If you've got a gift bag sitting in a drawer — the kind that's too nice to throw away but has been waiting there for months — this tutorial is for you. I take a single gift bag and turn it into a complete little junk journal: cover, pocket, closure, binding, and all. No cutting, no gluing. The bag does most of the work.
What we cover
This is a quick start-to-finish project using a gift bag as the journal cover — folded in half, with the bag's built-in pocket and eyelets put to use. I walk through assembling a 20-page signature, binding it in with a three-hole pamphlet stitch using waxed thread, making a small writing board, and finishing the journal with a charm, a corner bookmark, and a tuck spot at the back. At the end I show a second version alongside a few other bag styles to show how the method adapts.
What you'll learn
How to fold a gift bag into a journal cover — fold it in half so the open mouth of the bag becomes a built-in pocket on the front, and what's left of the bag body becomes your front and back cover. No trimming needed.
How to set up a gold elastic closure through the bag's eyelets, including:
- Threading elastic through the front eyelets before adding signatures, so you can adjust the tension once the book has some thickness
- Tying a loose double knot at first so there's room to tighten once the signature is in
How to make a mixed-paper signature for a junk journal, including:
- Choosing an assortment of papers — scrapbook paper, avocado-dyed paper, tea-dyed paper, book pages — for variety in color and texture
- Adding a folded paper bag into the signature to create one or two built-in pockets inside the journal
- Checking height against the cover before binding so nothing digs into the pages
How to bind a signature using the three-hole pamphlet stitch with waxed thread, tied off with a knot and bow at the spine.
Decorating page edges before binding — I add ribbon ruffles along the side edges with a sewing machine. The key is doing this before you punch binding holes, so you're not hunting for alignment afterward.
How to make a laminated writing board for the front pocket, using washi tape layered onto thin cardstock, laminated, and finished with a small charm. It sits inside the pocket and gives you a flat surface to write on when the pages are thick with ephemera.
Using a brad and a spiral paper clip to create a tuck spot at the back — the brad anchors the back flap and the paper clip holds a corner bookmark loosely in place so it doesn't fall through.
Attaching a charm to the elastic closure using a jump ring — either threaded on before you tie the knot, or added after by looping through.
Adapting the method to gift bags without eyelets, including:
- Punching your own holes with an awl
- Setting your own eyelets for a cleaner finish
- Using any decorative bag the same way — folded in half, pocket at front, binding through the spine
Tips & gotchas
Tie your elastic closure loosely at first. Once your signature is in, you'll know exactly how thick the spine needs to be — then you can go back and tighten the knot. If you tie it snug too early, you'll either have a floppy journal or have to cut the elastic and start over.
Decorate your page edges before you punch binding holes. I added ribbon ruffles to mine and then had to realign the whole signature to find my center mark again. If you do the edge decoration first, you punch once and you're done.
If your gift bag doesn't have eyelets, don't let that stop you. Punch your own holes with an awl, or set a pair of eyelets yourself — the result is exactly the same. Some bags are even nicer without them.
When you're sewing the pamphlet stitch, use an awl to hold your signature in place while you work rather than paper clips. Paper clips can shift; the awl sits in the hole and keeps everything lined up while your hands are busy with the needle and thread.
One more thing worth knowing: 20 folded pages gives you 80 writing sides. That's a lot of journal for such a quick project.
Bags with bold patterns become decorated covers without any extra embellishment. Bags with handles offer ready-made cord for a different kind of closure. Larger bags scale up to a bigger journal using exactly the same method — same fold, same pamphlet stitch, same pocket logic. It's the kind of project that changes how you look at packaging in general: the tissue paper, the little printed tags, the paper bags inside. All of it is raw material.
