Lesbian Winter, Repurposing, and How I Started Junk Journaling

Written by Claire Teymouri

When I’m asked, “Do you want your receipt?” my answer is completely based on whatever comes out of my mouth first. When I say yes, that receipt goes in the trash, in the center console of my car, in my pocket, or sometimes in my purse. In the case of the last two, it then makes its way into my binder of scraps and is later incorporated into a spread in my junk journal.

My journal used to be completely blank, sitting in a cabinet full of other items I didn’t have a place for in my room back home. I bought it on a whim in 2020 after a burst of motivation to pick up bullet journaling as my new “thing”. After spending hours carefully curating Pinterest boards for inspiration, I found that my attempts at the neat, colorful, well-organized bullet journal spreads I was inspired by turned out to be scribbly, messy, and just downright wrong. Frustrated, I decided that bullet journaling was not my calling and put the journal down in my desk cabinet, where it collected dust for the next three years.

Over time, a pile of scraps accumulated on my desk. This pile had magazine cutouts, stickers I didn’t have a place for, pieces of tissue paper from birthday gifts, rolls of washi tape, receipts, dried flowers that were once tucked behind ears, pages ripped from books, movie tickets, and the like. While searching for somewhere to put my piles of junk, I picked up the journal I had abandoned years prior and a stick of glue. Filling pages in this journal with scraps allowed me to express myself creatively while giving meaning to things that were previously meaningless.