Saving pamphlets, receipts, and wrappers: Young people take on junk journaling

"A junk journal "fills in memories for you and you [don't] necessarily have to write a whole page about your experience, but it still fulfills [the practice of] holding onto [a] special memory," says Lauren Clark, the owner of Found and Flowered, a Greater Boston-based company that makes collage materials and hosts junk journaling events. Last month, Olympian Ilona Maher discussed her and her sisters' hobby of bullet, or junk, journaling with Malala Yousafzai on "The House of Maher" podcast, "We'll get even a piece of paper or something from somewhere and we'll put it in our journals and you can kind of remember it. ... When we're together, ... we all get the same sticker and put it in.""

"While it is trending online, junk journaling is getting people off social media to collect junk and then collage. "We're really hoping for a return to this, like, tangible, analog practice where you are using your hands again," Clark said. Junk journaling "means something different to everybody, but you could call it a revival of the scrapbooking trend," in a way, she said. Unlike scrapbooking, however, junk journaling does not typically involve photos. It is "a quicker, in-the-moment process. It's about embracing imperfection and finding beauty in the discarded," according to a January article on Mar"

Junk journaling involves collecting found paper items—receipts, wrappers, pamphlets, museum tickets—and collaging them into journals as physical records of experiences. The practice is trending among younger generations and encourages saving everyday ephemera instead of discarding it. Junk journals serve as memory prompts that reduce the need for lengthy written entries while preserving a sense of place and moment. The movement emphasizes analog, hands-on creation and often moves participants offline. Businesses and events supply materials and community spaces for creating junk journals. The practice differs from scrapbooking by typically excluding photographs and embracing imperfection and immediacy.

Read at Boston.com