These three soft-cover family themed junk journals are a flip-through worth watching if you're looking for inspiration on how to layer pages, pockets, and ephemera into a cohesive journal — or if you're browsing for a handmade journal to buy. The journals shown here were listed on my Etsy at the time of filming, and the flip-through covers both the embellished versions and an unembellished set, so you can see exactly what's inside before making a decision.
What we cover
A complete flip-through of three matching soft-cover journals with a family theme — looking at the page layouts, pocket styles, tags, and ephemera included — plus a peek at a separate set of unembellished journals and the extra goodies that come with each pack.
What you'll learn
How a laminated writing board fits into a junk journal — it lives right at the front so you can slip it under any page before you write, keeping the surface smooth over all the texture and layers beneath.
What a soft-cover closure looks like when it's attached to the back rather than the spine edge — one of the journals here has the closure tied from the back cover rather than the side, which changes how it sits in your hand and on a shelf.
How to build a page sequence with variety without losing coherence, including:
- Tea-dyed vellum pages alongside book pages and lined paper
- Avocado-dyed paper and coffee-dyed paper used as writing pages
- Clear album page pockets holding a mini booklet
- Flip-down envelopes, standard pocket pages, and vellum pockets living side by side in the same journal
What family-themed ephemera looks like when it's subtle rather than heavy-handed — labels like "grandmother," "grandfather," "sister," "brother," a this journal belongs to tag, and phrases like home is where the heart is scattered throughout without crowding out the writing space.
How a decorative button-and-string charm works as a signature marker — a string threaded with buttons hangs below the journal when it's open, drops out of the way when closed, and marks the centre of the signature without being glued down.
What the extras in a junk journal pack can look like, including:
- A laminated mini booklet with a cover that matches the writing board paper
- A loaded pocket page with four pockets and a large tag
- Laminated charms on a bobby pin
- Loose cardstock embellishments and ephemera pieces for the buyer to use however they like
What an unembellished journal set offers — the same soft cover, same page variety (coffee-dyed, avocado-dyed, pockets, middle signature pocket), and same structure, but all pages are blank and undecorated so you're working from scratch with your own ideas.
Tips & gotchas
The writing board tucked at the front of these journals isn't just decorative — it's functional. Junk journals have a lot going on under any given page: pockets, envelopes, extra layers of paper. When you write directly on a page without slipping something firm underneath, you feel all of that through the page. Sliding the laminated board under the page you're working on gives you a flat, smooth writing surface no matter where you are in the journal.
A small note for anyone building similar journals to sell: keeping the extras cohesive with the journal itself (using the same paper for the mini booklet cover as for the writing board, for instance) makes the whole pack feel considered rather than assembled from leftovers. It's a small thing that buyers notice.
If you're drawn to the idea of junk journal pages but want to put your own stamp on the decoration, the unembellished set is worth looking at separately. The bones are the same — the cover, the page variety, the pockets — but nothing has been glued down or layered on top, so the pages are genuinely yours to work with.
These journals were made as a collaboration — my parents made the covers, I made everything inside — and that kind of division is worth thinking about if you find the cover construction or the interior building overwhelming to do at the same time. Splitting the work doesn't mean it's less handmade; it means the cover work and the interior work each get the attention they deserve.
The unembellished version takes that one step further: nothing decided for you yet, all the structure already there.
