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A week after Christmas there is still a small drift of paper on the kitchen counter. The gift tag your nephew wrote, with your name spelled wrong. A strip of the good wrapping paper, too pretty to recycle. Gold foil from a chocolate coin, smoothed flat by somebody’s thumb. The program from the school concert.
Most of these Christmas junk journal ideas start right there, with the paper December leaves lying around, and bring in printables only where the real stuff runs short. Pick a theme, work a spread or two a week, and by the time the tree comes down you have a finished book.
The short version: Build pages from found holiday paper first: card fronts, envelope pockets, gift tags, wrapping paper offcuts. Sew old cards straight into the journal as pages. Print ephemera for the gaps, pick one theme so the pages hang together, and keep the 24 prompts near the end for the evenings you open the book and stare at it.
Every year one card wins: the glittery one, the dog in a sweater, the friend who still writes a full letter inside. Give it both pages. Card front on the left, the letter on the right, a strip of the envelope with the postmark along the bottom.
2. The carol page
Pick one carol and use its sheet music as the base layer. “Silent Night” itself is in the public domain, but a modern arrangement may not be, so print scores from IMSLP (a free online score library; check the copyright note on each file) or photocopy a page from an old hymnal. If you want it aged, tea-stain the paper before it goes through the printer, or stain a photocopy; inkjet ink runs when it gets wet. Then write over the staff lines what was going on the week that carol was stuck in your head.
3. A signature sewn from Christmas cards
Open five or six cards flat, nest them inside each other with a book page folded in half between each, and sew through the fold. That bundle is a signature, the stitched booklet a junk journal is built from, and now the cards are the pages instead of something glued onto them. Card stock is thick, so pierce the holes with an awl before you sew. Our guide to making a junk journal walks through the stitch.
4. The list page
Gifts given in one column, gifts received in the other. Nobody remembers either list by March, and sooner or later there is a year when everybody gave everybody candles.
5. The envelope advent spread
Glue six to eight small envelopes across a spread. Every few days, drop something from that stretch of December into the next empty one: a ticket, a peppermint wrapper, a two-line note, a photo printed wallet size.
6. The window page
Cut a window in a heavier page and back it with acetate or a scrap of clear page protector. Put a photo or a paper tree behind it. A snow globe drawn around the window is optional.
7. Tuck spots and flip-outs
These two tricks give a page more room without adding thickness at the spine.
Tuck spot: a strip of paper glued down on three sides, so a tag or photo slides in from the open edge. The flap you trim off an envelope works: glue a square flap on three sides, a pointed one along its two angled edges.
Flip-out: a folded card or tag taped along the page edge so it opens outward, like a small door. Good for a long letter that will not fit flat.
By December 20 most of the paper for a Christmas junk journal is already in the house, so the one rule for the month is: do not throw away anything flat. Our junk journal ephemera guide covers where to find more once the holiday supply is used up.
8. Wrapping paper offcuts
The last foot of the roll, the strip you trimmed off the side of a box. Wrapping paper is thin, so a glue stick or matte gel medium lays it flat and it passes for patterned scrapbook paper. Foil and glitter wraps glue down fine from the paper side, but a glue stick will not grip the foil face and glitter sheds, so keep those for borders. The glue guide sorts adhesives by paper type.
9. A flip-book of gift tags
Punch a hole in every tag from the presents you opened, thread them on a binder ring, and tie the ring to a page. The handwriting is what makes it.
10. Card envelopes as pockets
Cut an envelope in half across the middle and you have two pockets. Save the foil-lined ones for covers.
11. Candy wrappers
Chocolate coin foil and paper candy wrappers press flat under a heavy book overnight. Paper ones take any glue; foil needs PVA or double-sided tape. Cellophane wrappers will not take a glue stick at all, so use double-sided tape or skip the glue and slide them into a pocket.
12. Ribbon and twine
A ribbon wrapped around a page edge makes a closure; a short length knotted through a punched hole makes a tab. Go easy on velvet ribbon. Each tab adds thickness at the edge, and ten velvet tabs is roughly where a journal stops closing.
13. Tea-stained tags and saved receipts
Plain shipping tags go warm and old after a dip in strong black tea. Dry them flat under a towel. Receipts are trickier: most are printed on thermal paper, which fades on its own and turns black under a heat gun or a laminator, so photocopy any receipt you want to read next year and glue in the copy.
Free Christmas junk journal printables
Before paying for anything, print these two free sets from Creative Fabrica. At the time of writing both are listed as freebies. On the product page, the big download button starts the All Access free trial (10 free downloads); if you only want the freebie, use the smaller “Download this product as a freebie (No Free Trial)” link under it. For more free sets (not only Christmas ones), see our free junk journal printables roundup.
Printable Christmas ephemera worth buying
When you want a look that found paper cannot give you, these Creative Fabrica sets each do one job well. Links go to Creative Fabrica and may pay us a commission, at no extra cost to you.
Next come tags and pockets, the pieces that hold other pieces.
Print on matte paper or light cardstock. Glossy photo paper is hard to glue and shows every fingerprint.
