By Sharmini Jayawardena
My junk journaling story goes like this: I peruse through Pinterest and I’m totally attracted to The Graphics Fairy and My Porch Prints.
I look at them and I’m mesmerized. But I don’t know how they put them together. I look at videos next on YouTube and I’m obsessed but can’t understand the concept.
It goes on like this until I gather the courage to create one with basic supplies. I decide it’s going to do with something small and I arrive at a small boy!
So, it’s going to be a Boys Junk Journal. I see a pile of lovely used bread bags in the corner of the kitchen and I’m instantly drawn to them. I decide my pages are going to be created with them.
I find out that a junk journal must have four signatures with each signature having four pages. I have misunderstood it is four papers and not four pages. But I’m blissful unaware. I go ahead and stitch the journal together with basic thread you use for crocheting.
I read about a discarded cereal box board and luckily have one. So, I turn it into a cover and glue it over with vintage wallpaper print out I find online!
I paste the board over with it and then decide to visit the tailor. There’s a bag load of fabric scraps to be had and I find nice blue jeans scraps with pockets and all. I bring the haul back with me and add on the pockets to the front and inner back covers.
So, I decide it’s going to be filled with heritage stuff. I’m going to give this boy something to learn from. I add maps and ethnic language alphabet along with anything else you can call a boy’s pieces of art work or scribblings and other boy-like paraphernalia and add them to the journal and eventually I end up with adding some photographs to the pocket inside the back cover!
Done!
I didn’t know a hang of what a junk journal was all about! I just went on a whim and finally even added a steampunk chain coming out of the front jeans pocket with charms attached to it!
Having finished it I had no idea what I was actually doing. About three years into having done this first creation I suddenly wanted to create a vintage and shabby journal.
Watching YouTube videos of many grand ladies adequately educated me. Today I’m thankful to each and every one of them and grateful that they were there to teach me. Sadly, I didn’t know I was learning, so I didn’t keep a record of their whereabouts.
Fortunately, certain important points stuck in my head, somehow. Out of the blue my mind was bringing out stuff like, the rule of three, the rule of odds, the beauty of repetition and even stuff like glueing paper starting from left to right to avoid having air bubbles! Air bubbles were the bain of the crafter, somehow.
So, I had Mod Podge Matte, left over from what I had bought for the Boys journal. This was supposed to solve all your air bubble fears and also dry clear.
I then decided to visit the many craft supply stores I had searched and found around where I live. I even went to one that was not so near and bought myself a few very valuable items I didn’t know I needed. The place is called Multifila.
When I told the lovely lady there that I needed stuff to make journals with, she immediately set to work and added items one after the other.
You need a Bone Folder, she said and went to one corner of this well stocked store and brought me one! I said to her, “yes, I need one”.
The all important bone folder, a must have tool for junk journaling used in creasing papers and in many other tasks.
Upon inquiring how she knew so much about crafting, she said it was by being in the business for over thirty five years!!!
Then, she got me an awl. Thereafter, my brain started to work and I asked her for a paper cutter and she got me a guillotine cutter.
When I told her I needed good quality paper for dying she went away and returned with this hefty stack which looked formidable to me at the time.
It is paper that is stronger than copy paper with a greater weight I’m not sure of what, (and make a mental note to find out), in A3 size, that is, twice the normal copy paper size.
I have gotten through about a little over half of it, now.
I asked her for rubber stamps and she got me these fine looking vintage Dynasty stamps from the USA! She even got me some wooden blocks to mount them on.
Awesomeness 🤩
I ended up going to a few more places, one place I think is called The Cottage Patch, a quilting store from where I got gold thread and fabric patches, vintage buttons, needles and stuff.
I also visited IKEA and Spotlight, an Australian craft store which was going to supply me handsomely with the craft supplies I needed for the rest of three years, until they closed down their physical shop recently.
I didn’t have the courage to embark on my favorite vintage chic meets shabby chic journal. I made a mini journal themed on my trip to Four Seasons Resort, Langkawi, Malaysia.
It was a mini test journal, the cover of which was created with a discarded cake box board. I dyed the inner pages in tea dye, after having watched many videos and having read many posts about how to dye paper with tea and coffee.
I eventually became an expert at dying paper and wrote many posts to my website about how I do it with everything from tea, coffee, dried mangosteen skins, dried Roselle calyces, dried butterfly pea flowers, dried dragon fruit skin, orange skin; with and without mordanting with soya milk.
Finally, I found the courage to finish the journal of my dreams, and upload it to YouTube, ten months ago: Besotted With Roses journal, in mid 2024.
While playing with this journal I accidentally discovered Kathleen Mower @BeAgainBooks, who became my muse. For the first time while watching one of her videos, I was inspired and well and truly hooked on junk journals.
Inspiration is key to creating junk journals. This fun hobby takes off when you get inspired watching or seeing what others create, and come up with your own thing.
I had encountered her earlier on, in one of The Graphics Fairy videos of her’s but did not realize it was her and carried on in all ignorance.
This journal has over 120 pages front and back, minus inserts. It turned into quite a gator mouth which I didn’t intend it to be.
Two years on and sixteen videos later, I’m playing with my vintage writing journal for a challenge by The Paper Outpost.
My latest journal is one on the earth deity of this land, which is titled, Main Datuk Gong journal.
Next up is a post on how I think junk journals were originally made, or the history and evolution of junk journals, as I know it.
