Every June our school library weeds the shelves, and I stand over the box of discards with a craft knife and can't bring myself to cut up "The Secret Garden." Printable book pages solved it. Every paper below is a free download from Creative Fabrica: digital files you print, tea-stain and stitch yourself.
Ten vintage library book pages as JPG files, 8.5 by 11, ready to print at home. This is my base layer for every journal: faded print, soft yellowed edges, the look of a page someone read by lamplight. I print them on matte paper and nobody guesses they came off my printer.
Browsing is free. Scroll the full junk journal shelf, put a few paper packs in your cart and notice which ones you keep going back to before you spend a single download. Or keep reading, the rest is what I actually stitch into my books.
Thirty-one aged book page backgrounds with faded ink, distressed edges and bits of antique ephemera, as high-resolution JPG files. Thirty-one is a lot of pages for one free download. It is enough to bind a thick journal where no two spreads repeat, which is what I want when I give one away.
A set of vintage library cards as high-resolution PNG files, the kind that used to sit in a pocket inside the back cover. I tuck one into every journal I make, with the date I finished it stamped in the box. It is my signature, and it takes a minute.
Fifty US Letter pages holding 54 pieces: librarian envelopes, printable envelopes and wrinkled, folded collage pages that look like they spent a century in a book. Free download, and the envelopes alone kept me busy for a month of Sundays. I fold them around old due-date slips and they look like they belong.
Twelve floral book pages with roses and botanicals over antique paper. They are 12 by 12, so I scale them down when I print at home or take them to the copy shop for the full size. This is the softest pack on the list, and it is the one I use for covers.
Ten vintage-themed pages with stickers in PNG, PDF and SVG. The SVG files mean a cutting machine can cut the stickers out for you, and the PDFs print straight from home. I use the stickers on spine labels.
One 8.5 by 11 sheet of vintage blank labels, as a transparent PNG and a JPEG. Blank is the point. I write the title of each journal on one in my best card-catalog handwriting and glue it to the spine, and it looks like a book with a call number.
Twelve dark academia papers, 8.5 by 11, with old bookshelves, candles, manuscripts, brass lamps and writing desks. My older students love this look, and I made a small journal for our book club with it. The free download covers the whole book, cover to end paper.
Eight cottage-style pocket designs, each in three JPG sizes, 2, 4 and 6 inches square, plus print-ready PDFs for every size. Pockets are what make a junk journal interactive. I glue the small ones inside the cover and fill them with bookmarks for the next reader.
Quick aside. The one picture I could never find was a bookplate for my own journals: "From the shelf of Nia Langford" with a little reading owl, the kind of ex libris label old libraries glued inside the cover. Studio AI is Creative Fabrica's separate image tool, and it starts you off with 25,000 free AI Coins. Describe the bookplate you want, your name, your favorite animal, your town's old library. Type the description, pick a style, download a print-ready PNG.
Printable sheets of vintage words and phrases in typewriter-style type, in different label sizes. You cut them apart and tuck them onto a page. A librarian cannot resist a good caption, and these do the job when my hand is too tired to write.
Twelve PNG files of journal pages, tags, labels, bookmarks, pockets, belly bands and frames with magnolias, garden lanterns and antique keys. The lined pages leave real room to write. This is the kit I would hand to anyone who wants a gentler journal than my dusty book pages.
Fifty US Letter pages with 144 fussy cut pieces: antique library clipart, book spines, frames and small embellishments. Fussy cutting means cutting around each shape by hand. It is slow, quiet work, and I do a page of it during the last ten minutes of lunch.
This is where the Christmas half of the list starts. Every December I make a small Christmas junk journal for each of my nieces, and these are the papers I print from October on.
Classic Christmas digital papers with trees, holly, pine, ornaments, ribbons and snowflakes, as high-resolution JPG seamless patterns. Old-fashioned red and green, like my grandmother's wrapping paper. They become the signature pages of the nieces' journals.
Seventeen transparent PNG postcards plus five printable sheets of vintage Christmas cards. I print the sheets, cut the postcards out and slip one into every pocket. Free download, and the girls always read the backs first.
A landscape collage of vintage Christmas letters, postcards, holly and red berries on aged paper, as one high-resolution JPG. I print it as a two-page spread and write my own letter to each niece on top. It is the page they keep going back to.
Four watercolor Christmas gift tags as transparent PNG files, with PSD files if you want to type the names in Photoshop. I just print them and write the names with a pen. One tag goes on the wrapped journal, one goes inside it.
Forty vintage Christmas postage stamps as transparent PNGs: snowy villages, churches, fireplaces, cardinals and wreaths. Free download, and stamps make any page look like it traveled. I line a row of them along the edge of a pocket and it becomes a letter from somewhere far away.
Twelve woodland Christmas postcard papers with deer, snowy pines, cardinals and antique type, as 12 by 12 PNG files, so I scale them when I print at home. I wrap one around a chipboard cover and the journal is ready for the tree.
My order, if you are standing over a box of old books right now: the library book pages first, then envelopes and library cards, then one Christmas pack if you give journals as gifts. Print on matte paper, stain the edges with tea, and leave the real books on the shelf for the next reader. Save this list for the Sunday you finally start that stack of signatures.
The junk journal shelf on Creative Fabrica goes far past these eighteen: book page papers, ephemera packs, fairy tale kits, botanical collections and blank signatures. Scroll it and make the journal you keep meaning to start.
Heads up: some of the links in this post are affiliate links, so if you sign up for Creative Fabrica through them I may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you.