Keeping up with a hobby while in college can be difficult. Time is short, energy is low, and money is thin—but that shouldn’t keep you from a fun activity to get your mind off homework and exercise your creativity! I recently discovered junk journaling and have become obsessed. If you have limited time and money, love crafting, and like to collect things, this might be the perfect hobby for you!
What is junk journaling?
Junk journaling is scrapbooking, but much less effort. Essentially, you collect bits and pieces of paper, mementos, or other “junk” throughout your day, and use those to create a scrapbook collage. These bits of “junk” can be anything from receipts, notes, movie tickets, maps, cards, stamps, stickers, packaging, or really anything you think looks cool or holds some memory.
Once you have a batch of “junk,” you can create a journal spread by arranging and gluing them into any journal you have laying around—as long as the pages are thick enough for glue. There’s really no special method to this! Junk journaling is not supposed to be perfectly put together and polished, so it’s quite free form. Maybe you want to glue everything in lined up and orderly, or maybe you want to cut things out and stack them like a collage. You can print out pictures, add stickers, write descriptions for what you put in, or just leave it as is. It’s completely up to you!
Junk journal spreads can be themed, specific to a period of time, or all from one event. I personally do a journal spread for each month, so I can look back and see a little visual reminder of what life was like. It also keeps me crafting at least once a month, even if it’s just for one journal spread.
I also like to create junk journal spreads for events I go to. My most recent spread was from my trip to the Maryland Renaissance Festival. I put in everything I gathered while I was there including receipts, business cards from the artisans, my wristband, stickers, and a map of the fairground. Now when I look back at the journal spread, I get a nice little reminder of my day there!
Why you should try it
Junk journaling is a great way to relax, destress, and spend some time being creative. You don’t have to try too hard to make it look picture perfect, just go with your gut and let your creativity run wild. I like to listen to music or an audiobook while I junk journal and have some tea nearby to sip. Having something mindless to create with my hands and a good song on in the background helps me clear my head and relax when life gets a bit crazy.
Apart from being a relaxing hobby and a good way to keep memories, junk journaling is perfect for college students. It requires little to no money at all, since all the materials are just things you collect throughout your day-to-day life. Really all you need is a glue stick, a notebook of some kind, and you’re good to go! It’s perfect for the full-time student schedule too. The purposely imperfect nature of junk journaling means it’s very low effort and doesn’t take much time. Plus, all your materials are pre-collected, so you’re already set to go by the time you sit down to craft.
Give junk journaling a try, you just might find a new creative hobby!