What is a junk journal? A plain answer and the words for it
A junk journal is a handmade book filled with found paper: envelopes, receipts, tickets, old book pages and scraps. It is part diary, part collage, and it is never meant to look finished.
Start with 40 pages free. No card needed.
The junk is the material, not the quality. Packaging, post and paper bound for the recycling become the pages, the pockets and the things tucked into them.
Nothing says what one is for. Some people record a week, some keep one for a trip, and some make pages only for the pleasure of making them.
See also: what a smash book is, junk journal supplies, free and bought, a junk journal kept on a screen, junk journal ideas from paper you already have, what scrapbooking is.
Make a digital scrapbook
Add your photos and keepsakes in tbf scrapbook, then arrange them on the pages. Make a junk journal online.
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Signature | A bundle of folded pages sewn at the fold; a journal holds one or more |
| Ephemera | Paper made to be thrown away: tickets, labels, stamps, receipts |
| Tuck spot | A slit, band or pocket that holds a loose tag or card |
| Fussy cut | An image cut out closely round its edge |
| Tip-in | A smaller piece fixed along one edge so it flips open |
| Altered book | An old book whose pages are painted, glued or cut into a journal |
| Glue book | A cheap notebook filled with a day's scraps and little decoration |
What goes in one
Anything flat enough to close the book on. Most journals mix bought papers with things kept from daily life, and the kept things are the ones people go back to.
What it is for
For some it is a diary with texture: the bus ticket beside a line about where you went. For others it is a making habit, ten minutes of cutting and gluing at the end of a day.
Where it differs from a scrapbook
A scrapbook usually tells one event in order, with photographs at the centre. A junk journal is looser and slower, and it is built round paper rather than pictures.
Steps
Keep a box for a fortnight
Post, packaging, tickets and labels. Do not sort yet.
Fold one signature
Five sheets of A4 folded in half make a booklet of 20 pages.
Fill one spread
One background, one pocket and one thing you wrote.
Fold the next
A junk journal grows one signature at a time, so stop whenever you like.
Questions
Why is it called a junk journal?
Because it is made from junk: paper and packaging that was on its way to the bin.
Do you write in a junk journal?
Most people do, in the gaps between scraps or on tags tucked into pockets. Some pages carry no writing at all.
Is a junk journal the same as a smash book?
Close. A smash book was a ready-printed journal you glued into; a junk journal is usually made from scratch.