I really enjoy fountain pens — this is a hobby I took up in 2020 — but this post is not about fountain pens. Wah-wah-waaah. I wish it were, a little bit. Maybe I’ll write one someday. However, my enjoyment of fountain pens led to the discovery of many Youtube creators who also enjoy the particular implement… and in February of 2021, I saw a video from a great creator named Chris Saenz about taking on a ‘junk journal challenge’. Now, the word challenge frightens me implicitly and when I hear it I run and hide in the nearest shrub and peer between the leaves until I’m sure there’s no immediate threat. No, in fact, this challenge turned out to be the sorta relaxed kind.
Here’s Chris’ video:
When I decide that I want to do something, particularly when it’s something crafty and low-stakes, I tend to dive in headlong. I paused the video and dug around my drawers for an old notebook, tore out the few pages that I’d written on years ago, and got to following along with Chris’ video, crumpling the pages. There’s no one way to make a junk journal of course, but I was drawn to this style, the kind of reckless creative abandon. I promised myself that I would not worry about making the pages look perfect, that I would embrace ugliness and messiness. I think I did, for the most part. There were a few pages that I revisited, but only to add more to what I already had.
Chris mentions in the video that she was inspired by Mary Hodges, who calls it “Junk Journal Therapy” in her video. I think that that’s rather an apt description. When I’m doing anything crafty, especially when I’m on my own, I tend to slip into a flow state. That blissful point where you lose all sense of the larger narrative and you’re fully in the moment, and somehow your evil inner critic is silenced for the time being… ain’t it great. In almost every other aspect of my life I am decidedly not living in the moment. I blame the internet. And yet here I am. Both ladies talk about getting away from that particularly stifling brand of perfectionism that stops us from taking risks or from even starting at all, in the first place.
Anyway, here’s Mary’s video:
Every time I sat down to work on a page in the journal, I gathered all of the stuff I’d been hoarding (anything from sliced-up tissue boxes to old receipts and beyond) and flipped through my music library. Each page in my journal is dedicated to a different song. There is often no rhyme or reason to the choice of the song; usually, it was just something that I’d been listening to a lot at that moment. I knew I wanted to have some writing in the journal (to make use of my pens, obviously), but I didn’t want to include any personal thoughts or musings. Save that for my plain old boring journal.
You do not have to buy a single thing, of course, but some of the things I used as someone new to scrapbooking that were purchased include Tim Holtz Idea-Ology ephemera, the Antiquarian Sticker Book (Bibliophilia edition), and the Extraordinary Things to Cut Out and Collage book by Maria Rivans.
So, here it is, a flip-through of all 164 pages. Beginning on February 6th of 2021 and ending on March 8th of 2024. This thing is a bit of a beast, it’s six inches wide when it’s secured shut with a ribbon! I hope this inspires you to start your own. You really don’t need to go out and buy a single thing to start if you already have an unused notebook. And in my case, it was a great way to practice some musical appreciation. If you are interested in perusing all of the songs that I feature in my notebook, here are some links:
Without further delay, I hereby add my video to the mix:
Mackenzie Blackwood 