5 Creative Ways to Use Stock Photos in Your Journal

Before we dive in to the tips, let’s be sure that you aren’t going to use copyrighted images you download from the internet and use it on your journal. Although it might seem harmless because you are just using it for personal viewing, it is still unethical. We will recommend you websites to search for uncopyrighted, creative common and public images in the next post. Maybe, we could also feature some downloadable stock photos here periodically for you to use. Meanwhile, here are 5 ways you can use stock photos on your journal spread.

1. Use as background

If you have a plain boring page, you could print a scenery as a background. Slowly build your page with layers of washi tapes, stickers, stock cards, etc.

Below is the beach background I have printed for my beach holiday plan. One useful tip to remember – it is better to print the background photo on a thinner paper so it doesn’t elevate the page further.

2. For event that have not happened yet (i.e. planning spread)

For those who do planner journaling (such as travel itinerary or wedding plan), it is impossible to print your photos when the event hasn’t happened yet. Stock photos would be a good idea to create the mood board for your planning spread. Here are my interior design ideas for my new house.

3. When you forgot to take photos

It gets really frustrated when you remembered that you didn’t take any photos for your journal. Personally, I am someone who “live for the moment” and there are many times I forgot to take photos during the moment.

Here is my butter cake recipe journal. I was so busy making the cake that I completely forgotten to take the photos. I also didn’t take photo of the cake because it came out so nice that it was all gone within a minute.

4. Filling up gaps

Sometimes when your page gets too empty and you needed to fill up the spaces with some decoration that is relevant, just shoot on stock photos. Using stock photos also reducing your cost to purchase stickers, washi tapes, rubber stamps, etc. to fill your page.

5. To colour coordinate your page

A color coordinated page always look good. And if you can’t find any embellishments to fill up your page, you could search for the photos or even edit the photos to fit the color tone of your page.