If you have just started junk journalling, "ephemera" is the word you keep running into without anyone stopping to explain it. Here is the short version, and then the part that actually matters when you are making pages.
Ephemera means paper that was never meant to be kept. Bus tickets. Seed packets. Pharmacy labels. Ledger pages. Postage receipts. Luggage tags. Things printed to be used once and thrown away. The reason they look so good in a journal is exactly that: they were designed to be functional, so they carry real typography, real printing marks, and colours that were mixed for cheap presses rather than for decoration.
Why ephemera makes a page work
A junk journal page made only of pretty papers tends to look flat. Ephemera fixes that for three reasons:
It brings text. Words on a page give the eye somewhere to land. A label reading HERBARIUM or NO. 14 does more work than another floral pattern.
It brings edges. Real ephemera has cut edges, torn edges, punched holes, perforations. Those irregular outlines break up the rectangles of your background papers.
It brings age. Foxing spots, faded ink, slightly misregistered colour layers. These are printing faults, and they are the whole reason vintage paper reads as vintage.
Real ephemera vs printable ephemera
Collecting genuine old paper is lovely and slow. You find one good sheet a month, and once you glue it down it is gone.
Printable ephemera solves the supply problem: you print what you need, when you need it, and if you ruin a cut you print it again. The trade-off is that a lot of printable ephemera looks printed rather than found. What separates the good sheets from the bad ones:
- Clean space between pieces. If elements touch or overlap on the sheet, you cannot cut them out without losing an edge.
- Flat lighting, no drop shadows. A drawn-on shadow gives the piece away the moment it sits on a real page.
- Real printed wording. Labels with actual readable text beat labels with squiggles standing in for text.
- 300 dpi. Below that, small type turns to mush the moment you print it.
What to look for in a starter set
You do not need hundreds of pieces. A workable starter kit is roughly:
- Background papers - aged ledger, dictionary pages, plain aged cream
- Labels and tickets - anything with printed wording
- One or two hero pieces per spread - a large botanical plate, a stamp album page, a recipe card
Build from there once you know which of the three you reach for most.
If you want to try printable papers before buying anything, there is a free set of 12 vintage backgrounds here: FREE Vintage Digital Papers - aged ledger, dictionary, ruled and graph paper, marbled endpapers and linen textures, all 12x12 at 300 dpi, commercial use included.
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How to cut out printable ephemera cleanly