My 5th Junk Journal: the recurring joy of collage, layering, and hand lettering

This July marked my fifth time participating in a Junk Journal Challenge. My first Junk Journal was January of 2023, followed by Junk Journal January 2024, Junk Journal July 2024, Junk Journal January 2025 and now July 2025. Each journal feels just as exciting and fresh as the first. 

Opening page of my Junk Journal for July 2025.

What started as a fun, creative, month-long experiment in 2023 seems to have become an annual ritual—one that inspires me, challenges me, and reminds me to slow down and enjoy the process of art making. The challenge sets the stage to create freely in a handmade or altered journal, using what I have—scraps, ephemera, paint, found objects from daily life—to tell a story on each page or page spread. The daily prompts are only a guide, and can be foregone if a new path or detour presents itself. 

A few favorite pages

Each journal becomes a visual diary of daily thoughts or prompts. Pages are layered with color, paper, images, stamped motifs, paint, and quite often text. To practice my hand lettering, I search for a quote, poem, or prose that somehow relates to the daily prompt. A different, unexpected composition often emerges when I focus on the quote or poem rather than a literal translation of the prompt.

Two page spread. Prompt: Opening, with quote from Walt Disney (left page).
Prompt: Thankful, features the poem, “Thanks to Flowers.”

Prompt: Vintage.
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 was the inspiration.

Two-page spread. Prompt: Favorite Place.

Prompt: Favorite Place.
“Where I Belong” poem appears when two hinged flaps are opened.

Prompt: Sunrise/Sunset and a quote from John Lennon.

Prompts: Torn and Keepsake, paired with “More than just a Teapot.”

Why I keep coming back to junk journaling

This year, a few of my art friends joined me for Junk Journal July. It was so wonderful to see their creations and responses to the prompts. I hope they had fun and will consider doing it with me again in the future. Looking at my own journals over the years, I can remember where I was or what was going on in the world when various pages were created. 

Repetition creates reflection. Coming back to this challenge year after year shows me how my techniques have changed, how I’ve improved, and which tools and mediums are favorites that I return to often.

Prompt: Ribbon. Paired with a watercolor painting and
the first stanza of “The Highwayman,” a ballad by Alfred Noyes.

What 5 Junk Journals have taught me 

When I participate in the Junk Journal Challenges, the aim is not for perfection—the aim is to make art a practice. I let my pages be messy, layered, and real. Some pages are simple, others (when more time is available) are more complex, nuanced, and layered. Junk Journal July is a creative pause, a way to mark time, make art, and capture memories in layers of paper, paint and heart.

The junk journaling process has taught me:

• There are no rules! Some days I draw, paint, or write a lot; other days, it’s a visual collage. 
• Scraps are treasures. That hotel key envelope, a postage stamp, a marketing brochure, or scribbled grocery list? They create memories. They tell a story. 
• Nothing ventured, nothing gained. The Junk Journal is a safe place to try new things—a new tool, a new art supply, a new technique. I don’t have to show the page to anyone if I choose not to. 

What’s Next?

An empty page spread awaits more color and layers.

A pocket filled with collage fodder.

Although Junk Journal July 2025 has wrapped up, I have more pages in my July 2025 junk journal that can be worked and filled. There are two pocket pages filled with collage fodder and other bits of ephemera. The open pages can be filled with slow drawing, collaging, and hand lettering various quotes and other text… adding to my ever-growing collection of messy, layered, artful pages.

My Junk Journal for July 2025.

A coptic bound journal for Junk Journal July 2025

Gather up your colorful paper scraps, bookmaking rejects, surface design samples, workshop uglies, old calendars, and trash can rescues. Hit the recycle bin and get prepped for Junk Journal July!

A collection of printed, decorative, and recycled papers for a junk journal.

Inspired by an annual artists retreat, a group of my “art camp buddies” and I are jumping into Junk Journal July 2025 in effort to continue with our art practices—which was a topic of discussion at several meals.

Junk Journal July is an easy and forgiving, low-stress Challenge, with minimal expectations—except to work at our art practice for the entire month of July. We’ll be supporting and cheering each other on next month for 31 days! 

Using the coptic binding method 

I’ve participated in the Junk Journal Challenge four times. For my last two journals—Junk Journal July 2024 and Junk Journal January 2025—I’ve made accordion style no-sew journals. After a recent demonstration on the coptic binding, however, I decided to get more practice with this book binding method and use it for this year’s Junk Journal July.

Coptic bound junk journal.

