‘Permission to be creative’ draws dozens to Vegas junk journal club

Gina Anderson’s junk journal is full of collaged spreads of pictures and papers from vacations with friends, daily mementos and creative projects. But her favorite pieces of junk that she’s collected weren’t really ‘junk’ at all.

The Las Vegas woman once told an antique store owner about her hobby: a scrapbook-like craft that features ephemera, giving the artisan a chance to reflect and create beauty out of the little items in life. She asked for a brochure from the store as a keepsake to remember her trip visiting family in Arkansas.

Instead, the store owner offered a trove of supplies that would make a collector’s heart soar: vintage newspapers — including one published the day after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination — and a woman’s mid-century scrapbooks found at an estate sale.

“This is from her high school auditorium in New Mexico,” Anderson said, pointing out a ticket stub dated March 23, 1939, on her two-page collage spread. “I looked her up and everything, like I read her (obituary). I kind of got to give her stuff a new life.”

Anderson is one of dozens of regulars at the Junk Journal Club Las Vegas, a meet-up hosted by the trinket store Shop Mama Sage at the Downtown Container Park on the last Saturday of each month. She said she was first introduced to the club through a friend who found it on Instagram and has gone to nearly every event since February.

“I used to scrapbook as a kid, so I’ve always been crafty,” she said. “Then I saw on TikTok, girls would post about junk journaling. I’m like, ‘I should do that.’ It kind of revived my love of crafting.”

Store owner EJ Gonzalez said she founded Junk Journal Club Las Vegas in November 2024 with a peer out of a desire to provide community space for those makers. The volunteer-led club meets in front of Shop Mama Sage in the boutique mall on east Fremont Street. Club members spend a few hours snipping, gluing, designing and creating at a handful of large, round tables in the mall’s open space. Attendees are a mix of solo-crafters looking to be around folks who share their hobby and others who come with a few friends to the event.

First-time visitors typically pay $20; returning customers can get admission for $10. The ticket gets you access to a raffle, a photo booth and discounts at partnering stores in the mall, along with other freebies and the ability to pick up others’ scraps for free or for trade.

Angela Vasquez is one of the partnering vendors who set up booths during the meet-up. She said her business, Box of Knots, is based in Las Vegas and sells directly to craft and stationery stores, but its largest sale volume comes from the TikTok online shop.

As an “aesthetic” brand, Vasquez said she doesn’t pitch her products as junk journal items because they’re purchased instead of foraged or collected, which some argue is the truest intent of the hobby. But they fit into the larger artistic collaging movement. She said she thinks junk journaling is having a moment with no sign of slowing down.

“(It gives) permission to be creative,” Vasquez said.

Las Vegas resident Brenda Liu said it was her second time at the club with her friend. They were drawn to junk journaling for its loose definition and youthful feeling. At the meet-up, the pair was working through a collection of items from recent trips: receipts, stickers, coupons, magazine cutouts and even the logo from a coffee shop cup.

“A lot of things are not colorful, but everything here really is,” Liu said. “Other events are really manicured, but here it’s like — no rules.”

It’s that connection to childhood fun that drew others to the hobby. To Gonzalez, the reason the club came together quickly — from a handful of women at the first event to about 100 tickets sold for the one-year anniversary — is obvious.

“It’s girlhood,” she said with a cheeky smile.