Kelly Jean has a fun way to upcycle a favorite greeting card by using it as the base for a junk journal/ mini album. Using a greeting card for the cover she stapled papers from books, magazines, sewing patterns and more to create the pages inside, she even designed some pocket pages too. These make fun little gifts to hand out at the holidays and be sure to keep one for yourself.
There’s something about old greeting cards that feels almost too sentimental to throw away. You know the ones I mean. Birthday cards with slightly bent corners. Christmas cards covered in glitter that somehow still end up on the floor in July. Sympathy cards tucked into drawers because you just couldn’t bring yourself to let them go.
For years, I had a small “card box” in my craft room. It wasn’t organised. It wasn’t curated. It was just… there. A mix of handmade cards, store-bought beauties, and notes written in the kind of handwriting that instantly takes you back to a moment in time. And one afternoon, instead of buying new supplies for another junk journal project, I opened that box and thought — why am I not using these?
That’s how my DIY greeting card junk journal was born.
If you love junk journaling, memory keeping, scrapbooking, or upcycling paper crafts, this project is such a beautiful way to repurpose old greeting cards into something meaningful and completely unique. Instead of letting those cards gather dust (or guilt), you can transform them into a handmade junk journal filled with layers of texture, memories, and personality.
This is one of my favourite upcycled junk journal ideas because it’s affordable, sentimental, and surprisingly sturdy. Greeting cards already have weight and structure, which makes them perfect for covers, signature pages, pockets, and decorative elements. You don’t need fancy paper pads or expensive ephemera — just the cards you already have and a little creative vision.
And let’s be honest, so many of us in the 45+ creative crowd grew up sending and receiving real cards. Not text messages. Not emojis. Proper cards with handwritten notes inside. Turning those into a DIY junk journal feels like honouring that tradition in a fresh, crafty way.
In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through how to make a greeting card junk journal step by step, including how to choose your cards, how to bind them, and how to embellish the pages so it feels cohesive instead of chaotic. Whether you’re working with Christmas cards, birthday cards, sympathy cards, or a mixed collection, this project is flexible enough to suit your style.
So before you toss another card into the recycling bin, pause for a second. That little piece of cardstock might just be the start of your next favourite junk journal.
Visit Splitcoast Stampers for a complete tutorial.
-Heather
Mini albums are great little projects for using up scraps, trying out new products and experimenting with techniques and designs.
Looking for more digital papers? Check these out over at Design bundle
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