Celebrating 5 years of Jewish Junk Journaling

In my house there are book shelves full of Soul Seforim, which is what I call my Jewish junk journals. Since 2019 I have enjoyed doing easy/artsy creative journaling with scrap materials, paint, markers, rubber stamps, and paste. It's inexpensive and fun for children and adults.

I call them my Soul Seforim (seforim is the Hebrew word for Holy books) because they come from my soul connection to the Divine. They are full of prayers, Torah wisdom, memories, and inspiration. Making them is art therapy. 

Try it for yourself! You can start junk journaling anywhere, even on little scraps of paper.

Completely new to the idea of junk journaling? Here's a lovely no-talking video with Alisa Burke painting her journal pages first:

Some people paint on paper and create elaborate collages on their journal pages. Simple or fancy, junk journaling is a wonderful way to express your thoughts and feelings artistically. Here's an explainer video by Shana, showing how she creates her multi-media junk journal pages:

Here's Lila Goldstein's article showing her scrap paper journaling called The Tzimtzum of a Jewish Journal.

These are my own journal pages created a few years ago in an art journaling class with Rakefet Hadar called Layers of Meaning. It includes real photographs of me as a child, rubber stamping, printed fabric, and pages torn out of books. These two pages are glued inside a children's book, which makes this whole piece an "altered book."

Enjoy this Jewish Bible Journaling video by @torah_crafting on YouTube: 

Some people tell me they need a question or idea to get started writing in their journal. Click this link to a blog post with really good Jewish journal prompts for Elul from TheNexus.org 

Here's a beautiful, thorough blog post by Lisa, showing how she prepares torn magazine pages to create a Tu B'Shevat collage, perfect for junk journaling, too.  

Finally, this elaborate junk journal is not intentionally Jewish, but I'm including it to show an elaborate a junk journal creation. This video has a soft, musical soundtrack, so it's very relaxing to watch.

May our Elul 5783 be filled with creative, loving teshuva in the form of fun, healing, Jewish journaling!  

Mia Sherwood Landau

The secret to my Jewish Junk Journaling success is Yes! bookmaker's paste. I purchase it by the gallon and transfer it into a smaller plastic jar for daily use.