How junk journalling became a mindful ritual for busy women

From cold-water therapy to manifesting and prioritising our brain health, the start of the year is always a good time to try something new and develop good habits for our wellbeing.

One activity that’s taken social media by storm is junk journalling, a form of scrapbooking re-imagined for 2025. But before you dismiss it as yet another TikTok fad made just for gen Zs, junk journalling is actually an easy way for busy women to tap into their creative side and do something mindful without requiring too much time, resources or energy.

“My junk-journalling workshops, book launches and pop-up events have women of all ages attending them,” says Martina Calvi, author of The Art of Memory Collecting. “Junk journaling is one of those rare, low-pressure forms of creativity that you can enter into at any age and any skill level.”

What is junk journalling?

Similar to scrapbooking (who among us didn’t keep tears from magazines, film posters, and concert stubs in our teenage years?), junk journalling is essentially the practice of collecting memorabilia and keeping them in a journal.

While traditional journalling sees us putting words to paper, the beauty of junk journals is that it captures a visual story of your life—whatever that may look like. While some people may struggle putting their thoughts into words or find it tricky to illustrate a bullet journal, junk journalling simply requires—at the very basic level—collecting things and pasting them in a notebook.

For beauty journalist and recent junk journal adopter, Laura Capon, the things she collects “have to either be meaningful or something I find visually pleasing”.

This means menus from special meals (“I just went to The Devonshire for lunch and asked to keep my menu so I could stick that in”), pages dedicated to films she loves (her Babygirl page features a flattened popcorn bucket, cut-outs from the Everyman cinema magazine and “some very appropriate milk stickers I had”) and branded paper materials from her favourite beauty brand, Glossier.

For Calvi, nothing is too mundane or ordinary for her journal, as long as it sparks a memory. It could be a concert ticket, a pretty wrapper or a postcard from a holiday. This editor echoes the sentiment. My own junk journal include branded sugar packets from restaurants I’ve been to, menus from press dinners, polaroids with friends, box packaging from cosmetics, hotel keys and even receipts to remind me of a day I’ve had.

Why it’s time to consider junk journalling

For many of us, using up even more brain power or being told to relax is the last thing we need after a stressful, jam-packed day. Junk journalling is meditative yet it requires us to move and use our hands, offers a creative outlet without any pressure, and is at once mindless yet mindful. Just let your intuition guide your page.

“I started junk journalling towards the end of last year, coming off the back of an incredibly stressful work project (and, if we’re honest, several recurring panic attacks),” magazine editor Emma Chong-Johnston tells Bazaar. “I was feeling really beaten down emotionally and while on a normal day I would never judge anyone (or myself) for engaging in a bit of doom scrolling to unwind, I found my usual habits were doing nothing to help my brain quieten down.”

“I’ve made several attempts throughout the years to establish a regular journalling and scrapbooking practice but it never stuck. I’ve come to realise a lot of it comes down to my innate fear of not getting things right. The pressure of creating beautiful aesthetic journal pages, or even expressing the 200km/h thoughts racing around in my head all the time? The opposite of relaxing,” says Chong-Johnston.

Consumer PR Hannah Partridge agrees. “I’ve always used journalling as a way to manage stress and process my thoughts but the standard written format became stagnant for me and it started to feel a bit like work,” says Partridge, who—in addition to leading Liberty London's PR team and owning her own firm—also co-founded Couler Club, a new creative community for women and non-binary people. “Junk journalling is an immersive and meditative experience because creatively there’s more possibility, it’s more free and playful than regular journalling but also deeply personal.”

A video of someone simply sticking sweet wrappers in a book proved to Chong-Johnston that junk journalling was accessible to anyone: “I didn’t need to go out and get supplies because, as any self-respecting millennial women would, I had stacks of unused notebooks and the rest of the materials were, of course, junk. I rummaged around and found receipts, scraps of tissue paper I’d saved, tiny drawings my children had done and I made my first junk journal spread.”

Plus, junk journalling also encourages you to pay attention to the little details in life and find something special in the everyday.

The mental health benefits of junk journalling

“Any practice that helps us peel back the layers of our psyche, promoting emotional healing and self-discovery, is incredibly valuable,” says psychotherapist Lorraine Collins, who notes that this is a practice that can serve as a tool of self-exploration while encouraging us to appreciate our memories and emotions.

“At its heart, junk journaling invites us to embrace imperfection. It encourages us to collect and create memories, thoughts, and feelings in a way that is uniquely personal and free from judgement. The therapeutic benefits of capturing our experiences in this manner are profound.

“Each page becomes a reflection of our individual journey, weaving together a rich tapestry of our lives. The act of gathering ‘scraps’—whether it's photographs, ticket stubs or handwritten notes—creates a tactile narrative that tells our story. It allows us to revisit those significant moments whenever we need to reconnect to our past or understand our present.”

While self-care rituals are not a replacement for speaking with a professional, it can help us to restore and reset. There’s also a sense of nostalgia with junk journalling, reminding us of simpler times when scrapbooking was the hobby du jour.

“I often witness the incredible impact creative expression can have in the healing process. I genuinely love it when my clients share what inspires them or what they’ve discovered that resonates with them outside of the clinical space,” says Collins.

“It’s important to encourage these insights, as they signify that they are engaging with the playful curious part of themselves (the prefrontal cortex) responsible for playfulness. This engagement not only nurtures their creativity but also promotes a sense of calm in their central nervous system, helping to alleviate stress and foster a greater sense of well-being.”

How to make a junk journal

You can start junk journalling at any point of your life. All you need is:

A notebook: Any will do but this editor prefers unlined ones in at least an A5 size.

Keepsakes: receipts, ticket stubs, invites, cards, wrappers…nothing is too mundane.

Pritt stick (or any glue stick).

For those keen to explore a more creative side, coloured pens, stickers, washi tapes and ribbons are all useful for bringing in colour and artistry to your pages. Just remember that your junk journal is completely yours to create and curate.

In other words, there shouldn’t be pressure to make your journal look a certain way. “It's about using what you have, playing and getting creative again without pressure,” adds Calvi, who often meets mothers junk journalling with their daughters as a bonding activity.

How often should you junk journal?

In essence: whenever you feel like having some downtime. I tend to do mine every Sunday as a way to reflect on the week (and it keeps me from spending time on my phone), while Capon usually does hers two days a week in the evenings.

Elsewhere, Chong-Johnston keeps it “as low-pressure as possible so I don’t scare myself out of it.” She has her supplies out in the open to keep it accessible and squeezes “an hour or so here and there” to journal.

Junk journalling is also a continuation of the collecting and keeping of physical keepsakes (fashion’s current obsession with handbag charms being a part of this). “The passing of time is a terrifying thing, especially that I now have children,” says Chong-Johnston. “Junk journalling gives me some assurance that I’m capturing and keeping hold of memories, even if it is in the form of sweet wrappers.”

Junk journal ideas to inspire you

Minimalist

Keep it clean with daily trinkets and a subtle colour palette.

Big Night Out

Document your dinner parties with restaurant memorabilia and polaroids.

Mixed Media

Incorporate dried flowers, buttons and ribbons for a tactile feel.

Colour-coded

If you prefer a cohesive style, a tonal theme is an easy way to go.

The hybrid journal

Still love a bit of traditional journalling? Combining the two is always a great idea.

Also read: Seven solid movie recommendations to keep the cinephile in you alive

Also read: We have entered the age of fauxductivity: Being busy isn’t enough anymore