If you've got a cereal box heading for the recycling bin, pull it back out. This full step-by-step tutorial shows you how to turn it — along with tissue paper, acrylic paint, embroidery floss, and a pile of paper junk — into a complete handmade journal, from bare cardboard to bound and decorated book. The technique at the heart of the cover mimics old leather so convincingly it's genuinely hard to believe what's underneath. Everything is made on camera: cover construction, painting, edge embellishment, criss-cross spine binding, signature making, pamphlet stitching, tassel, and bookplate. Nothing is skipped.
What we cover
This is a complete build of a junk journal using a cereal box cover, tissue paper texture, layered acrylic paint, and mixed junk pages — including a faux leather finish, embroidery floss edge sewing, criss-cross cover-to-spine binding, three-hole pamphlet stitch signatures, and a handmade muslin bookplate with leather accents. The video ends with a look inside a finished journal and ideas for how to begin working in it.
What you'll learn
How to cut and fold a cereal box cover — starting with a straight edge before measuring so every subsequent cut aligns cleanly, yielding two front/back panels (12.5 × 6.5 inches, folded) plus a spine panel (2.5 × 6.5 inches).
How to create a faux leather texture with tissue paper and PVA glue, including:
- Scrunching tissue paper (the kind that comes packed in shoe boxes) and pressing it onto a glue-coated surface with deliberate creases
- Soaking everything through with a light hand to eliminate air bubbles before drying
- Patching any tears with a small scrunched piece pressed right on top — it blends seamlessly
How to build up a layered paint finish that reads as aged leather, including:
- A gesso base coat to prime the surface and let white show through
- A brown acrylic layer applied with minimal paint on the brush, working in multiple directions to reduce brushstroke uniformity
- Orange accent paint applied sparingly with a dry brush to warm and vary the surface
- A final highlight of gold wax or gold paint dry-brushed across the raised tissue paper ridges
How to embroider the edges of folded cover panels with embroidery floss — poking holes approximately a quarter-inch from the edge and half an inch apart along three sides (not the spine fold), then stitching through from inside out with a large-eye needle and finishing with knotted ends on the interior.
How to bind the cover panels to the spine with a criss-cross stitch, including:
- Using an even number of holes — non-negotiable for the criss-cross pattern to close correctly
- Marking hole placement with a pen before punching to ensure even spacing
- Working two needles simultaneously from the inside out, alternating left and right to build the criss-cross pattern
- Keeping appropriate tension — firm enough to hold, loose enough for the cover to open and close freely
- Securing all knots with a tiny drop of PVA glue before trimming
How to prepare junk pages and assemble signatures, including:
- Selecting from envelopes, magazine pages, catalog pages, painted papers, calendar pages, paper bags, and other found materials
- Ripping rather than cutting edges for a natural, uneven look
- Folding pages individually and collating into signatures of around 15 pages each
- Clipping signatures with a bulldog clip before piercing holes so pages stay aligned
How to bind signatures into the spine using a three-hole pamphlet stitch — making a reusable paper template to mark hole positions, punching corresponding holes through the spine and each signature, and stitching from the center hole out, finishing with a bow or knotted tie at the spine.
How to punch the tassel hole and make a cord tassel with beads, including:
- Punching the tassel hole before binding signatures in — it becomes much harder to do cleanly afterward
- Folding cord to create multiple strands, threading through the spine hole, and tying with enough slack above the knot so the tassel can be swept aside while journaling
- Threading paper beads, glass beads, or repurposed necklace beads onto the cords with knots between each bead to keep them spaced
How to make a layered junk journal bookplate, including:
- Fraying the edges of a muslin base layer for a soft, organic border
- Layering cardstock painted with orange acrylic and a piece of leather jacket sleeve on top
- Stapling rather than gluing any piece stamped with non-permanent ink — gluing can cause the ink to bleed through or smudge on thin materials
Tips & gotchas
Start every cardboard panel with at least one confirmed straight edge before you measure anything else. If your reference edge is crooked, every measurement taken from it carries that error forward — and once it's folded and bound, it really does matter.
Tissue paper is meaningfully stronger than napkins for the texture technique. Both work, but napkins tear more readily under the wet glue brush. Use a very light touch either way — pressing hard while the paper is wet will rip it. If a tear does happen, don't stress: grab a small scrunched piece and press it right over the rip. Once dry and painted, it disappears.
Air bubbles are the one thing worth being thorough about at the gluing stage. Bubbles that dry in place will eventually pop or start peeling as the journal gets used. Tilt the panel to check, tap any remaining bubbles flat, and make sure the whole surface is glue-saturated before setting it aside.
Paint in thin layers and go slowly. It genuinely is easier to add more brown than to take it away once it's dry. Put the panels side by side periodically as you work — color saturation can creep unevenly across covers without you noticing until they're very different from each other.
For the criss-cross binding, mark your holes with a pen before punching and count carefully — you need an even number of holes for the pattern to work. Don't over-tighten as you stitch. The thread needs to hold the covers securely but the joint should still have enough give for the book to open flat.
Use a bulldog clip to hold signature pages together while you pierce holes. Pages shift more than you'd expect during punching, and a shifted hole in a 15-page signature means pages that won't sit flat once bound.
Punch the tassel hole in the spine before you sew the signatures in. Once the binding is in place, getting a clean punch without disturbing everything around it is genuinely difficult. Doing it earlier takes thirty seconds; doing it later takes frustration.
If any piece of your bookplate is stamped with non-permanent ink, staple it rather than glue it. Glue can cause the ink to transfer or show through thin layers — a staple holds just as well, and in a junk journal, a staple is perfectly at home.
The pages you've gathered from catalogs, envelopes, old calendars, and painted sessions are the raw material, not the finished product. Envelopes become pockets, coffee filters become pockets, scraps from cutting sessions become tabs and tags. Pages that can't be written on directly become surfaces to collage over. The bits left over from trimming signatures — those torn, uneven strips — are exactly the kind of ephemera that looks wonderful stitched or glued onto a page. The journal grows every time you sit down with it, and the cover technique here — that layered, textured, gold-touched surface — only gets better with handling.
