I’ve been getting a head start on ways to combat that seasonal depression that we all know is right around the corner this time of year, and as part of this, I’ve really been focusing more on crafting. I’ve continued to work on cross-stitching and a latch hook rug I started about a year ago, but more and more lately I’ve been following some of the trends I’ve seen on TikTok around junk journaling.
I did not know about “junk journaling” as its own concept until the TikTok algorithm put it in front of me, but it’s basically a combination of scrapbooking and journaling. Instead of going out and buying intentional scrapbooking supplies, however, junk journaling uses more, well, junk.
I have purchased some washi tape and a couple of sticker packs and markers, but nothing like what I would be buying if I were simply creating a scrapbook. The bulk of the scraps I’m using in my junk journaling are items from whatever I’m writing about that day, like brochures, receipts, or photos I printed out from my phone. </span>
Journaling, in general, is something I’ve done for most of my life. (In fact, during 2020, I made it my New Year’s resolution to journal every day. I stuck with it, but that was an ordinary journal where I really just wrote down my thoughts on random things and rehashed the day’s events. And yes, 2020, was perhaps the worst year to commit to daily journaling.)
Junk journaling though is more of a creative outlet for me, so I love it more for that reason. In my other journals, I just go over what I did that day, but I don’t put a ton of effort into capturing memories with photos and other scraps.
I also write about everything in my regular journals, the good and the bad. I never want to look back and read the bad days, but writing them down sometimes helps just to have a place to vent. In my junk journal, though, I’m not really documenting bad memories in the first place, so it’s really just a fun, creative little mood booster.
While I’m mostly using my junk journal to document things I want to look back on and remember, I’ve experimented a little bit with using it to create mood boards and brainstorm for things I’m writing. I’ve started a fiction story, for instance, called Standing Figures, and I used the journal to create the mood board pictured above just to put down some inspiration for where the story should go.
I’ve tried bullet journaling before and am considering getting back into that, too, but it feels like a little too much of a time commitment. Junk journaling has been a fun outlet for me, and I’m worried bullet journaling will end up feeling like a task. I’ll probably keep experimenting, though, so we’ll see where this goes!
