How Junk Journals Actually Work When You're Trying to Process Loss
I've been making junk journals for about eight years now, and I started doing them specifically because traditional scrapbooking felt too rigid for what I was going through after my brother died. The difference between a regular album and a junk journal is that junk journals allow for mess. Layers. Stuff taped down that doesn't "fit" perfectly. Pages you pull out and fold into different configurations. That structural flexibility is what makes them useful for grief work, because grief isn't linear and it certainly doesn't fit neatly into themed pages. Start with a blank bound notebook or you can bind your own using a simple four-hole stitch. I use 100gsm paper stock minimum because once you start layering ephemera and writing on both sides, cheaper paper buckles within a week. The spread format I find most functional is a two-page layout where the left page is reserved for raw materials—ticket stubs, faded photos, handwritten notes from others—and the right page is where you process that material through writing, drawing, or collage. Here's the thing nobody tells you: the materials you source matter more than the arrangement. A piece of paper your grandmother wrote a grocery list on carries different weight than a printed receipt from a hospital gift shop, even if both are technically "found objects." When I was working through my first grief journal after my brother passed, I made the mistake of filling pages with pretty vintage ephemera I bought from craft stores. It looked nice. It did absolutely nothing for me emotionally. I had to tear through about forty pages before I understood that the journal needed to contain actual artifacts from the person who died or the period of loss. That's the counter-intuitive part—buying supplies for a grief journal defeats the purpose entirely.
The practical process goes like this. Gather whatever materials feel connected to your loss. Don't overthink the collection phase. Photos, letters, cards, small objects you can wrap in tissue and tape into the page, anything that has a direct line to the person or the experience. Then pick one item per spread. Just one. Write or draw around it on the facing page for maybe ten to fifteen minutes. Not hours. Not until it's "finished." Ten minutes, stop. Grief work is exhausting and you'll burn out if you treat each spread like a masterpiece. I ran into a specific problem about three months into my second journal. I kept trying to make everything match aesthetically—same color palette, consistent tape patterns, coordinated fonts on labels. The journal became another performance instead of a processing tool. I ended up spending more time deciding which washi tape to use than actually writing anything meaningful. The workaround was blunt: I stopped decorating the covers entirely and just used plain brown paper or plain cardstock for every spread. No decorative decisions to make. The contents inside were still whatever they needed to be. It took the pressure off and the actual emotional work increased noticeably within a few spreads. For people who want a structured starting point, there are printable templates available online that show the basic two-page spread layout with pocket placements and tuck spots. Search for "junk journal grief template free printable" and you'll find several options. I've used a few different ones over the years and the core structure is always the same—left page for accumulation, right page for reflection. The variations are mostly in pocket placement and whether they include a timeline element, which I personally skip because grief doesn't follow a timeline and putting one in just creates guilt when you miss a date.
A few technical details that will save you frustration. Use archival glue sticks, not liquid glue. Liquid glue warps paper and yellows it within a year. Archival glue sticks dry clear and stay flat. If you're embedding actual objects—letters, photographs, small mementos—use photo corners or acid-free tape rather than gluing them directly. You may need to remove something later or scan it at higher resolution, and glued-down items are gone forever. I learned that when I accidentally glued a original letter my brother wrote me directly onto a page and then needed to scan it for a family archive. Had to carefully lift it with a spatula and it tore slightly at the corner. Still used it, but it wasn't ideal. Another detail that matters: size. Most people start with A5 journals, which is a reasonable default. But if you're someone who processes through larger gestures—big scribbles, full-page collages, pasting in newspaper clippings—the A5 format becomes cramped and you'll end up fighting the page rather than using it. A4 or even half-Letter gives you room to move. I switched to a larger format halfway through my second journal and the quality of what I put on the page improved significantly because I wasn't constantly cropping my thoughts to fit. The biggest limitation of junk journal spreads for grief is that this method requires you to already have some material to work with. If you're in the early acute stages of loss and haven't saved anything, you'll find yourself staring at blank pages with nothing to put in them. That's normal. In that situation, the recommendation is to start a separate container—any envelope or box—where you deposit anything that arrives from the loss period: cards, text screenshots, voicemail transcripts, burial program sheets. Wait until you have a modest pile before opening the journal. Forcing content before you have it produces empty pages that don't help anyone.
Also worth noting: junk journals don't fix grief. They create a physical record of it, which is useful for processing and for later reflection, but they're not a therapeutic intervention in any clinical sense. If you're dealing with complicated grief or depression that's interfering with daily function, a journal won't replace professional support. I'm stating this because I've seen craft communities sometimes imply that making things is treatment. It isn't. It's something else—documentation, processing, a way to sit with difficult feelings without having to talk them out. That's valuable on its own terms, but it's not a substitute for care if you need it. The journal itself doesn't need to be complete. Some people feel pressure to fill every page before showing it to anyone or before considering it "done." It's not done when it's full. It's done when you close it and set it aside, which might be after twenty spreads or after sixty. Both are valid. I keep my journals on a shelf and open them sporadically, usually around dates that matter or when something triggers a memory. The act of reopening is part of the process, not just the act of making. If you want to start today, the only things you need are a bound notebook, some archival adhesive, a pair of scissors, and whatever memorabilia or mementos you've already accumulated. Everything else—templates, decorative elements, specialized papers—is optional and often gets in the way more than it helps.
