DIY Gothic Junk Journal

Journaling has always been such a wonderful source of therapy. Writing out shadow work prompts, retelling of how the day went, expressing feelings or struggles, the usual journal stuff. Lately I have been struggling with my ADHD child, managing his emotions, handling my responses to those emotions and figuring out the best way to discipline and parent affectively.

Crafts have been a positive and beloved pass time for me and my son. So in an attempt in trying to manage feelings and enjoy in crafts I thought lets do a craft that might help him to channel that ADHD energy. he was into it entially but sadly with a 10 year old boy lost interest pretty quickly. I loved the idea of creating my own gothic junk journal. I do have a lot of minutia to create one! I have however become obsessed!

I have a habit of collecting blank journals, I have cultivated quit the collection over the years. You never know when you will need one. So for this project I just picked out one of the many unused journals, some tissue paper, some of the many stickers I'v collected over the years, some lace and ribbon from my sewing bin and began to create the cover of my journal. I used hot glue and modge podge.

I still have charms on chains I want to add to the cover. I saw some really great ideas for this on Pinterest and on tiktok. I will add them later. Right now I have been making my pages by simply gluing scrapbook paper, saved gothic tissue paper and other bags or paper with interesting designs on them, to the existing lined journal pages. I have been enjoying just doing this for the past few days. I managed to collect a lot of scrapbook paper thanks to my mom and making miniatures. I tried not to reuse pages ( except for black pages) I had multiples of so I could use them for other projects like more miniatures or when I do finally work on some scrapbooks for the kids. Projects for another day and post.

While making the pages, some designs spoke to me and I couldn't help but start to fill them. I have collected so much over the years, images for fashion design books, art pieces, miniatures, stickers for scrapbooking or for the kids, washi tape with Halloween and pastry themes. I just have a habit of collecting things like that for paper crafts. I love that I found junk journaling because I can use the stickers and images, and things I've put aside for scrapbooks in these books. Plus its great to get your mind off of the current state of world.

It truly has become an obsessed with junk journaling. I find myself going to The Dollar Tree, 5 Below, JoAnns and Micheals in the search of supplies, paper, stickers and so on. As I have been diving deeper into the hobby, I have found so many ways to go about junking a journal! I do a mix old ephemera and new. It is definitely A hobby I plan to continue and will make more posts about in the future!