to meditation or yoga. Getting lost in the joy of repurposing feeds both sides of the brain. Left-brained task lists and right-brained doodles intermingle harmoniously.

There are no rights or wrongs, so junk journaling fosters a relaxed environment to freely explore ideas and have fun. The creative process releases feel-good endorphins that counteract stress hormones.

Memory Keeping

One of the main purposes of a junk journal is documented memory keeping.

Photos, drawings, ticket stubs, greeting cards – any ephemera can find a loving home between the pages. If you love to collect ephemera from your life but aren’t sure what to do with it, a junk journal is a great place to start.

Over time, junk journal pages become rich visual autobiographies, cultivating inspiration through unintentionally curated juxtapositions.

In a strange way, flipping through old junk journals can transport you back in time through memory triggers and take you back to the time in your life when you created it.

Art Journaling

A junk journal is a great place to test out your art supplies or go wild making mixed media pieces. It’s like an “anything goes” type of journal, so each page can be different from the last.

One page might be a paper collage, the next might be a collection of tags from every tea you drank this month. While the next page can be covered in pretty acrylic paints, and the next can be your colored pencil swatches.

One of my favorite parts of a junk journal is that you never have to start from a blank page. By including lots of printable pages, pages you found in old books or magazines, decorative papers and more, every page you turn to already has something on it. You never have to stare at a scary white page wondering what to do next.

Self Exploration

Over time, patterns may emerge that provide a richer understanding of yourself.

Through pasting in the things that catch your eye, your junk journal becomes a visual timeline of your growth, evolution, interests and what truly sparks joy or inspiration for you.

Unstructured collages can uncover unconscious symbols and metaphors with personal meaning. Documenting moods, memories and streams of consciousness offers valuable self-reflection.

Even spontaneous doodles or fragments of poetry may hold clues about inner worlds. Revisiting junk journal pages helps recognize recurring themes and track personal growth or changes in perspective over time.

Upcycling

Junk journals champion reuse and repurposing. Scraps of paper, ribbons, buttons, gift wrap – “trash” transforms into treasure through creative repurposing.

Coffee stained papers, remnants of wrapping paper, aging ticket stubs, and scraps find new life when repurposed into whimsical page layouts. Rather than throwing away items deemed unusable, junk journaling encourages appreciating found beauty in discarded objects.

Junk journals are an eco-friendly and sustainable art form that lets you create using the things you already have around you!

A Beautiful Keepsake

Junk journals take on more meaning and value as they accumulate pages over months or years. The handmade quality and blending of personal ephemera makes each one unique.

As journals are passed down generations, they come to feel like portals into another place and time. Grandchildren glimpse their ancestors’ daydreams, hobbies and challenges through an eclectic scrapbook lens.

Handwriting evolves while fashions and landscapes change around preserved mementos. The collage format provides context that raw documents alone could never convey.

Start Your Junk Journal Today!

Junk journals are expressive scrapbooks that promote stress relief, memory keeping, inspiration and upcycling through unstructured, creative play with mixed materials. Their chaotic yet cohesive pages become a treasure to flip through later and savor the crinkly, visually rich pages.

I hope this blog post gave you plenty of inspiration in your journaling journey!