Colored-in pages count as journal pages too: our Christmas coloring pages list has cozy scenes that fit a spread, and the Christmas clipart sets cover tags and stickers.
Pick one theme
A theme is what stops the journal from looking like a drawer of holiday leftovers. Choose it before you print anything and let it decide the paper. For themes beyond Christmas, our junk journal ideas hub has the full list.
14. Victorian Christmas
Go deep green and gold, with torn page edges and candlelit windows. Old book pages and sheet music already look the part, so this theme needs less aging than any other here.
15. 1950s retro
Look for cartoon Santas, candy colors and glitter ornaments on mint or red. Real mid-century cards still turn up at thrift stores and estate sales, and the retro pack in the ephemera section fills in the rest.
16. Poinsettia and gingham
Cream and red poinsettias, green gingham, a fireplace scene. It is softer than Victorian, and since the pages are mostly pattern, there is less to cut out.
17. Rustic cabin
Start with brown kraft paper, twine and a scrap of plaid, which cost next to nothing, then add mittens, sleigh bells and a woodstove on top.
18. Pink Christmas
Blush, silver, a little tinsel. Pair the pink tags from the ephemera section with plain white cardstock so the page has somewhere for the eye to rest.
19. Winter woodland
Birch trees, snow, nothing red. This is the theme for keeping the journal going into January, after the tree is gone.
Christmas junk journal cover ideas
20. A wrapping-paper cover or a plaid band
Two covers that work with any theme. Wrap an old hardback in this year’s best wrapping paper and seal it with a thin coat of matte medium (our guide to turning an old book into a junk journal shows how to thin out the pages first). Or glue a band of plaid fabric (or a printed tartan sheet) across the front and a length of ribbon inside the back cover to tie it shut; that one survives a tote bag on the way to a family dinner. More options in our junk journal cover ideas.
21. A half-finished journal as a gift
Build a journal most of the way and leave the rest to the person who gets it. Give every spread a pocket, a tag and some empty space, and tuck a few printed prompts inside the front cover. They finish it with their own December.
24 December prompts, one a day
For the evenings you open the journal and have no idea what goes next. Start on December 1 and skip any that do not fit. There are more lists in our junk journal prompts guide.
The first decoration you put up this year, and where it came from.
A card that arrived this week. Glue in the part you want to keep.
What the house smells like right now.
The song you cannot get out of your head.
A photo of the tree before it is finished.
Three gifts you are still deciding on.
The best thing you ate this week.
Someone you will not see this year, and one line for them.
Today’s weather, drawn badly on purpose.
A receipt worth remembering (photocopy it first).
The holiday movie you watch every year, and the line you can quote.
A tradition you would happily drop.
A tradition you would defend to the end.
A strip of this year’s wrapping paper.
Your handwriting on a gift tag, before it goes on a present.
What you were doing on this date last year, if you can remember.
Something small that went wrong and turned out fine.
The recipe you will make again.
Who is coming, and who is bringing what.
The last card you sent, copied out.
The shortest day of the year: what you did with the light.
A ticket, a program, a napkin. Anything from going out.
The night before the night before.
Christmas Eve, in one sentence.
If you would rather keep the holiday in one album you add to every year, that is a scrapbook, and our Christmas scrapbook ideas cover it. If you want everything in one box instead of printing, look at junk journal kits.
Frequently asked questions about Christmas junk journals
How is a Christmas junk journal different from a Christmas scrapbook?
A scrapbook is built around photos and kept neat for years. A junk journal is built from found paper (cards, wrappers, tags, book pages), layered and a little messy on purpose, with room left to write.
How do you start a Christmas junk journal?
Pick one theme and one base book, then make the first spread from the first card that arrives.
What paper is best for a Christmas junk journal?
Mix weights: cardstock or book board for pages that carry pockets and heavy layers, and lighter paper for everything glued on top.
What can you make with leftover Christmas cards?
Card fronts become covers, whole cards opened flat can be sewn into a signature, envelopes turn into pockets, and the insides with handwriting make journaling cards. Trimmed down, they also work as tags and flip-outs, so one box of saved cards can fill most of a journal on its own.
Is it too late to start one after Christmas?
No. January works well: all the paper is in, the decorations are packed, and a winter woodland theme keeps the pages from looking out of season.
Start with the counter
Before any of this goes in the recycling, sort it. Flat paper into a folder, tags and ribbon into a zip bag, anything on thermal paper photocopied. That is enough for the first spread next week, and the tag with your name spelled wrong goes on page one.
Get free junk journal printables
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A junk journal example is a finished or in-progress book you can look at to see how the supplies, pages, and cover actually fit together. We have grouped the most useful types below, with a short walkthrough of what each one looks like inside, so you can find the version closest to the journal you…
Six classic letter folds for junk journaling: trifold, pamphlet, pocket, origami diamond, accordion, and twist. Plus the two-minute checks that keep a fold flat for years.
A beginner’s guide to junk journals: why it’s perfect for beginners, the few supplies you need, easy first projects, and mistakes to skip.
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