Junk journaling has been part of my routine for a couple of years now, and making products for it has been on my mind for almost as long. So it’s a little surreal to finally say it: the shop is open, and the first full collection is here.

Every product in the shop is built around one idea, giving you something to put in your journal. Each piece works a bit like a prompt. Something to inspire you toward what to write about, give your creativity a little spark when you’re feeling uninspired, or just add something new to your pages. It’s all made with junk journaling in mind, but it works however you journal.

Introducing the Late Bloomer collection

The fall collection is called Late Bloomer. Fall where I live seems to show up later and later every year. And in a lot of ways, I’m a late bloomer myself.

To me, being a late bloomer means figuring out who you are, what you like, and what you want to do a little more with each passing year. Journaling has always been a big part of that journey. Getting your thoughts, dreams, ideas, discoveries, and observations down on paper makes them a lot easier to see and gives you more clarity into who you are and who you’re becoming.

Fall is also a good reminder that you’re never really done growing. Even in a season where things are winding down, getting darker, and coming to a close, there are still ways to come into yourself a little more and bloom a little bit.

Inspiration for the collection (Apple fall, not pumpkin fall)

Instead of the usual oranges and deep reds, the collection leans into my favorite colors, which are (literally) just different shades of cream and pink. I’ve always been an apple fall person rather than a pumpkin fall person. (Apple pie over pumpkin pie, an orchard over a pumpkin patch, apple cider over a pumpkin spice latte.) Building a whole collection around a fall I don’t actually live every year wouldn’t have made much sense to me personally, so apples and apple blossoms became the anchor for the entire collection.

Living in Northeast D.C., I’m also pretty inspired by Americana. One of my favorite fall rewatches is Over the Garden Wall, which pulls from American folklore in a very autumnal way. That same feeling shaped the collection: gingham, quilts, cross-stitch, and really classic type. 

And then I was also inspired by a quote usually attributed to Albert Camus:

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”

It might feel a little unconventional, and maybe a little spring. But fall is an easy season to be very on the nose about, and I wanted this one to feel different.

What’s in the collection

The collection has three pieces: a journal kit, a sticker sheet, and a sticker pack.

The Apple Blossom Sticker Sheet is hand-drawn, with elements meant to look like quick little doodles in your journal.

The Apple Blossom Sticker Set is made from vintage-ish ephemera collected over the years, printed as individual stickers so you can use them slowly over time.

The Fall Edit Journal Kit can work as a fall wishlist, a fall curriculum, a fall bucket list, or just a record of what you’ve been up to this season. It’s designed to be set up as a junk journal spread, but use it however you want!! Each kit comes with a writing section, headings, stickers, and an image to paste into your journal.

How I built it

Once the moodboard was done, the fonts and paper became the foundation for everything else. After testing several fonts, I landed on some cottagecore-inspired and classic fonts. Sourcing the paper was the hardest part. I wanted high-quality, sustainable, acid-free paper that was sturdy without being too thick to paste into a journal, and it had to fit the color palette.

Designing the collection started in Adobe Illustrator: wireframing sizes that’ll work in any journal, laying it all out, pulling colors from the moodboard, finalizing fonts, and getting everything ready to print and cut. The sticker sheet was sketched and inked in Procreate, then finished in Photoshop.

Something that looks perfect on a screen can look completely different once it’s printed. So the final products ended up pretty far from the first sketches. Every round of printing and testing showed me a little more about how the pieces looked together, and the goal the whole time was a collection that felt cohesive.

The challenges

• Paper. Finding papers that worked together color-wise and were still high enough quality.
• Printing. The biggest challenge by far was making sure what I pictured on screen actually translated to print.
• Cutting. My Cricut had a hard time reading cut lines on dark paper, and my poorly lit office didn’t help (granted, I was mostly working at night). Cutting straight by hand isn’t exactly my strong suit either, so I had to get creative with workarounds.
• Time. I was honestly surprised at how much time everything took me, and I started out quite ambitious, but then had to compromise a bit on what I could actually accomplish to get the collection out in a good time.

How to use the collection

Everything in the collection is made to be used on paper. (The stickers won’t hold up well on a water bottle or anything that gets a lot of friction and movement.) Beyond that, it’s a really flexible collection. However you journal, scrapbook, or keep your memories, these pieces are made to adapt to your creativity.

Making my own products has been fulfilling and, honestly, very challenging. But I want to make the things I want to see in the world, and there are a lot more ideas where these came from.

The Late Bloomer collection is available now in the shop here.