I used to save and collect all my photos in several shoe boxes. Along with all other types of tokens and memories. They would have looked like to junk to someone else, but each item served as a portal to a memory and in turn a story. And I think humans love to tell stories and it’s something that we find ways of creating, in order to do just that.
Currently I have a written journal and I doodle and add some stickers and a separate art journal for playing. I honestly find that being an adult (I turned 40 this year) is just rediscovering all the things I loved when I was 12.
As for the photos on my phone. I’m one of those who actually prints them. I have them as fridge magnets and dotted around the house and one of my favourite things to do is make an A1 size photo collage, so all the people and all the memories are smooshed together.
Btw I found you on TikTok and have only just discovered you over here. I’m so glad you share your creativity in multiple formats, I’m here for it all! 💕
I recently went on a trip to Paris with my husband. I like saving the ephemera from our trips and using them alongside my photos because the combination of the two keeps the memories fresh. It’s also fun to look back and see what it cost us to buy a baguette, and to keep our metro cards in my journal/scrapbook instead of just tossing them. It just makes my books more meaningful ♥️
This so ME! So happy I found you and I am going to deep dive and read everything. I’m going to check the links and Mark Twain? He is one of my favs! I save it all! I keep things in a little bag when I travel. And can’t wait to get home and start gluing LOL
And then there's art journaling, mixed media journaling and my fave: creative journaling (a hybrid of all of these) ... most having been around for about a decade but are way more visible since 2019 thanks to IG (and now TikTok). I think the processing bit is the key - physical journals give us a way to reflect and re-ignite the best parts of our lives but with tangible stuff you can touch. It involves a lot more of the senses than just looking at our digi pics.
I save ephemera throughout the year and, if there's space, write a little something on whatever it is and put it in a "joy" box then go back and read through the pieces of paper with my family on New Year's Eve. I love the idea of "junk" journaling.
I’m so glad it isn’t just me who saves every ticket, pretty receipt, cute business card, scrap of paper I’ve ever seen. Ditto for being stationery obsessed. I only found your Substack (and by extension) the journaling side of insta and I feel like I’ve found my people. I’m starting a junk journal asap, I have memory boxes full of this stuff, and the idea of collating it in a cute little journal fills my heart with joy 💕
I love that junk journaling is having a moment! I've been keeping junk/art/vidual journals since working through Keri Smith's Wreck This Journal 25 years ago. It's so much fun to do a deep dive into the archives and look back at how my practice has evolved over the years. Way more satisfying than scrolling through images on my phone (which wasn't even a thing when I started, I'm old lol 😆).
Not junk journaling in a traditional sense, but I took a sketchbook workshop with Santiago Guevara, an illustrator from Columbia.
He collages in bits and bobs from places he goes into his sketches. And he returns to his sketches and continues to draw and redraw, as well as disassembling older sketchbooks and drawings, to combine them with other sketches to create whole new compositional ideas. His sketch journals are far from sacred, they are just another resource for the process.
I do just written journal entries with a few stickers here and there. I paste in some memorabilia from my day in my planner, such as receipts, price tags, or hospital bands. I have been seeing a whole bunch of people talking online about junk journaling. I guess I kind of have one with my planner, with those few extra touches. Though it is far from creative as some of the journals I have seen posted. I thought to myself earlier today about how junk journaling looks quite stupid to me when I see other people's spreads. Not because they look bad, but specifically because those spreads are not personal to me so they lack meaning for myself. The people who make the spreads are able to be brought back to how they were feeling or what they were thinking or doing by just looking at it. And that's why I love the creativity behind it. It is so cool to me how people come up with the ideas for the spreads.
I used to save and collect all my photos in several shoe boxes. Along with all other types of tokens and memories. They would have looked like to junk to someone else, but each item served as a portal to a memory and in turn a story. And I think humans love to tell stories and it’s something that we find ways of creating, in order to do just that.
