Build a Striking Collage Focal Point in Your Junk Journal
🖼️ Step 1: Choosing a Focal Point
Collage is one of the most exciting parts of junk journaling—layering textures, papers, and imagery until something new and unexpected emerges. But sometimes, it can feel tricky to know where to start or how to make a page feel balanced. The secret? Choosing a strong focal point and building everything else around it.
In this post (and the matching YouTube video), I’ll show you how I created a bold, colourful junk journal collage anchored by a striking cat image.
💡 Tip: Place your focal point slightly off-center—it keeps the page dynamic and interesting.
🎨 Step 2: Playing with Colour
With my cat image in place, I pulled supporting scraps that echoed the colours on the left-hand side of my journal spread. Sunflowers, butterflies, and patterned paper scraps all help balance the tones while keeping the focus on the cat.
💡 Tip: Pick 2–3 main colours and repeat them across the page to create harmony.
📜 Step 3: Layering with Texture
Junk journaling is a tactile craft. Torn book pages, pressed botanicals, ledger slips, and vintage scraps add depth and story to the collage. Each layer peeks through the next, creating a sense of history and mystery.
💡 Tip: Don’t glue everything flat—leave edges curled or lifted for extra dimension.
🐾 Step 4: Balancing the Spread
With a strong collage focal point on the left, I let the right-hand side breathe with lighter textures and supporting imagery. Balance doesn’t mean symmetry—it means giving the eye places to rest while still drawing it back to your focal image.
💡 Tip: Think of your page as a conversation—one side bold, the other side listening.
🕯️ Final Thoughts
Collage is both playful and intuitive. By choosing a bold focal image, supporting it with colour, and layering textures, you can create a spread that feels striking, whimsical, and deeply personal.
Want to see the full process? Watch the video over on my YouTube channel ila and alice and collage along with me!
Thanks for being here! Hugs, Lisa xo
