8 reasons to love junk journals

8 reasons to love junk journals

Lots of makers like the notion of generating a junk journal (they’re a whole lot of operate), but they really do not know specifically why they want to generate a single. I’ll cover 8 points to appreciate about junk journals that highlight how particular these textbooks are.

It’s possible you’re familiar with all of them. And perhaps, if you have not thought of all of these details, they’ll give you some ideas or a renewed desire in doing work on junk journals.

Very first, let us immediately include what accurately is a junk journal.

A Junk Journal is a handmade reserve of recycled and found materials and ephemera. The web pages can be used to compose, attract, paint or history memories, feelings, tips, and inspiration.

Products for a junk journal are generally found or recycled, so this brings us to the very first point to adore about junk journals:

1 — Junk Journals are truly one of a kind pieces of e-book artwork

Given that there is this sort of a enormous range in all the components utilized to make a junk journal, no two are exactly alike. A lot of of us have a range of artwork provides, papers, personalized ephemera, and other resources, and even if we have equivalent supplies, the final solution each and every of us generates is one of a kind.

Talking of artwork provides, here’s the second issue to appreciate about junk journals:

2 — Junk journals generally call for heaps of resources

This means that you can actively interact in using up your art materials and ephemera.

You can go as a result of your stash of pattern paper and corresponding shade inks. You can distress paper for your web pages or tea-dye or coffee-dye paper. Pull out other blended media objects like paints and stencils. You can insert embellishments like ribbons, material, or beads. Here’s an prospect to use up what you have bought.

If you are working with outdated or found products, it’s the suitable time to glimpse by way of your catch-all drawers in your residence wherever you have stashed away —whatever you have been stashing away— receipts, notes, random photos, motion picture ticket stubs, and use them within just your junk journals.

The 3rd point to like about junk journals speaks directly to what you can do with all your identified bits:

3 — You can practice upcycling creatively

Feel of this as a talent. How do you set up your supplies and uncovered bits in a satisfying way? Which is the obstacle that you can choose to take up when you are making a junk journal.

Art journal pages

I’ll note that this is in which tons of men and women can get tripped up and overwhelmed. You can get apprehensive, “Well, I really don’t know how to do this. I want it to look attractive and incredible, but I’m scared that if I attempt, I’m likely to despise it, and I’m likely to be so upset, and I’ll come to feel like a failure”.

Those are trustworthy fears. I undoubtedly felt them when I was setting up out. If you find you in this placement, you can remind yourself of two matters:

  1. What you produce is for on your own. You really don’t even need to have to demonstrate any individual if you never want to, so you never will need to be self-conscious about what you make.

  2. When you are finished generating your initial junk journals, it’s possible you are not likely to like what you make (not likely) but it is possible. But the expertise you will have received from the practical experience will assist so a lot in producing your future a single. You will know what you could have done otherwise. Remember that this “creative upcycling” is a talent, so that signifies you have to perform at it.

If you are a little confused with all the options and elements of creating 1, then contemplate my fourth explanation to appreciate junk journals:

4 — You can “dress them up” as a lot or as minor as you’d like

If you like active, chunky layers you can do that, or you can hold them very uncomplicated. You can believe about what you want to spotlight. Possibly you want a ton of the consideration on the address, but want to preserve the webpages simple.

cover with postage stamps
I created this go over with web pages from a stamp album

Keep in mind, you can always go back and incorporate a lot more points about time. This is anything that I however do. Many years afterwards, I continue to go back and work on selected guides.

I want to communicate about anything below — the principle of time, and our solution to doing the job on tasks. We are likely to have the expectation of generating art in a quite precise way and it goes anything like this: You start, you operate competently just on that project until eventually it’s done, and then you go on the a thing else. The emphasis is on the stop solution. You truly feel achieved only when you have developed a little something completed.

There are 2 factors to think about why this is not the best way to strategy building.

  1. The journey is just as vital (even a lot more so) than the place.

  2. If you are so concentrated on finishing and shifting on, you could possibly be closing oneself off from returning to it, which is anything I personally appreciate carrying out.

Up coming, the fifth reason to really like junk journals is:

5 — You can decide on a topic that speaks to you

Themes are good because they support you think about the seem and experience of your development. Some people today like to invest in printable kits that involve webpages and scaled-down attractive bits. These digital kits are generally cheap, ranging from $2 to $4 on Etsy, and you can seem for issues like a Xmas topic, Beatrix Potter, Jane Austen, a pirate concept, Wonderwoman, or what ever!

Some folks don’t care to use printable papers and relatively target on acquiring their individual paper sources. Really don’t fail to remember that you can also opt for to target on relatives themes and do a junk journal with images and papers from a relative or a person essential to you. These are fantastic ways to embellish junk journals.

Next,

6 — You can use it to retail store paper treasures

Initial of all, brainstorm with me examples of paper treasures. Postcards and images are paper treasures. What else? Currency. Postage stamps. Find a selection of paper treasures and then examine methods you can tuck them into your junk journals. 

Two chunky journals stuffed with vintage papers
What forms of paper treasures could you consider seeing in right here?

The photo in this spread is very much altered from the tea and rust

The next reason to enjoy junk journals is 1 of my favorites:

7 — You can flip them into gluebooks

This is my very best suggestion for what to do with a gluebook. We are likely to get attached to the junk journals we make. This feeling grows when you enjoy introducing to the written content of the web pages.

A vintage 1930s black and white photo of some cars parked in a square in a European city.

The very last cause to really like junk journals is:

8 — Junk Journaling provides people alongside one another

It’s awesome how social media has been a big contributor to the reputation of junk journals since it is what keeps folks related with a person an additional, even when they’re on reverse coasts or in distinct countries.

Talking of on the web artists, Barbara of 49 Dragonflies is a person who produces lots of video clips about junk journaling. I am on her YouTube podcast of most asked for junk journal queries, where by each of us will answer thoughts people today have about junk journaling. It arrives out subsequent thirty day period in May possibly.

In the meantime, if you’d like to see a video on my 8 reasons to really like junk journals, you can see it listed here:

https://www.youtube.com/observe?v=W9tt5v5gvAQ

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