Emi

Posted Tuesday, September 12, 2023

8mo

INTP

Leo

6

5

Artsy junk journal

I do a sort of fusion between an art journal and junk journal as a therapy tool. I’ve tried diaries and other forms of writing before but it just doesn’t stick or have the desired effect for me to be useful. Mainly what I use journaling through is processing emotions, past trauma, stress regulation, grounding/soothing, reflections and to treasure certain memories. Being an artist as well as a crafty person who grew up doing crafts with my mom a lot, I’ve found that having a more visual expression rather than writing is what works for me. Generally I use momentos (tickets, receipts, post cards, notes), old sketches, drawings/ paintings that I’m not satisfied with, drawings from my childhood/teens as well as scrapbooking materials such as scrapbooking paper, stickers, bookmarks, washi tape etc. It’s a more abstract way (I suppose) but since it’s just for me and it’s meant as a way to process/work through things as well as boosting my mood with dopamine from making crafts with aesthetically pleasing things, it works well for me. I recently bought a new book to use, opted for a ring binder as my previous 2 books have gotten a bit “thick” from gluing and taping stuff to the blank pages despite that I manually remove pages so it can close a bit better. Those books were sorta bound hardcover so I wanted something that would allow more space. May sound a bit brutal to cut out pages from a bound book (even one with blank pages) but the fact is that I was ok with it bc I made those books myself when I was in art school so they were otherwise just collecting dust on a shelf 😅 Anyways, I thought that I’d might share some of my journaling here (haven’t found a place that I felt safe to share and I will still keep some stuff for myself). Picture is of the kind of binder I bought, image is from the page.