Currently I have a written journal and I doodle and add some stickers and a separate art journal for playing. I honestly find that being an adult (I turned 40 this year) is just rediscovering all the things I loved when I was 12.
As for the photos on my phone. I’m one of those who actually prints them. I have them as fridge magnets and dotted around the house and one of my favourite things to do is make an A1 size photo collage, so all the people and all the memories are smooshed together.
Btw I found you on TikTok and have only just discovered you over here. I’m so glad you share your creativity in multiple formats, I’m here for it all! 💕
That opossum in the trash is me and my junk journal
I recently went on a trip to Paris with my husband. I like saving the ephemera from our trips and using them alongside my photos because the combination of the two keeps the memories fresh. It’s also fun to look back and see what it cost us to buy a baguette, and to keep our metro cards in my journal/scrapbook instead of just tossing them. It just makes my books more meaningful ♥️
This so ME! So happy I found you and I am going to deep dive and read everything. I’m going to check the links and Mark Twain? He is one of my favs! I save it all! I keep things in a little bag when I travel. And can’t wait to get home and start gluing LOL
And then there's art journaling, mixed media journaling and my fave: creative journaling (a hybrid of all of these) ... most having been around for about a decade but are way more visible since 2019 thanks to IG (and now TikTok). I think the processing bit is the key - physical journals give us a way to reflect and re-ignite the best parts of our lives but with tangible stuff you can touch. It involves a lot more of the senses than just looking at our digi pics.
I save ephemera throughout the year and, if there's space, write a little something on whatever it is and put it in a "joy" box then go back and read through the pieces of paper with my family on New Year's Eve. I love the idea of "junk" journaling.
I’m so glad it isn’t just me who saves every ticket, pretty receipt, cute business card, scrap of paper I’ve ever seen. Ditto for being stationery obsessed. I only found your Substack (and by extension) the journaling side of insta and I feel like I’ve found my people. I’m starting a junk journal asap, I have memory boxes full of this stuff, and the idea of collating it in a cute little journal fills my heart with joy 💕
I love that junk journaling is having a moment! I've been keeping junk/art/vidual journals since working through Keri Smith's Wreck This Journal 25 years ago. It's so much fun to do a deep dive into the archives and look back at how my practice has evolved over the years. Way more satisfying than scrolling through images on my phone (which wasn't even a thing when I started, I'm old lol 😆).
Not junk journaling in a traditional sense, but I took a sketchbook workshop with Santiago Guevara, an illustrator from Columbia.
He collages in bits and bobs from places he goes into his sketches. And he returns to his sketches and continues to draw and redraw, as well as disassembling older sketchbooks and drawings, to combine them with other sketches to create whole new compositional ideas. His sketch journals are far from sacred, they are just another resource for the process.
It was a rather liberating experience
Not me. Just the name “junk” turns me off.
Beautiful!
Quite a complete (and compelling!) writing about junk journaling. Something so popular needs to be acknowledged more often. Great topic!
I do just written journal entries with a few stickers here and there. I paste in some memorabilia from my day in my planner, such as receipts, price tags, or hospital bands. I have been seeing a whole bunch of people talking online about junk journaling. I guess I kind of have one with my planner, with those few extra touches. Though it is far from creative as some of the journals I have seen posted. I thought to myself earlier today about how junk journaling looks quite stupid to me when I see other people's spreads. Not because they look bad, but specifically because those spreads are not personal to me so they lack meaning for myself. The people who make the spreads are able to be brought back to how they were feeling or what they were thinking or doing by just looking at it. And that's why I love the creativity behind it. It is so cool to me how people come up with the ideas for the spreads.
Because it’s a fantastic creative outlet!!!!!! 😆🤣
I was so inspired by junk journaling and finding ephemera while traveling that I invented a journal. ha ha
It’s bringing me such joy. My latest I’m calling a Hope Journal. I’ve been having a blast with it.