What if your journal didn't begin with a blank page?
What if it began with a piece of weathered paper, a tiny envelope, an old-looking ticket, a photograph, a journal prompt—or an invitation to go outside and find something worth remembering?
That's the idea behind Nature Inspired Junk Journal Paper, Cutouts, Ephemera: Volume 1.
This is a 106-page, full-color creative book designed for people who love paper, journaling, nature, collecting little treasures, and making something with their hands.
But it's also something a little different.
Instead of simply giving you pages to decorate, this book invites you to go out and gather some of the story yourself.
Six Months of Nature, Paper & Adventure
The book was inspired by six months of real Pen Pal Adventure Book snail mail.
Each month has its own nature-inspired theme, colors, imagery, story and creative direction.
Throughout the book, you'll discover a mixture of:
- Nature-inspired scrapbook and junk journal papers
- Cut-apart ephemera and creative elements
- Guided journal prompts
- Fresh-air challenges
- One Adventure Once a Month pages
- Tiny letters and envelopes
- Postmarks, tickets and tags
- Field notes and photo archive cards
- Mood boards
- Botanicals and wildlife
- Weathered textures and vintage-inspired details
- Pages for photographs, observations, memories and collected treasures
Junk Journaling Meets the Outdoors
Throughout the six monthly themes are Fresh Air Challenges designed to give you a reason to step outside, explore and pay attention.
And when I say adventure, I don't necessarily mean climbing a mountain.
- An adventure can be walking a trail you've passed a hundred times but never explored.
- It can be looking for wildflowers.
- Watching the sunset.
- Visiting a little town you've never stopped in.
- Sitting beside the water.
- Taking your morning coffee outside.
- Photographing interesting textures.
- Looking for birds.
- Collecting fallen leaves.
- Hunting for sea glass.
- Taking the long way home simply because you've never gone that way before.
Sometimes the smallest adventures give us the best things to write about.
You Don't Have to Be an Artist
You also don't have to consider yourself "creative" to use this book.
That's part of the reason the papers, cutouts and ephemera are already there.
Start with scissors, glue and a pen.
Pick something you like.
Cut it out.
Move it around.
Add a photograph.
Write a sentence.
Layer another piece of paper behind it.
There.
You're doing it.
For the People Who Still Love Real Paper
There is something about creating with actual paper that a screen can't quite replace.
The sound of turning a page, cutting around a tiny piece of ephemera, writing something by hand, tucking a photograph into a pocket, finding an old ticket months later and immediately remembering where you were when you got it.
Those things feel different.
In a world where so much of our lives disappears into camera rolls, social feeds and digital folders, a physical journal gives those memories somewhere tangible to live.
Make It Yours
Every copy of Nature Inspired Junk Journal Paper, Cutouts, Ephemera: Volume 1 begins with the same 106 pages.
What happens after that is entirely up to you.
Maybe yours becomes a nature journal.
Maybe it's a travel journal.
Maybe it documents ordinary weekends close to home.
Maybe it's filled with photographs.
Maybe it's mostly writing.
Maybe six months from now it barely closes because you've stuffed so many pieces of your life between its pages.
That's the part I love most.
The book provides the pieces.
You provide the life that happens around them.
Cut it. Tear it. Layer it. Write on it. Take it outside. Add photographs. Collect little things.
And somewhere along the way, you may discover that you've created much more than a junk journal.
You've created a record of six months of actually noticing your life.
One Adventure. Once a Month.
