Cutting up magazines, gluing strips of paper and picking out stickers for a scrapbook is an activity many Ohio University Bobcats look forward to bi-weekly.
OU’s journaling club connects members and encourages students to unleash their artistic-sides.
Journaling club meetings are described as casual and typically focus on a specific theme or craft; however, members are welcome to simply hang out, chat or work on a different activity. A powerpoint is made for every meeting, to use for inspiration, as well as scissors, glue, paper and other journaling materials.
“I had a lot of amazing experiences hanging out with my friends and journaling and doing all that,” Kati Zonner, a sophomore studying outdoor recreation and education and president of the club, said. “I was like, ‘Where can I make a community that includes everyone that we can just all hang out and do this together?’”
Some members spend their days collecting scraps of colorful paper and stickers, while some gather receipts and trash to use for junk-journaling. Junk-journaling is a popular crafting style where people use pieces of trash to create a collage, according to Martha Stewart. Stewart said it is an “artistic form of recycling.”
The journaling meets every other Thursday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the Vernon R. Alden Library CoLab, room 301U. The club does not require any dues or fees and the organization leaders try to host fundraisers every semester, where members pay a low fee to learn a special journaling skill.
The money raised supports purchasing supplies for the activity and the remainder is saved to the club fund, according to Zonner.
Zonner said she is fascinated by junk-journaling and sustainable journaling and wanted to share her passion with others. She posted on the OU public Snapchat story in January 2025, asking if anyone would be interested in a space for journaling. Zonner said the response was overwhelmingly positive and she started the club a month later, after finding an advisor.
“When we started the board, none of us knew each other,” Zonner said. “It was just a group of random people that basically found each other. We were like, ‘How can we get this thing off the ground?’”
Savannah Sherrill, a freshman studying urban planning and sustainability, is the club secretary and said it provides a creative outlet unlike any other campus organization.
“There wasn't really a club for just coming together and doing crafts, and it's a really good community, but it's also sort of a solitary activity, and I really love doing that with other people,” Sherrill said. “You get to sit down and talk and see what other people are doing and be creative together.”
Sherrill said she appreciates how members make the space positive, complimenting each other’s work and making conversations.
The club’s next fundraising event is March 19. Attendees can learn how to block print, a method of printing where people carve into a material and print an impression of the carved surface with ink, according to Boarding All Rows.
Zonner said the fee will be around $15, due to the supplies needed.
Zonner’s favorite fundraising event was the book-binding workshop held earlier this year, where members learned how to bind their own notebooks. Attendees walked away with a brand new journal, ready for future club activities.
Mikayla Nelson, a freshman studying integrated language arts, is the vice president of the organization. Nelson said she heard about the club from a friend and joined last semester.
As an executive, Nelson said she planned the club’s next meeting, which entails watching the movie “Pitch Perfect” and enjoying snacks.
Nelson said she recently took up junk-journaling and collects her receipts, stickers and even comments from her English class to stick in her journal.
“I'm still trying to feel it out because I didn't actually start journaling until last semester,” Nelson said. “I was much more into the drawing sketchbook aspect of art, but I needed to find something else to do while I was here at college. But I'm definitely more a junk-journaling type.”
Nelson said meetings are “free-range” and members are not pressured to attend every one. Nelson said for most members, the club is like having a “personal therapist,” as it de-stresses students.
Students interested in the journaling club can join GroupMe or visit the organization’s Instagram for information.
