i started junk journalling as an attempt to have some more offline hobbies and i've been keeping it up on and off for a couple of years now :] mine aren't the prettiest or most aesthetically pleasing in the world but that isn't really what i'm going for with it. whenever i'm out somewhere i keep an eye out for any interesting pieces of paper i can take home with me. or if i do something at home that produces some interesting pieces of paper, i keep ahold of that until i feel like journaling (which is what most of the spreads on here are from).
some things you could use:
- train/bus tickets- brochures
- tea bag tags
- (clean) food wrappers
- instant camera photos
- paper bags and business cards from conventions/craft markets
- event wristbands
whatever the case, once i have my emphemera i glue it into my journal in a way that looks nice and then decorate. there's a lot of extra bits around for sale online but all you really need to get started is glue, scissors, and something to journal in. all i really buy for it is stickers and the occasional washi roll or book of pattern paper (most of the time i end up just using one of my bigger emphemera pieces as the background, but it's useful for when you only have small ones...)
i found a cheap die cutting machine in a charity shop a few months ago and it's been pretty useful to use instead of alphabet stickers, since you tend to run out of the most used letters very quickly. cutting letters out of your emphemera, ransom note style, would work just as well though.
my journals (on number 5 currently!) have all been just. cheap cartridge paper sketchbooks (the £2 A5 ones from the works to be specific) that i heavily decorated the front and back of. this works better than buying actual journals for me because my journals tend to get very thick and heavy which a bound one with thin paper would probably struggle with
