If you've been sitting on a collection of postage stamps — tucked into an envelope, stashed in a drawer, not quite sure what to do with them — this video is for you. I had a big pile of them, stamps from New Zealand, Australia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Germany, all sorts, and I wanted to find real, usable ways to get them into journals and projects rather than just hoarding them indefinitely. So I made a travel-themed postage stamp journal from start to finish, and along the way I showed every idea I tried: covers, tabs, bookmarks, master boards, charms, clusters, altered envelopes, and more.
What we cover
This is both an idea showcase and a working project build. I start with a gutted altered book and work through 15+ ways to use postage stamps across journal covers, page elements, embellishments, and standalone pieces — finishing with a full flip-through of the completed journal. Every idea is demonstrated; most get added to the journal on camera.
What you'll learn
How to cover a full journal cover with postage stamps — including why wet PVA glue makes them curl, the tweezers trick for laying them down flat one at a time, and why I chose not to seal the finished cover.
Why I work stamps in a runny PVA-water mix when covering large areas — it spreads faster, gets into the edges more easily, and means you can move through a big surface without the glue drying before you're done.
How to group postage stamps by color to make them less chaotic — postage stamps are tiny and intensely colorful, and throwing a mix of them down together can look overwhelming fast. Working within a single color family (all greens, all oranges, all reds) gives you something that reads as intentional rather than cluttered.
How to make postage stamp snippet rolls — strips of paper with washi tape borders and zigzag-cut edges, covered in stamps and sewn together. I show how these can be left flat and hacked into belly bands, flip-up writing panels, or pockets rather than rolled.
How to alter envelopes with postage stamps — layering stamps with rubber stamping, die cuts, and inked edges to make envelopes that work as journal pockets, tuck spots, or standalone collage pieces. I show several versions including one with a marbled envelope and a little letter tucked inside.
How to build and cut up a master board, including:
- Collaging book pages, music pages, and handwriting onto cardstock as a base layer
- Cutting the finished board into tags, hearts, circles, pocket shapes, and paper clip elements
- Turning cut pieces into interactive journal elements — a brad-attached circle, a washi tape flip-out, a lace-trimmed pocket, an altered paper clip with a tuck spot
How to make postage stamp tabs, including:
- Folding scrap cardstock, gluing stamps to both sides, and inking the edges
- Stapling tabs directly onto journal pages without accidentally stapling two pages together
- Spacing and aligning tabs so the stamps show cleanly on both sides when you flip through
How to make laminated postage stamp bookmarks — book page base, stamps on top, run through a laminator. Quick to make, sturdy, giftable, and surprisingly sellable.
How to make laminated postage stamp charms, tags, and necklace pieces — pairing same-size stamps back to back before laminating, adding eyelets for jump rings or bulb pins, and shaping the laminate into tags with a clear top section.
How to make postage stamp clusters — a scrap of book page, a scrap of fabric, two or three stamps, stapled together in about thirty seconds. No glue required.
How to use doubled-up stamps as decorative page edges — placing matching stamps on both sides of a page edge so the tab is sturdy, looks intentional, and shows stamps rather than blank paper when you flip through.
How to make simple collages on index cards and playing cards — using the same small combination of materials (packing paper, washi tape, a stamp or two, twine) repeated across a set of cards to give them visual cohesion without being matchy.
How to make a magazine page pocket insert — two magazine pages glued back to back with the printing facing inward, slipped openings cut before stitching to create little pockets sized for postage stamps or ephemera.
Tips & gotchas
Postage stamps are very small and very colorful, and that combination can work against you quickly. A random mix of stamps piled together tends to look chaotic rather than collected. Grouping by color — even loosely — makes a big difference, and leaving some breathing room around the stamps (a patch of bare paper or a book page showing through) often looks better than covering every inch.
When you're gluing stamps down with wet PVA, they will curl. That's just what they do. The workaround is to lay them face-down, apply glue over the top, then pick each one up with tweezers and press it into place. Going stamp by stamp, making sure every edge is flat, is slower but it's the difference between a smooth finish and a surface that lifts and bubbles. A runny PVA-water mix speeds things up considerably when you're covering a large area — it brushes on faster and gets into corners more easily than thick glue straight from the bottle.
Glue stick is fine for positioning and initial hold, but it's not permanent. If you're making something you want to last — tabs, bookmarks, anything structural — follow up with white glue.
For page-edge tabs and decorative edges, doubling the stamps back to back means they're sturdy enough to handle regular use and they look good from both sides when you're flipping through. Worth the extra stamp.
When stapling tabs onto journal pages, it's easy to accidentally catch the page behind the one you're working on. Go slowly, check what's underneath, and staple one page at a time.
If you're covering a journal cover entirely in stamps, I'd think carefully before sealing it with a spray or varnish — I held back because I wasn't confident it wouldn't discolor the paper. Instead I just made sure every single edge was properly glued down.
The travel and vintage feel of postage stamps makes the finished pieces natural fits for travel journals, gifts for friends going on trips, or little packs of themed ephemera to tuck into happy mail. There's a lot of mileage in a pile of stamps you've been meaning to do something with.
