Junk Journaling Our Engagement Chapter 🫘

Ahh we just got engaged on Saturday!!

Maybe it’s because we’re gearing up to go into the holidays and spend time with family, maybe it’s because I recently saw this video from Mia’s Digital Diary, and wrote about it in my November Favorites 🫘, but memory keeping has been on my mind.

I was literally just thinking about junk journaling as a memory keeping practice I was thinking about how it would be great to focus on once we got engaged— and omg it’s now!

So I’m making a junk journal / scrapbook from scratch. I didn’t take WIP pics because I was just on autopilot & doing it in between work. But I’m so excited!! I’m referencing Johanna Clough’s bookbinding tutorials which are so helpful.

Pseudo Book Cloth ✦

If you’re into bookbinding, you know that to have a clothbound hardcover book, you need bonafide book cloth to glue it down without getting that patchy series of glue stains seeping through the front of material. One of the DIY ways to create your own book cloth is by using HeatnBond. Another is the glue stick method.

In an effort to use what I have, I took a regular purple glue stick and coated the back of my fabric in several layers. After each coat, I let it dry completely. It took about 2-3 layers to cover the entire thing with enough of a surface to be able to apply PVA glue without it leaking through. I think it worked really well! I would absolutely do this method again.

Update: I did this method again! See how it turned out: How to Make an Upcycled Sketchbook 🌼

A Home for the Scraps ✦

The main idea for filling these pages is to capture our engagement chapter of life. It’s probably going to go by so fast, and I want to have some tangible reminders of this time. This method seems like a great way to throw some memories down on paper in a haphazard-but-still-aesthetic way. It also feels very Marie Kondo to give scrap papers a little home to live in.

I also just love journaling and I’ve missed it. This is fun too because it’s like a co-journaling situation because I’ll probably slip this over to Lucas to jot some thoughts down as we go. But it’d be great if I had one of those little portable photo printers to add pics more easily.

Memory Keeping vs Junk Journaling ✦

I get why we call it junk journaling, but there’s something about calling the home for these precious, special, sweet memories, “junk” that doesn’t resonate with me. It’s easier for me to think of it as a scrapbook or memory keeping book. But I go back and forth on what I call it ha.

Follow along our wedding journey: Taking the Initial Leap into Wedding Planning 🫘 | Wedding Updates + Flower Garlands 🌱 | Linocut Love Bird Envelopes 🌱

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