Note that if you purchase something via one of our links, including Amazon, we may earn a small commission.
People have been collecting and collaging meaningful scraps for centuries. Junk journaling, the latest name for the practice, is scrapbooking reimagined for the climate age.
It might not come as a surprise that people have practiced some form of scrapbooking since the 17th century. We are collectors by nature, after all. We gather colorful bits of sea glass in jars by our windowsills, tuck flowers between the pages of books, and stash love letters at the bottom of jewelry boxes.
Our instinct to collect and collage, however, goes beyond the sentimental. Around the world, scrapbooks have historically been crafted as acts of resistance, declarations of identity, and a way to make sense of popular culture. So says the research done by Dr. Freya Gowrley, art history lecturer at the University of Bristol and author of Fragmentary Forms (on Thriftbooks and Amazon), and Dr. Ellen Gruber Garvey, author of Writing with Scissors: American Scrapbooks from the Civil War to the Harlem Renaissance (on Thriftbooks and Amazon).
Now, as we look for ways to grapple with the climate crisis, this centuries-old art form has reemerged online. Modern scrapbookers call it junk journaling and chronicle their creations, made from scraps they’ve collected in their daily lives, on Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest. It’s become a way to confront our world of waste.
Scrappy Beginnings
People have created collage art since the invention of paper, says Dr. Gowrley. And once the printing press made printed materials more accessible, all kinds of people were able to create collages in the form of scrapbooks.
“Making in this way is a very human impulse. No matter where you come from or your background, people are drawn to this kind of artistic practice,” Dr. Gowrley says. “Keeping things, reusing them, expressing ourselves — it’s our way of understanding and processing the material world around us.”
Junk journals in viral videos today may look different from what many people think of as a scrapbook: tidy pages filled with posed family portraits and careful calligraphy. But they’re very similar to what people were crafting in the 19th century.
It prompts a reflection on what we consume, what we throw away, and what we preserve. Sticking it down and keeping it is a really clear, visual way to see the paper and other objects that enter our lives.
– Dr. Freya Gowrley, art history lecturer at the University of Bristol
Throughout the 1800s, all sorts of people, from orators and activists to teenagers and homemakers, compiled newspaper clippings, calling cards, poems, advertisements, and more (read: would-be junk) into configurations on the page. Many examples are reprinted in Dr. Garvey’s book. These scrapbooks helped people digest and organize the information overload and paper material that became suddenly accessible as technology developed. Sound familiar?
While crafting, people were also asserting themselves as active participants in popular culture and media — a position of power elusive to many marginalized groups, argues Dr. Garvey, except by way of scrapbooking.
By deciding what information mattered most, clipping it out of its original context, and pasting it into a scrapbook, crafters reframed material to have new meaning, often making silent yet impactful social commentary.
“As they saved printed matter and arranged it in ways that expressed their own ideas, they created value from their reading for themselves and their communities,” she writes. “Such private but widespread reworking of the mass-produced press in scrapbooks shows how national and world events entered into people’s understanding and feelings.”
Scrapbooks have also been a tool of self-expression. When people paste in memorabilia from their own lives, the results “show people expressing their identities — as theater fans, college students, young married women, mothers, or soldiers,” Dr. Garvey writes. Or as in the case of one scrapbook she writes about — crafted in the late 1800s by an unmarried graduate of a women’s liberal arts college but filled with things most people would associate with a rural mother — they can be a way to explore inner desires and envision some alternate, idealized future.
A Reuse Renaissance
By the early 2000s, the practice built on tenets of thrift and reuse had been co-opted, and scrapbooking became a multi-billion dollar industry dominated by large chain stores. Companies started to sell specialty paper, washi tape, stamps, stickers, glitter glue, and other materials made specifically for scrapbooking. One woman’s craft room tour on TikTok is an example of just how much stuff crafters can accumulate.
Junk journaling marks a shift back to collection rather than consumption. Through the act of reuse, what would otherwise be left to the landfill becomes central as both the medium and subject of the craft.
“It prompts a reflection on what we consume, what we throw away, and what we preserve,” Dr. Gowrley says of junk journaling. “Sticking it down and keeping it is a really clear, visual way to see the paper and other objects that enter our lives.”
And it’s no coincidence that it’s found such fervor online. In fact, Dr. Gowrley says our dependence on social media has primed us for a collage comeback. “Social media has encouraged a bunch of self-chronicling practices, preserving our daily lives constantly in photos and captions, so we’re very used to recording ourselves and our practices,” she says. “The retreat away from social media has prompted a kind of analog revolution.”
Starting Your Junk Journey
I first heard about junk journaling after catching my friend quietly slipping a coffee sleeve into her bag. She let me in on her latest project, and almost immediately, I got a bunch of videos of junk journalers on my feed.
I tried not to think too hard about how quickly my algorithm adapted. Instead, I allowed myself to get inspired. Wanna join?
What I Learned From Junk Journaling
- Being present. Junk journaling has become a great way to commemorate my life away from social media, just for me. No performance, no screens, just physical memories.
- Being aware. I’ve learned how to see beauty in unexpected places. Literally, in my trash. But really it’s opened my eyes to appreciating that art can be anywhere.
- Being mindful. Naturally, I became more aware of the waste I produce. While not all of it works for a junk journal, it inspires me to look for other ways to reuse or reduce waste in my life.
Tips I Picked Up Along the Way
- Buy next to nothing. That’s the whole point! You don’t need the bits and bobbles from craft stores, and you definitely don’t need a “junk journal kit,” like the one I saw for sale at Target. (God, save us!) The journal itself should be junk, too. Use an old notebook or upcycle a damaged book.
- Keep a “trash” bag. Gathering enough material will take time. Put all the scraps in a bag or box until you’re ready to start crafting.
- Embrace disorder. Sometimes, you’ll collect enough to create a collage that clearly fits a theme, and that’s fun. Most of the time, the junk will come together as something unique and abstract. Those can be even more fun.
- Don’t be shy. If your friend or a friendly looking stranger has trash that catches your eye, ask if you can keep it before they toss it.
- Find community. Look online to find junk journaling events near you. It’s a great way to swap ephemera and get creative in community.
Junk journaling is an environmentalist rebellion against consumerism and digitization, colored by a long history of art as resistance. But it’s also just plain fun. It’s relaxing, and creative, and introspective, and mindful.
The next time you go to throw something away, consider it from an artist’s lens. What does it say about you? About the time and place you live in? Create something meaningful with it. Who knows? In 300 years, maybe a historian will study the pages of your junk journal in an attempt to understand what life was like in the 2020s. Or (and this one is almost certain), you’ll start to understand yourself a bit better in the process.
