the mindful art of junk journals

I want to dedicate this blog post to a liberating mindfulness practice, the Junk Journal, yes. 

It is technically nothing more than pieces of “junk paper” as the name suggests. But, is everything junk that we think it is? 

Well, most certainly not. And if you ask any junk journaling enthusiast they will say the same. That cut flower printed on the empty tea carton, treasure. The cherries or vanilla flower from the chocolate wrapper, the pattern on a cool shipping bag, designs from a postcard, all treasure. 

Those meters of beautiful brown wrapping paper pieces, the coloured tissue papers of items received in the mail, that lovely stamp from an envelope… It is all a treasure for the junk journaling practitioner. 

The pleasure we get from our tactile junk, just marvelous. 

We can talk about the sustainable angle, that we are very mindful of our waste and recycling. We can talk about the brain maintenance benefits of exercising our fine motor skills. We can think about the freedom of uninhibited creative expression with our so-called junk. 

All of the above is true. 

Now, I don’t want to talk your ears off about the joy it all brings. Or rather strain your eyes. So instead, my dear reader, I would like to encourage you to give it a go. 

You can indeed google yourself some tutorials on how to make a junk journal. It is a medium level mindfulness activity, depending on how fancy you want it to be. But it can be easy if you go with a very simple design to construct one. 

I made some for my daughter and myself about this time last year. It is a great activity for young and old. It can be a mindfulness activity and quality time moment with our children, our close friends, our partners, our parents even. You can choose someone special,  if you like, and enjoy the joy of creative freedom and zen moments together. 

Or you can just make it part of your mindfulness activity repertoire. It is something you would do on occasions anyways, as I find, it takes time to collect gorgeous pieces of junk. 

So, I hope you find inspiration in this exercise, may this become a part of your personality and mindfulness art journey. May pretty junk ever be in your favour. 

For more pictures click here:  @eszterwittich