If you've got a junk drawer full of scraps, off-cuts, and leftover bits from past projects — the kind of pile that's too good to throw away but too chaotic to face — this tutorial is exactly for you. I pulled a fistful of stuff from my own junk drawer and challenged myself to make a complete journal using only what came out. No shopping, no planning, no stash-diving mid-project. Just a cereal box, fabric scraps, envelope flaps, wrapping paper, old book pages, doilies, and a handful of threads — turned into a chunky, tactile junk journal with handles, pockets, tabs, and three bound signatures.
What we cover
This is a full start-to-finish build: from pulling a pile of scraps and figuring out what you're even making, through covering cereal box panels with fabric, constructing a spine, assembling pages from leftover bits, binding with a three-hole pamphlet stitch, and finally decorating and filling the journal until every last scrap is used up. There's a flip-through at the end so you can see how it all came together.
What you'll learn
How to build journal covers from cereal box panels and fabric scraps, including:
- Covering panels with whatever fabric pieces you have on hand — no matching, no measuring, just going with it
- Attaching fabric using a sewing machine straight stitch, or with glue if you don't have one
- Trimming excess with pinking shears for a finished edge without precision cutting
How to add fabric handles to a journal cover The handles are positioned and secured with masking tape before being sewn in place, then covered with the inner lining so they're captured cleanly between the layers. If you're not sewing, glue works here too — just give it time to set before moving on.
How to line the inside of covers with wrapping paper Leftover gift wrap is perfect for this — it's lightweight, takes glue cleanly, and adds a pop of colour or pattern inside the cover without adding bulk.
How to cover a spine with paper when you don't have spare fabric I used more of the same wrapping paper, gluing the top and bottom edges down and leaving the sides free as open pockets. It's a practical workaround, and the pockets become a feature.
How to make "Franken-pages" from whatever scraps you have, including:
- Joining envelope flap off-cuts edge to edge to build a full page width
- Using folded plastic packaging as a built-in pocket page
- Adding sewn fabric ruffles, doilies, and fabric strips to extend pages and add texture
- Incorporating a child's doodling as a finished journal page (this is a junk journal — it belongs here)
How to make a binding template and pierce signatures for pamphlet stitch binding, including:
- Marking hole positions on the cover from the outside
- Creating a simple paper template aligned to the tallest page in each signature
- Checking and re-making the template between signatures if the page heights differ
- Binding three signatures with a three-hole pamphlet stitch, knotting and trimming each one individually
How to convert leftover handles into tabs and journal elements Once the handles came off (I changed my mind mid-project — this happens), I stapled them as tabs onto the page edges. Nothing wasted.
How to use up every remaining scrap in the decorating stage, including:
- Folding paper strips into small booklets to insert as writing spaces
- Creating tags from leftover card
- Adding tucked-in elements, hidden pockets, and tuck spots — some planned, some unintentional
- Working with double-sided tape on fabric scraps when glue would be too slow
What this kind of journal is actually for If you're new to junk journals, the flip-through section of this video answers the question I get asked most: what do you do with it? Movie tickets, love letters, happy mail, currently-watching lists, a quote someone said to you at the shops — it's your day-to-day life kept in a slightly different way than a blank diary. Writing spaces can be as simple as tearing down a piece of paper to the right size and gluing it to a page you can't write on directly.
Tips & gotchas
On glue and fabric: I made this mistake on camera so you don't have to — too much glue will seep straight through fabric and leave a visible mark on the front. Use less than you think you need, press firmly, and let it dry before adding the next layer.
On the sewing machine: I use mine a lot in this project for attaching fabric to the covers and for adding ruffles and sewn embellishments to pages. But every single one of these steps works just as well with glue. If you don't have a sewing machine, don't let that be a reason to skip anything.
On binding templates: Make a fresh template for each signature rather than assuming they'll all be the same height. In this project the third signature happened to align perfectly with the template from the second, but when it doesn't — just fold a new one. It takes thirty seconds and saves you from crooked binding.
On doing it in sessions rather than all at once: I filmed this in one go because I was filming, but in real life I'd probably come back to a project like this across several days — maybe fifteen minutes on the covers one evening, the pages another time, the binding the next. Breaking it up that way keeps it from feeling like a mountain and fits into the gaps in a busy week. The 15-minute creative session is genuinely a useful tool, especially when you're in a rut and just need to start something.
Handles, ruffles, envelope flaps, a child's drawing, a strip of bubble wrap — it all has a place. The next time you pull out a handful of scraps, you'll already know what you're capable of making with them.
