The world is your oyster…
Memory preservation, creative art-therapy, or purely aesthetic papercraft project, a junk journal is the latest craze with seemingly endless purposes. Want to store your 4th of July family cookout photos in something aside from a plain ‘ol photo album? Maybe you have a mountain of old receipts hiding out in the bottom of your bag that you just can’t bear to throw away (no judgment). You can accomplish either one, or both of them in the same book, with a little something called a junk journal.
With a name like “junk journal,” though, what makes it so popular?
What is a “junk journal?”
A junk journal is a creative piece with, honestly, infinite purposes. At a glance, and one of it’s popular use cases, appears a lot like an art journal. Instead of drawing, though, a collage-like piece is created with recycled material, papercrafting supplies, or similar. Sometimes, stickers with pre-printed affirmations or random sentences are used, often cut up and arranged stylistically or even to modify the meaning.
Other times, concert tickets, photos, and any other memento from events you may want to preserve can find their way into a junk journal. The other materials are still used to create an aesthetic and fitting layout to frame these important pieces, but as additions rather than main attractions to convey a message.
So, there’s no one clear-cut answer on what a junk journal actually is. At it’s core, a junk journal functions as creative, free-form memory keeper. What memories it’s keeping just varies, wildly.
What’s the difference between a junk journal and scrapbook?
On the surface, junk journals do appear to just be a Gen Z re-brand for scrapbooks. Why? Because both are about preserving memories…those memories are just a little different.
Scrapbooks often have a cleaner layout and more cohesive theme. This can be page by page or even entire scrapbooks dedicated to a specific theme. They’re also primarily used for photographs. Ya know those family beach day pictures your great-grandma took all those years ago? Photos that weren’t fancy enough of an occasion to go on the wall, but your family wanted to capture. However, some folks also use them more like memory keepers, or baby books, and store pieces such as hospital bands, strands from a first hair cut, and so on. This fall more in line with how people use their junk journal, which causes the confusion.
Junk journals, however, can come across more creative and aesthetic, sometimes in a seemingly unorganized manner. One page may be dedicated to a specific make-up brand, utilizing and giving new life to some of the packaging. The next page may then revolve around specific fashion trends or seemingly mundane visits that others wouldn’t generally think to dedicate sections to in a traditional scrapbook.
The other big difference, is that scrapbooks are occasionally created to be given as a gift. With the creator carefully curating specific moments from the recipients life to create a very personalized and heartwarming gift. Junk journals, on the other hand, are only ever intended for the one creating them.
Rather than just for memories, junk journals are just as much utilized as vision boards, creating the life one envisions to look back on once they’ve reached it, as they are memory preservers.
What about a journal vs a junk journal?
The lines between journal and junk journal can appear blurry with all of the planning and journal content with washi tape borders, stickers galore, and ten different ink colors. The good news? There aren’t any rigid and set rules in place with any of these creative outlets. Generally, the biggest difference is that journals are still used mostly for their original purpose most people think of: brain dumps.
The line between journal and diary are vague at best, and most people use them interchangeably, but both can be described as functioning in that same, base manner. Journals may be thoughts, reflections, and feelings on certain matters, or a way to record memories, thus functioning much like a diary. However, a journal is often also used as a way to record important information, such as dates, interesting facts, numbers, and more. This is where the commonplace book trend really shines.
So, a journal is, more often than not, written word heavy to store and record whatever thought processes are important enough in that moment to jot down. How decorative will vary across the board and is completely personal.
A junk journal, as previously discussed, blurs the line with scrapbooks as a very visual medium while functioning similar to a regular journal at times. There are some that view it as a more artistic and multi-aesthetic scrapbook to preserve certain mementos, photos, and trinkets of moments. Each page offering a clean slate to dedicate a coquette-inspired layout for the photos that time you went to that tea party event, or a wild, botanical theme for your zoo trip. Some even use it for preserving packaging they really liked, recycling and finding a new use for paper or cardboard pieces.
On the journal end, it’s also used as visual diary where writing takes a backseat and is minimal to non-existent. Instead, folks create collages from paperstock, stickers, tapes, and embellishments based on how they’re feeling at the time.
Why are junk journals so popular?
Creative freedom and expression, visually appealing, providing a means to look back fondly on cherished memories when the late night nostalgia hits. The list is endless and it’s the newest spin that combines two or more, or even all, of those benefits.
Journals aren’t appealing to those are more visual and looking to express themselves without words. Scrapbooks have the associations as a grandma hobby and feeling restrictive as far as creativity. Junk journals remove some of the inhibition and qualms people have over starting by saying “there are no rules.”
Write as little or as much as your heart desires. Fill a page with words and the next with just recycled paper pieces. Dedicate pages or the entire book to your travels. It’s a “junk” journal, so nothing matters, type of motto. Obviously, this offers a broad appeal to a diverse group of people who may be interested in papercrafting but feel they have no reason to create cards, envelopes, and all of that, or those who feel stuck on the first page of a journal because it’s “going to set the entire tone.”
What do I need to get started?
A notebook and as many or as few creative embellishments as you want. Yes. That’s it. You can start with any notebook, from the composition or wire-bound subject notebooks for school to the fanciest, leather journal you can find.
Markers, stickers, washi tape, highlighters, pens, glue, and what-have-you are all on the table. It even expands beyond that, as you’ve been reading. If you have dedicated cardstock for paper crafting with patterns you adore, but haven’t found a use for yet, cut it up as you please and slap it on a page. Don’t have any cardstock, but you do have old fast food bags? That works! You can even just draw designs right on the page.
The only thing to keep in mind is your paper thickness. If you’re going to use paints, markers, or lots of glue, you’re going to want a thicker paper to support it and minimize bleed-through.
Junk journal examples
Trying to decide which style is yours? Know you want to go the art piece, collage route, but feeling stuck on inspiration? Maybe, you’re still undecided if junk journaling is even for you?
The best places to get the gears rolling and see it in action, are classic Pinterest and YouTube. Personally, I’m more of a Pinterest girl (yes, even with all of the issues). I prefer seeing final pieces all put together while gathering layout and prompt inspiration. It also lets me see a bunch of similar results to see what others using without having to comb through multiple videos.
If you want more in-depth and to see what each person is using (and sometimes with links on where to get them), YouTube is the better option, though. You can see how they’re storing their supplies, what exactly each layer is and how they customize the piece to get the end-result.
Conclusion:
The world is your oyster, and your junk journals yours to personalize. Don’t feel boxed in or let that first blank page prevent you from starting. You could even start a regular journal and turn it into a junk journal however many pages in if your heart so desires down the road.
To get the most out of journals, diaries, junk journals, or even scrapbooks, the important part is to do what works for you at the time. Otherwise, you’ll never pick it up and reap any possible benefits, be it a simple creative outlet or tool for reflection.
With so many options, and easy ways to get started for as cheap as you want, perhaps you should make it a 2026 goal to try one of them out.