Setting Up Digital Junk Journals in GoodNotes
Junk journals started as physical scrapbooking, but the digital version has become its own thing. GoodNotes is the main app people use for this on iPad. You layer papers, stickers, washi tape images, and text boxes to create pages that look like they came from a thrift store. For high schoolers, the appeal is mostly aesthetic organization—homework notes mixed with decorative elements that actually make it fun to look at your assignments. Here's how I actually set mine up. I use a mix of downloaded printable junk journal kits from sites like Etsy and free resources. Then I import them into GoodNotes as PDFs or individual image files. The key is not going overboard with layers. I learned that the hard way on my first project.
Junk Journal Goodnotes For High School
The process is straightforward enough, but there are a few things that trip people up. First, you need blank journal templates. GoodNotes doesn't come with pre-made junk journal layouts, so you have to find or make them. I use 8.5x11 or A4 size since that's what most printable kits are designed for. You can find free templates online or just create your own by making a blank page and importing some background papers. Next, you layer your ephemera. This means adding images of vintage papers, ticket stubs, newspaper clippings, hand-drawn elements—whatever fits your theme. In GoodNotes, you add these by tapping the + button and selecting Images. I keep all my assets organized in folders by theme, which saves time when I'm working on a new spread. Text goes on top using the text tool. I usually type out headings and notes first, then layer the decorative elements over them. This gives you more control than trying to drag text around after everything is placed. GoodNotes lets you move individual layers freely, so order matters during creation.
Here's something I wish I'd known sooner: GoodNotes' layer management isn't perfect for junk journaling. If you add too many elements, the app gets sluggish. I hit this wall with my second journal when I tried to put sixty-plus stickers on one page. It took about thirty seconds to pan around the page instead of instantly. My workaround was to flatten duplicates where possible and split heavy pages across two spreads. I also disabled animations in GoodNotes settings, which helped with responsiveness without sacrificing functionality.
Get the Full Details
Where to Get Assets
Free options exist but quality varies. The YouTube tutorials that promise "free junk journal printables" usually lead to low-resolution scans or watermarked images. For actual good quality, a couple of dollars on Etsy gets you a PDF with properly sized, high-resolution elements. I spend maybe fifteen dollars a month on new kits, which covers a semester's worth of journal pages. There are also Reddit communities and Discord servers where people share their own digital ephemera. The r/JunkJournal subreddit has a decent collection of freebies, though most were originally created for physical printing and may not be optimized for screen use.
The Reality Check
Digital junk journaling in GoodNotes has real limitations. The biggest one is that it's still labor-intensive. A well-made page takes me about twenty to forty minutes depending on complexity. That's not fast if you're using this as a study tool and need to produce content regularly. Physical junk journals have the same problem, honestly—this aesthetic is slow by design. Another issue is that GoodNotes doesn't support true transparency for imported images. When you layer semi-transparent elements, they either fully cover what's beneath or don't blend the way you'd expect. You get around this by using images that already have transparency baked in (PNGs with transparent backgrounds), but finding those in junk journal kits is hit or miss. Exporting and sharing your journals is another friction point. GoodNotes lets you export as PDF, but the file sizes balloon quickly with layered images. A single decorated page can push past fifty megabytes, which makes emailing or cloud-sharing annoying. I typically export completed journals as multi-page PDFs only when I'm ready to archive or share them, rather than constantly saving intermediate work.
If you're in high school and thinking about starting this, my advice is to keep it simple. Don't try to replicate physical junk journals exactly. Use the aesthetic as inspiration, pick a consistent color palette, and build a small library of reusable elements you can drop into new pages quickly. The more automation you can build into your workflow—custom stamps, grouped layers, template pages—the faster you'll get. Done right, you can knock out a decorated page in about ten minutes once you have your system dialed in.
