Curious about TikTok's junk journal trend? These page ideas are artist approved

CBC

16-02-2025

When you know, you know. The first time Felicia Bottos saw a junk journal, the 25-year-old graphic designer was in love.
"I was just scrolling through my For You page on TikTok one day, and a video came up," says Bottos, who lives in Etobicoke, Ont. On screen, a girl was decorating the pages of a notebook using sentimental bits and bobs — and game recognized game.
Like the girl on TikTok, Bottos is a collector. For years, she's stashed things away in a memory box: concert wristbands and museum tickets, stickers and pretty printed papers.
"When I saw that TikTok video for the first time, it just made so much sense," she says. Here was a project that combined so many of her favourite things: crafting, storytelling, a passion for preserving emotionally charged trash. She knew she had to try it.
What's a junk journal?
But what's junk journalling all about? An unusual number of people have been asking that question lately. Between December and early January this year, Google searches for the term "junk journal" exploded, and around the same time, a subreddit devoted to the subject (r/junkjournals) was resurrected after six years of inactivity. (As of writing, it has more than 8,000 members). Over on TikTok, where Bottos discovered the trend in August, there are now more than 453,000 posts bearing the "junk journal" tag.
Her own junk journal posts are more popular than anything she's ever put on the app. One video, a cute gag about her compulsion to snatch just about anything for the sake of her new habit, has drawn more than 440,000 views since she posted it in December. And countless other users are sharing their own posts, showing off finished spreads and sticker hauls.
The style and look of any given junk journal will vary from person to person, though they tend to share the same charmingly maximalist quality as a high-school zine. The layouts are usually a collage of found items: restaurant receipts, instant photos, peeled off snack labels — anything that can be held together with paste and washi tape.
"It's basically a book made out of found and recycled materials to collect memories, thoughts, ideas, inspiration," says Celia Vernal, lead of public programs at the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Vernal keeps a junk journal herself, and last August, she organized and led an introductory workshop at the gallery. Tickets to the session sold out, and Vernal hopes to offer another soon.
Budget-friendly, eco-friendly … no wonder they're having a moment
"I've really been trying to bring in workshops that promote the idea of reduce, reuse, recycle — circular economy — especially in these times [when] the cost of living is getting higher and higher," Vernal says. Junk journals are cheap — if not free — to make, and Vernal suggests that may be why they're having a moment. "I do think it comes back to [how] times are getting really hard for people," she says. "[They're] looking at ways to be creative but still be economically conscious." The sustainability angle is another contributing factor — "you know, minimizing waste but also maximizing resources," she says.
It's also just fun — contagiously so. That's why Bottos does it, anyway. "Junk journalling can be whatever you want it to be," she says. She commemorates life's ordinary moments in her Amazon-purchased notebook: a shopping trip to Aritzia, a date in a pumpkin patch, a day out in Toronto with her pals. Some might say what she's doing is scrapbooking; purists would argue a true junk journal should be bound from scratch. But that doesn't bother Bottos. As she sees it, there's only one rule in junk journalling: there are no rules.
But where to start?
There's an ease to junk journalling, and Danielle Cole, a Toronto-based artist and educator, thinks that's a big part of the hobby's appeal. "It's just barrier free," she says. But complete creative freedom comes with a hitch. If there are no rules, how do you know where to start?
For 15 years, Cole's art practice has focused on paper collage, a medium most junk journallers have flirted with on some level. After all, assembling scraps into something beautiful is fundamental to every spread. Cole works as an art teacher too. A high school administrator by day, she's taught collage techniques to the students at her own school, and she also leads private workshops for adults.
As Cole has observed, beginners often struggle when faced with a blank page. It's "a little stressor for people," she says. But if you think like a collage artist, you can beat creative block and get journalling. Here are some artist-approved tips that'll inspire you to raid the Dollarama for glue sticks.
Focus on the process, not the outcome
In other words, put something — anything — on paper, and don't worry where you're going with it. "Whatever little thing you can lay down across a couple of pages would comfort people to feel like they can move forward," says Cole.
That all sounds easy, but Cole says she's watched plenty of adult students freeze up when they begin their first collage. A lot of the time, newbies come in with a fully formed idea of what they want to create — even though they might not have the skills, or the materials, to bring it to life right then and there. "If you have specificity in mind, you're not going to get what you want," says Cole. But if you approach the assignment with a more open-minded attitude — "like, I don't know anything, let's try something,' then the outcomes are really lovely."
