By Isabell Macrina
Hometown Weekly Staff
Journaling has risen in popularity for its benefits for mindfulness, organization, and the rise of a love of physical media in the modern age. But sometimes the organized bullet lists and agendas can feel overwhelming to put together. Junk Journaling embraces the chaos of life with a handcrafted feel allowing people to make their own notebooks, upcycle and recycle materials from around the home, and have a place to save mementos, and more!
Dover Town Librarian Hannah brought this program for ages 10-18 to show them the ropes of collage and junk journaling and how it can be used in everyday life, even had some books on the topic with ideas for different page spreads. Kids came into the living room of the library and got to pick a notebook, all saved from a previous event at the library (go recycling!) or loose paper to make their own notebook, completely customizable.
There were so many arts and crafts supplies that the kids could incorporate into their journals. Different colors and patterns of scrapbook paper for them to cut out with the pattern edge scissors, retro-style decals and pieces of paper that showed music pages, old botanical labels, and flowers, and patterns of washi tape to tie it all together. They even had vinyl designs cut out from their Cricut craft night a bit ago. Thanks to the book “Creative Junk Journaling” by Natasha Ahmed, the kids got to try different layouts like books they were reading, songs they were listening to, and more.
Each journal came out looking totally unique and the kids went home with small baggies of stickers, cutouts, and more to keep working on at home. Keep your eyes on the DTL website for more craft events coming up.
