A peek inside author and scrapbooker, Martina Calvi’s journal

“Junk journaling is just as good for your creativity as it is for your mind.”

If you don’t already follow Martina Calvi, the self-proclaimed ‘sentimental crafty girl’ and Sydney-based author of The Art of Memory Collecting, prepare to be inspired. 

Martina has been travelling around the world for the past five weeks, touring her new book, A Year of Junk Journaling, from Paris to New York. The book tour has “really just [been] an excuse to gather our crafty community offline, so we could journal and create together,” she tells me. 

Of course, when Martina wasn’t busy creating special memories on this trip, she was junk journalling in her downtime. “I challenged myself to use the things I collected while in each city, so I didn’t come home with a whole box of unused ephemera.”

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“Taking the time to journal at least once a week really helped me protect my alone time during the book tour, where I got to sit and process everything that was happening,” she explains. “As someone who is quite introverted, I really needed those moments to be alone with my journal, so I could recharge and reflect.”

Her journal became the vessel for all the stickers, papers and junk collected on her trip, or given to her by readers and friends along the way. Nosey to see how the queen of crafting does it, we asked Martina to show us spreads from five cities she visited on her travels.

London

Returning to London after several years was surreal. It was emotional to show my fiance where I used to live, and to feel how much I’ve changed. We did lots of shopping and sight seeing – I included receipts from Liberty, Harrods, Daunt Books, my favourite stationery store Choosing Keeping (where we held my book signing) and even used the metro newspaper as my background.

Paris

Who knew Paris was so crafty? I felt so warmly welcomed and had the most magical time meeting old and new friends, visiting galleries and old book shops. I wanted to collect absolutely everything for my journal here, it all felt so romantic. My favourite stores were Melodies Graphiques and L’Ecritoire, and the best moments were spent journaling with friends at La Mouette Rieuse and Le Mazette.

New York City

Over 900 people turned up to the book launch in NYC, hosted in partnership with Shopify. It was a real ‘pinch me’ moment seeing the line all the way down Orchard Street! I included NYC stickers, ephemera from my first Knicks game, a receipt from the laundromat and stickers from my stores including PillowCat Books, Greenwich Letterpress, Haricot Vert and more. I also kept receipts and ephemera from Dimes and Rubi Rosa – NYC restaurants always seem to have the best ephemera!

Austin, Texas

People in Austin are some of the friendliest and most generous people I’ve ever met. So many readers made custom stickers and crafty creations just to celebrate the book! I pasted a bunch in my journal as keepsakes. I have so much gratitude to Paper Craft Pantry, Roommate Collective and First Light Books for hosting me and going above and beyond.

LA

This was my favourite visit to LA yet. I spent my days in LA thrifting, visiting estate sales, having brunch at Chateau Marmont and visiting the Photobooth Museum. I got so many stickers from Crush and Touch and had my event with Junkjournalclub LA.

Canberra

I’ve just completed my spread from the Canberra book tour stop and now I need to catch up on journal pages from Sydney and Melbourne!

Keep up with Martina here.