The coptic bound book has specific characteristics that are very conducive to junk journaling:

• the book opens flat, making it easy to work in.
• the spine of the book is exposed and can accommodate any number of signatures.
• coptic binding can accommodate a soft cover, so you are able to use recycled materials for the cover in addition to the inside pages.

Making my junk journal

My junk journal is 8” square. (I like the square format for Instagram posts.) It has 5 signatures, plus front and back covers—86 full pages and a few short or partial pages. I like to use recycled papers to construct my junk journals, but any journal is absolutely OK to use! The important part is that you work in it!

Junk journal front and back covers.

Because various weights and types of paper were used for the pages in my journal—text papers, magazine pages, mixed media paper, mailing envelopes, cover weight papers, packaging from from a bag of sugar, and a sheet of watercolor paper—in order to (somewhat) maintain the same thickness, the signatures for my journal contained between 4 - 6 folios each.

Journal covers and various papers for the inside pages.

When making a junk journal, remember that’s what it is—a JUNK journal. It’s made of recycled materials and not meant to be perfect. And it will definitely get thicker, bulkier, and more interesting (and fun) when the various items get pasted into it. 

My thoughts for creating a “perfectly imperfect” junk journal are:

• Use what you have! I recycle saddle stitched catalogs and sales booklets for my journals. Get out the staple remover and then trim the pages to your desired folio size. The fold is already set and you’ll know the paper’s grain is correct—parallel to the spine of the book.

Removing staples from a saddle stitched catalog.

• Short pages are welcome. When making folios, if the sheet of paper is not the needed size (16” long is the folio size for my journal), it was folded to accommodate one (8”) page and the other page was short.
• if you don’t want a short page, paste something onto it to make it longer.

Example of a short page in the journal.

• use paint and/or collage to cover up distracting or unwanted text and images on the pages.
• if a page seems too “wimpy” to work on, glue two lightweight pages together to make them stronger/thicker.
• I include at least one folio of a watercolor paper (for painting) and a few uncoated, blank pages for ink drawings, sketches, and hand lettering.
• I like to add envelopes or pockets into the journal to store ephemera and extra paper bits.

A recycled envelope serves as a pocket for small paper bits.

• I paste the daily prompt list at the front of the journal for reference. The printable, provided by Creativity and Coffee, is in a Google drive here.

Daily prompts for Junk Journal July 2025.

Here is my junk journal for Junk Journal July 2025.

Junk journal for Junk Journal July 2025. Size is 8” x 8” x .75”.

Pre-work and collage fodder gathering

Before July 1, when Junk Journal July begins, here are a few activities that get me prepared for a month of journal art making.

• research quotes or poems related to the prompts. This can provide a direction in which to respond to a prompt and a source for hand lettering. 
• pull out the acrylic paints and paint backgrounds on pages. An interesting/colorful page is more approachable than the intimidating blank white page.  
• gather paper scraps and ephemera to tuck into envelopes for collage fodder.
• fussy-cut images from calendars, junk mail, catalogs, etc. for collage fodder.
• replenish my supply of glue sticks.

But first, I need to clean up the work table from making my journal…

The work table needs tidying up!

 

Junk Journal January: first Make Nine finish for 2025

Junk Journal January is a wrap! I’m counting it as my first Make Nine 2025 finish to fulfill the “Online Challenge” prompt.

Make Nine 2025 tracker. Online Challenge prompt

Journal format and page spreads

For JJJ 2025 [Junk Journal January 2025], I made a square format, no-sew journal. 

No-sew junk journal.

After getting into the daily process of answering the prompts, I found myself creating compositions in 2-page spreads. Sometimes the composition was in response to a single prompt…

Day 30 prompt: fabric

… sometimes it combined multiple prompts.

Days 24 and 25 prompts: line and modern.

I liked working in a larger, 2-page space. Paint, color, and collage were used to unify the background. Similar marks were made across both pages, and often the spreads incorporated text, quotes, or poems relating to the prompt(s), that were hand lettered on the pages.

Days 26, 27, 28 and 29 prompts: movement, crumpled, sealed, and reveal.

Materials and techniques

For this year’s junk journal, I used techniques that I used in the past: acrylic and watercolor painting, collage, hand lettering, and drawing, and an occasional use of a rubber stamp. I did experiment with solar paste and stencils this time—on Day 18 with the “bright” prompt. Solar paste is a fun art supply and is very effective on a black background.

Solar paste medallions made with paste and stencils.

Starting with Junk Journal January in 2023, and followed by Junk Journal January and Junk Journal July in 2024, Junk Journal January 2025 is the fourth journal in my collection.

Junk Journals from 2023, 2024, and 2025.