What do you call it? Is it a collage, a junk journal, or a scrapbook? Or maybe you think there’s a difference in the three. Let’s talk about it.
Growing up, my mom would take me to the craft store to get stickers, cardstock, and other fun things for us to create a scrapbook. It was a collection of our memories, based around our photos. The photos we had from our disposable camera, would be picked up from Walmart, and we’d get to scrapping away.
Scrapbooking
According to Google, scrapbooking is a “craft used to preserve personal and family history.” Think having a baby shower, printing photos from that, then placing in a book. You can add little sayings with markers, frames, and/or stickers. It’s about decorating a memory~
This is a collage I made and it’s actually available in my shop along with others :) Collage prints can be framed and hung as decor, just like a painting.
Collaging
To me, this is like process art. Moving through your feelings and letting yourself be whisked away with ripping and gluing. While I feel you can style any of these (scrapbook, collage, or junk journal) in a way that is unique to you, I find that with collaging and junk journaling the photos typically overlap- unlike with scrapbooking. Not only do they overlap, but you also tend to rip the pages versus neatly cutting. It’s like a mishmash of items!
Junk Journaling
Lately, I’ve been hearing this term used the most and I believe, it’s just like collaging but saving it in a full journal. You can take moments from a trip or experience (much like scrapbooking) and create a page for it. However, instead of just taking photos it’s taking “junk” like receipts, movie tickets, napkins from a cute cafe, and literally every little thing you can think of!
Essentially, they all overlap and you can call it whatever you want but if you were to ask me the difference, this would be how I’d explain it.
This is a digital collage someone made for me because, yes collages can be physical or digital. Here, you can noticing the overlapping which is what sets collaging and junk journaling apart from collaging.
