Junk Journal Ideas for Beginners

A junk journal is part scrapbook, part collage, part diary — a place to layer the little things you’d otherwise throw away. Here are beginner-friendly junk journal ideas and prompts, plus how to start one digitally.

What is a junk journal?

It’s a book filled with “junk” — in the best way: ticket stubs, scraps of paper, found images, photos, doodles, and short notes, all layered together. There are no rules, which is exactly the point.

Junk journal ideas to try

Travel junk journal

Boarding passes, café receipts, a cutout of a street sign, and a photo from the day. One page per day turns a trip into a book.

Daily life

A photo, a line about the weather, a doodle, a sticker. Low-pressure pages add up fast.

Reading journal

Cut out a book cover, write a favourite quote, rate it with doodled stars.

Seasonal pages

Collect colours and images for each season — autumn leaves one month, spring florals the next.

How to start a junk journal in Nooka

1. Make a book and call it your junk journal.
2. Add a blank page and import a photo or two.
3. Cut things out — photos, screenshots, anything — and scatter them.
4. Layer freely. Overlap scraps, rotate them, let edges peek out.
5. Doodle and write to tie the page together.
6. Keep adding pages. A junk journal gets better as it fills up.

Prompts when you’re stuck

• One photo from this week plus three words about it.
• A colour palette from your day.
• Something you bought, stuck on a page.
• A doodle of how you’re feeling.

The secret to junk journaling is low stakes. Every page doesn’t have to be art — it just has to be yours. Over a few weeks, you’ll have a book that’s unmistakably you.