If you've ever wondered what a finished TreasureBooks journal actually looks like from cover to cover — all the pockets and foldouts and little tucked-in surprises — this flip-through is the answer. I'm showing three handmade junk journals I had listed in my Etsy shop, each one soft-cover with an upholstery fabric cover and a sewn-in closure, and walking through every page so you can see exactly what goes inside.
What we cover
A page-by-page flip-through of three completed junk journals made from upholstery fabric, avocado-dyed paper, tea-dyed cardstock, Reader's Digest book pages, and napkin decoupage — showing how pockets, foldouts, vellum pages, washi tape elements, and Edith Holden illustrations come together into a finished sellable journal. I also point to the videos where several of these individual techniques were first shown.
What you'll learn
How a consistent formula shapes all three journals — the layouts are deliberately similar across each journal: the same pocket placement, the same signature structure, the same kinds of tabs and foldout spots. The pages and images differ, but the bones are the same. I link to my signatures formula video for anyone who wants to see how I build that structure from the start.
What upholstery fabric does for a soft-cover journal — it's sturdy, it holds a sewn-in closure beautifully, and it takes small embellishments (lace, seed beads, ribbon) without looking fussy. All three covers here use it, and you can see how different each one looks despite starting from the same material.
How avocado-dyed pages behave in a journal context, including:
- The warm, antique tones that come from a typical session
- The bright red or very dark results that can happen unpredictably — one of my recent sessions turned every page deep red, and another produced this gorgeous streaky color I genuinely couldn't have planned
- How those pages look alongside tea-dyed cardstock, vellum, and book pages in the same signature
How Reader's Digest book pages become journal pages — I sew them in as full pages, and the back side becomes a journaling spot. The printed text and column layouts give a page instant vintage character without needing any additional stamping or ink work.
How washi tape makes a clean, functional pocket, including:
- The basic pocket construction shown in my 10 Washi Tape Ideas video
- How I use these pockets to hold quotes, tags, and journaling slips — small surprises rather than functional storage
How napkin decoupage works as a page element — the napkin in the pocket of journal two started as the same type of napkin I used to make the tag in journal one, so you can see both the finished tag and the loose napkin in the same flip-through. My dedicated napkin video goes into the full technique.
What a laminated dried flower looks like as a journaling spot — pressed and laminated, it becomes a translucent, delicate page element that still has space to write on or collage over.
How foldout pages, mini booklets, and expanding pockets add journaling space without adding bulk to the spine — several pages in each journal open out sideways or have a small stitched booklet tucked inside, so the journal offers more writing surface than its page count suggests.
Tips & gotchas
Following a formula when you're making a batch of journals keeps the work manageable and the quality consistent. I don't mean every journal looks identical — the images, quotes, and page combinations are all different — but knowing that each journal gets a pocket page here, a foldout there, a vellum page toward the end means I'm not making decisions from scratch for every signature. It also means the journals feel like a coherent set, which matters when you're listing them to sell.
Avocado dyeing is genuinely unpredictable, and that's worth knowing before you plan around it. Most sessions give you those warm pinkish-tan tones, but I've had sessions where every single page came out bright red, and another where they turned very dark — almost brown. Both can be beautiful, but you can't count on a specific result. I'd suggest dyeing more paper than you think you need, and treating the variation as part of the material rather than a problem to fix. The streaky, party-streamer-blue page you'll see in the second journal is a good example: I genuinely didn't expect it, and it ended up being my favorite page in that whole journal.
For junk mail envelope pockets and washi tape pocket pages, the construction is simple but the placement matters. Pockets near the start or middle of a signature are easier to access than pockets at the very back of a heavy section — worth thinking about when you're deciding where each element goes.
Avocado-dyed pages next to vellum next to Reader's Digest columns next to Edith Holden illustrations — the materials do a lot of the work. If any of the individual techniques here caught your eye, the videos for the washi tape pockets, the napkin decoupage, the junk mail envelope construction, and the signatures formula are all linked below the original video.