For Cole, the collage philosophy is about opening yourself up to possibilities. And she helps students warm to that idea by encouraging them to try a simple exercise when they're stuck. It's "an icebreaker I do that is idiot proof," she says. The assignment: create a character.
The technique is beyond easy. Cole suggests cutting out animal heads and pasting them on human figures. "No matter what you do, they look quirky and lovely and sweet," she says. "Starting off with something like that will get you something delicious or fun or silly. It's kind of a great path."
Don't start on the first page
Jessa Dupuis is a collage artist from Vancouver Island who relates to the fear of a blank page. For years, she avoided keeping a sketchbook until one of her former teachers shared this piece of advice, and it totally shook up her practice. "Start in the middle, like open a random page in a sketchbook. Make something crappy. Or good. Who knows? You don't know how it's going to turn out, but just do something," she says.
"If you get to that spread later, once you've been working through your book, you can always cover it with collage or cut it out if you have to," says Dupuis.
"That works for me big time," she says. "[In] most of my sketchbooks … the first page is blank, I just never fill it in. Why do I have to?"
Make a mess and edit later
Anything goes with a junk journal, so why not pick up a pen — or a marker, or a paintbrush — and just scribble? "[People] should just do what comes easily or naturally to them to start," says Dupuis, and in her experience as an art instructor, she's seen that advice work for new students.
Again, don't worry about the outcome. Instead, work intuitively. Think of the absent-minded doodles you might scratch on a notepad during meetings or phone calls: abstract patterns, shapes, maybe that weird "S" everyone scrawled on their binders in junior high. It's that kind of approach.
After you've made a mark on the page, take a step back. "Don't worry if you don't like part of it," Dupuis says. The next stage, after all, is about adding a layer on top — then another, and maybe yet another still.
She describes the exercise as "making a mess," and it's the first step in one of her favourite assignments for students. Back in 2021, she actually recorded the lesson for CBC Arts, and in the video, Dupuis explains how to create a mixed-media collage. "We sort of start making a big mess and then we narrow it down from there," she says. Try it yourself. And if you're still not excited about what you've put down on paper, move on to another page. Your beautiful mess will be waiting for you when inspiration strikes later.
Sometimes less is more
Wrapping paper, shopping bags, brochures, candy wrappers — when it comes to materials, just about anything can go in a junk journal. But for some, collecting enough supplies isn't a challenge. What's hard is selecting just the right stuff to go on a page.
Dupuis says her students face this issue all the time, and when they're overwhelmed by choice, she tells them to try making a collage using these instructions:
"Take everything off your page and pick four to five pieces. That's it," says Dupuis. Choose those elements at random, if you have to; dump all of your scraps in a bag and draw them out like you're pulling Scrabble tiles.
Then, divide them up. Three pieces will be the focal point of the collage. The other two items will go in the background. Feel free to add other media, she says. Maybe paint or draw something to fill out the backdrop. "It's a pretty big challenge because sometimes you get things where you think, 'I would never have picked this.' But then, the result is interesting," says Dupuis. "You challenged yourself to do something you would not have chosen to do originally."
Need ideas for a junk journal layout?
Sometimes, a strong theme is all you need to get your mind working.
Colour!
When Bottos has a fresh batch of scraps and souvenirs to add to her journal, she likes to organize her layout around a specific colour palette. And if you want to level-up that approach, here's a tip from Cole: try playing with paint swatches in your junk journal — you know those little cards you can find in the paint aisle of the hardware store?
Cole used to like using them in her collage art. "They were so satisfying and happy-making," she says. Consider dropping a swatch or two (or three) on each page of your journal, she suggests. "You'll have this beautiful rainbow on each page." With the rest of your scraps, you can layer and build out an image. It's "something that you can do that will feel visually pleasing — that will set you up to go, 'Oh, that will look really great.'"
Text!
As part of her sketchbook practice, Dupuis loves doing one-a-day creative challenges. Word prompts are helpful for that, and she recommends searching for online art communities — à la the 100 Day Project — to get ideas. As it happens, February is a big month for the collage crowd. Here's this year's list of "Februllage" prompts.
One last tip, and it might be the most important one
Remember, you're just doing this for kicks. "A lot of people have a hard time starting. They're afraid or they're worried," says Dupuis. "And I say, 'You don't have to show anybody this. This is for you.… Do it for you."
"And if it turns out really great, then show everybody!"