If you've been eyeing the jewelry in your stash and wondering whether any of it belongs on a journal, this video is your answer. I go through all the ways I add bling to junk journals — charms, bookmarks, beads in the binding, chain closures, safety pins, bulldog clips, and more — pulling out journals and loose jewelry bits as I go to show exactly what I mean. Everything I use here comes from op shops, old necklaces, broken bracelets, or bits you likely already have at home.
What we cover
This is an ideas roundup, not a single project tutorial. I walk through a list of techniques for adding jewelry and embellishments to junk journals — covering where to place them, what hardware makes attachment easy, and what to look for when you're thrifting or raiding your own jewelry box.
What you'll learn
How to use mini charms on paper clips to decorate pages, including:
- Removing jump rings from necklaces and earrings to free individual charms
- Clipping charms onto pages that extend beyond the page edge
- Choosing flat charms for shorter pages so they sit flush and don't interrupt other pages
Why bulky versus flat charms matter depending on placement — a chunky charm looks gorgeous hanging off a full-height page, but put that same charm on a short inset page and it sits right in the middle of the book, in the way of everything else. Flat charms solve that immediately.
How to make a beaded bookmark for a junk journal, including:
- Threading beads onto cord with knots to hold them in place
- Using alligator clips to attach charm clusters to ribbon without any sewing
- Sizing the bookmark to the journal height so it doesn't stick out awkwardly at the bottom
How to clip embellishments directly onto the spine, including:
- Using bulldog clips with their built-in loops as attachment points
- Sliding large paper clips in between signatures to hold charm clusters
- Setting a brad and picture-hanging bracket into the spine so you always have a clip point ready
How to incorporate beads into the binding itself, including:
- Starting your binding stitch from the outside rather than the inside, so thread ends hang externally where you can add beads
- Threading beads during a three-hole pamphlet stitch so they sit along the spine
- Starting from the top hole rather than the middle if you want beads to hang from the top of the spine
How to use safety pins and ball pins as embellishment anchors, including:
- Attaching charms and beads to the non-opening side of a safety pin so nothing falls off when the pin is opened
- Setting an eyelet into a page tab and hanging a small charm from a ball pin threaded through it
- Using ball pins through ribbon, tabs, or page corners for small, versatile dangles
Making a chain bracelet or necklace into a journal closure — loop one end through a bulldog clip or similar hardware on the cover, and attach the other side to a matching point on the opposite cover. Any bracelet or necklace with removable links works, and the result looks like it was designed that way.
What to look for when thrifting jewelry for journals — pieces with jump rings already attached, large necklaces with cluster pendants that can come off whole, chains that can double as closures, and anything with loops built in so you don't have to add hardware of your own.
Tips & gotchas
When you're placing a charm on a shorter page — one that sits lower than the others — go flat. A bulky charm in that position ends up sitting in the gutter of the open journal where it interferes with every other page. A slim charm sits flush and causes no problems.
Before you make a bookmark, measure the journal. A bookmark that's too long sticks out the bottom when the journal is sitting on a shelf, and if it's chunky, that becomes awkward quickly. A bookmark that's sized to the journal height just tucks in neatly.
With safety pins, always attach your beads and charms to the closed half — the part that doesn't open. If you thread everything onto the opening side, it all slides off the moment the pin is undone.
If you want beads hanging from your binding, change where you start your stitch. I normally begin binding from the inside, which means the thread ends are hidden internally. For beads on the spine, start from the outside so the working ends are where you can reach them and add beads before tying off. And keep the beads themselves fairly fine — chunky beads on the spine will stop the journal from lying flat when it's open.
Clipping anything onto the spine — a bulldog clip, a bracket, a large paper clip sitting between signatures — sometimes needs to happen before you sew in your signatures, not after. Worth thinking about while you're still in the binding stage rather than trying to work it in at the end.
A damaged necklace becomes a spine embellishment or a bookmark dangle. A charm bracelet becomes a closure. A single earring becomes a page marker. Most of what I've shown here costs almost nothing and takes minutes to attach — but it gives a finished journal that layered, collected quality that's hard to get any other way. If any of the ideas here sparked something specific — the beaded binding, the chain closure, the bookmark — let me know and I'm happy to do a deeper tutorial on it.
