Intro
Welcome to Journal on it, the podcast where we slow down, tune in and turn the page on the story we tell ourselves. I’m Shannon, and each week we explore the powerful practice of journaling and self-reflection to help you reconnect with your thoughts, your purpose, and your inner voice. Whether you’re new to journaling or you’ve got stacks of filled notebooks, this space is for anyone ready to grow, heal, and get honest one page at a time.
Let’s take deep. Write freely and reflect boldly.
Junk Journals
Episode two junk journals. What is a junk journal? You’re probably asking if you’re not somebody who journals often. You’ve probably never even stumbled upon this. It is a creative journal style. What happens is. You from start to finish, create, and then fill a journal. And what I mean by create is you build the journal from scratch.
Every single page you are putting together, people sometimes do this page by page and some people will actually go and make a signature or a group of pages and then turn them into a full blown after you’ve got a couple of those journal. This is a process that takes. Forever. But it is a beautiful piece once you’re completed.
And I mean, it’s absolutely stunning. I’ve never seen one of these that wasn’t absolutely fabulous when it was finished. This is one of the most creative ways I have seen to journal. And the reason I say that is you are building it page by page, paragraph by paragraph into what you think. And what you feel in that moment.
Pros
Now you’re probably asking what are the pros and cons like I did last time? And a lot of the pros and cons will be the same because in the end, this does become an exceptionally decorated personal journal. But in addition to that, there are some other pros that I have found. Some of them being it is a creative outlet. It’s a place where you can get inspired to make something entirely new. Something from scratch and that can be a very relaxing and a very inspiring part of your day.
Cons
Now, for the biggest con when it comes to this style of journaling, and it’s one, I think everybody when they journal kind of comes across is this takes up a lot of space and a lot of time. And I mean in addition to the time it takes you to write, you are also taking time to create this journal from scratch before you even get to the writing, and that can be kind of difficult to deal with. The other part of it taking up space is you need supplies and I mean, a massive amount of supplies for this, you’re gonna need of course, everything you need to make the journal.
Supplies
So that’s pages, that’s the stuff to sew the pages. That’s the punches to make it so you can sew the pages. The whole shebang. Okay? All of that, in addition to everything you may wanna put inside of this from envelopes, stickers, uh, ephemera, if you haven’t heard of that, ephemera, is any kind of like older material that you’re gonna use to decorate it. A lot of people will go find.
Old receipts, old vouchers, tickets, things of that nature to include in these. I know quite a few people who use rubber stamps who kind of like use distressing stuff to kind of make the pages look a little older than what they are. All of that takes up physical space in your area. If you’re like me and you just have a little desk that you do all of your journaling on that can take up almost all of it and leave you no space to actually write. And that would essentially defeat the purpose.
Purpose
I know some people, when they make these, they do actually turn them into gifts for their friends or their family. Um, there are people who actually sell these, so if you want to write in one of these, but you know, you don’t have the space or you don’t have the time to pour into this craft, uh, there are ways to acquire a junk journal, uh, in which you can write in from there.
Like once you have it, I know most people have like little envelopes or little pages or pockets filled with little goodies, so there’s always plenty to kind of like dig into and play with. One of the other things I’ve seen people do with this style of journal is actually fill them entirely with decoration and use them as display or art pieces in their home.
I find this to be absolutely brilliant. If you have the time and space to dedicate to filling one of these entirely with arts and decoration, I think they can be a beautiful centerpiece to either a bookshelf or a dining room table. Or a coffee table, something for people to flip through and enjoy. I think that this could be a really good piece for me personally, I have never created a full-blown junk journal.
My Experience
What I have done is taken inspiration and done like a series of pages that are junk journal in style. Where like I do the distressing where I’ve done stamps and I’ve decorated these pages to the max that I can while leaving space to write. I can’t say that I’ve done a full blown one. I do want to, I just don’t currently have the space to make that happen.
But when I did do my little like sampling of junk journal in my like personal journal. I chose like six pages that were a little further out than where I was currently writing. And what I did is I made borders using stickers. I put envelopes and filled them with little things. Um, I did this right before a trip to Scotland and I filled it with all these little trinkets that I knew I wanted to, uh, take inspiration from.
Like one of them was like a tiny little cow, ’cause I knew I was gonna see Highland cows and I put a bunch of cow stickers on those pages and I kind of used, at the time I was writing with a fountain pen that had like a reddish brown ink in it. And I used that ink to kind of make the outside of the pages look different, kind of give them a little aging, a little distress. Um, I actually, there was one where I cut the center of the page out and used it as like a frame for what was on the next page.
Inspiration
So there’s a lot of different ways you can do it, and there’s a whole bunch of people who do these beautiful ones. I will link below to one of my favorites. She has a Spotify podcast slash YouTube page, and she’s constantly putting out new content and everything she does is beautiful.
So I think you’ll have a good time watching her or listening however you wish, but definitely like there’s so many ways you can go about doing it. In conclusion, I think junk journaling can be a really fun and creative addition to your journaling practice. I think it’s one of those things that can really enhance what you do and allow you to express what you are feeling and thinking in that moment.
In a really creative and different way than most people think to do. So if you decide you want a junk journal or if you decide you wanna do a few pages like what I do, uh, feel free to let me know. Tell me what you think about it when you’re all done, and I look forward to seeing you guys soon.
Outro
Thanks for joining me on journal on It where we slow down. Tune in and turn the page together. If something resonated with you today, take a moment to journal it out and let the words lead you. You can find show notes, journal prompts and more at the link in the episode description. Remember, growth happens when Honest page at a time. Until next time, keep writing, keep reflecting and keep showing up for yourself.
I’m Shannon and I’ll meet you back
Music: https://pixabay.com/music/beats-whispering-vinyl-loops-lofi-beats-281193/
Resources: https://artjournalist.com/what-is-a-junk-journal/