One person’s trash… Can also be their treasure! Part collage, part diary, and part creative therapy, junk journalling turns everyday trash into meaningful personal archives. Here’s a guide to start yours
I scrapbook about my personal life and thoughts using quite simple materials and colours. Pics/Tanisha Banerjee
On a fine evening, my desk often looks like a recycling bin that exploded. Movie tickets from last weekend, a crinkled gift wrapper, an old metro receipt, scraps torn from magazines — nothing that’d normally survive a spring clean. But inside a notebook, these fragments begin to rearrange themselves into something strangely meaningful. Suddenly the page tells a story of an ordinary day.
This is the essence of junk journalling. Unlike traditional scrapbooking, which often aims for polished, picture-perfect layouts, junk journalling thrives on imperfection. Your chaos is beautifully laid out on pages and the best part is that you are the one imitating your chaos. Torn edges, mismatched textures, overlapping papers and uneven handwriting are not mistakes; they are part of the charm.
In an age dominated by screens and speed, the appeal lies in slow pacing as you cut and arrange pieces by hand. For many like myself, junk journalling becomes a way to hold onto fleeting moments and untangle thoughts. What begins as crafting often turns therapeutic.
Backed by science
Psychologists have been studying the effects of journalling for decades. Much of this work comes from research by social psychologist James Pennebaker, whose early experiments asked participants to write about emotional experiences for about 15 to 20 minutes over several days. Many participants later reported improved mood, reduced stress and better emotional clarity. Junk journalling essentially functions as a hybrid of diary, mindfulness exercise and a form of informal art therapy.
How to begin
Starting a junk journal is surprisingly simple. Begin with any notebook you have lying around. My first and present scrapbook is my 7th standard school notebook. Then start collecting scraps from your everyday life. Fine tickets, receipts, chocolate wrappers, postcards — anything that catches your eye can find a place on the page. At the end of the week, sit down with glue, tape, pens or markers and start layering them together. Add small notes about your day, doodles, song lyrics you’ve been playing on repeat, or photos from your camera roll.
Most importantly, don’t worry about making it look perfect. Crooked pages, messy layering and mismatched colours are exactly what make it personal. Do what you do best. Be yourself.
What is junk journalling?
At its core, it is about turning everyday scraps into something expressive. There are no rules. Some pages end up chaotic and bursting with colour, while others stay simple and minimal.
I’ll spend hours, sometimes days, slowly building pages with photos and small memories, only to look back on them later with affection. Not every journal has to be deeply personal either. Some of mine are just dedicated to things I love: music I’m obsessing over, celebrities I’m currently crazy for, little coffee moments, or even vision-board style spreads about goals and exercising. In the end, the journal becomes whatever you want it to be.
The right toolkit & inspirations
One of my inspiration accounts on Instagram. Pic/Instagram@Sisleymark
My scrapbook supplies have evolved over time. In the beginning, I mostly drew things myself or pasted simple cut-outs from newspapers. Slowly, I started exploring journalling kits like Odd Giraffe and the stationary shops, picking up materials that could bring a page together. It’s wonderful what one can discover in these small, dingy shops! Sometimes I even tear pages from worn-out books or old notebooks. Not everyone likes the idea of dismantling books, but you really do what feels right. For inspiration, I spend a lot of time browsing boards on Pinterest, where I keep a dedicated journalling collection. I also follow art creators like SisleyMark on Instagram.
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