Five handmade journals are up for sale in the TreasureBooks Etsy shop, and this flip-through shows every one of them in detail — covers, signatures, pockets, tags, closures, and all the extra bits that come tucked inside. If you're curious what goes into a sellable junk journal, or you're looking for ideas to bring into your own making, there's a lot to take in here across five very different books.
What we cover
Five journals from the shop: a black-and-gold hardcover, a floral soft cover made with upholstery fabric (a collaboration with my parents), a pink "anything goes" scrapbook paper journal, a gray soft cover, and a red-and-black "anything goes" journal. Each one gets a full flip-through — inside pages, functional elements, closures, and the extra bundle of loose pieces that ships with every journal.
What you'll learn
What a sellable junk journal actually contains — not just decorated pages, but a considered mix of pockets, tuck spots, belly bands, envelopes, journaling spots, tags, danglies, and writing boards. Seeing five journals back to back gives a real sense of how much variety is possible within a consistent framework.
How I use a writing board inside a journal, including:
- Making one from laminated washi tape layers
- Adding a charm or bead so it doubles as a decorative bookmark
- Why bulk in a journal makes a firm backing board genuinely useful for anyone who wants to write in the pages
Why I include loose extras with every journal — a separate pouch or bundle of tags, mini notebooks, wonky envelopes, fabric pouches, and embellishments the buyer can use however they like. It's a way of giving the new owner material to play with rather than handing them a finished object they're afraid to touch.
How readers digest books and old book pages become journal materials, including:
- Full-page images glued to tea-dyed paper as bound journal pages
- Edge images cut down into tags
- Poem pages sewn directly onto burlap as a page element
What an "anything goes" journal means in practice — two of the five journals were made with the deliberate intention of not over-planning: no decided theme, no fixed color palette, just using whatever felt right. The flip-through shows what that looks like and whether it actually holds together (it does, mostly).
How upholstery fabric makes a soft cover — the gray floral journal uses fabric my dad shaped into a cover with my mum adding seed bead embellishment and lace detail. The result is soft enough to flex but structured enough to hold a full signature cleanly.
How to handle multiple closure options when you can't decide — the red-and-black journal comes with three closures (black lace, white ribbon, and a second ribbon option) so the buyer can choose. Ribbon closures can always be trimmed down if they run long.
What a 15-minute scraps session produces — toward the end of the flip-through I show a pile of things made in a single short session the night before: small pockets, coin envelopes, tags from book pages, mini folded pieces. None of them are finished. All of them are ready to drop into a journal. The point isn't the output — it's that a short creative session with your scraps box is enough to get things moving, even when you have no particular plan.
How cereal box liners, security envelopes, sewing pattern paper, and tissue boxes become journal elements — materials that usually go in the recycling make pockets, tags, and pouches that look entirely at home in a finished journal.
Tips & gotchas
Watch the parcel weight if you're selling. One of the reasons the gray floral journal stayed as a single signature rather than getting a mini booklet addition is weight — I needed to keep it under half a kilo for shipping. The black-and-gold hardcover is well over that. It's worth thinking about this before you add the last few elements, not after you've already bound everything in.
Use your happy mail. I say this a few times through the flip-through because I kept noticing pieces I'd been given and was finally, finally using. If someone sends you beautiful fabric, vintage greeting cards, handmade paper, or stickers — those things were sent to be used. Holding onto them until the "right" project is how they sit in a box for two years. Several of the nicest elements in these journals came from happy mail I'd been hoarding.
Include a writing board in journals with bulk. When a journal has a lot of pockets, inserts, and layered pages, the surface becomes uneven and writing gets awkward. A simple laminated board — even just a piece of card with a strip of washi tape over it — slipped under the page solves the problem entirely. It's one of those small additions that makes the journal genuinely easier to live with.
Trim the ribbon closure if it's too long. It seems obvious once you know, but it's easy to leave a ribbon at its original length and think that's just how it is. Cut it down. The journal looks cleaner and the closure sits better.
Short crafting sessions are worth doing even when you have no plan. A fifteen-minute sit-down with your scraps box — no project in mind, just putting things together — often produces more usable pieces than a planned session. The things I showed from the previous night weren't finished, but they were ready: little pockets, envelopes, tags. That's all you need.
The tutorials that produced the individual elements — scrappy staggered notebooks, wonky envelopes, multi-pocket signature centers, fabric pouches, book page bow paperclips — are all linked in the description, and they're worth watching if any particular element catches your eye here. Making the pieces separately, in small sessions, means that when it's time to build a journal, you already have a full box to draw from.
