10 Pages with Little to No Words
Kick off 2025 by learning how Your Story Matters
Hi friends, sometimes, the best pages don’t need words at all.
This week, I’m sharing ten of my favorite quiet pages—spreads that use color, composition, and scraps to tell the story. These are pages that helped me stay connected to my creativity when I didn’t have the energy (or the words) for full journaling. And as someone with a chronic illness, these types of pages are absolutely essential to keeping up with a creative habit.
Below, you’ll find a mix of stickers, collage, paint, tissue paper, and texture—it’s all about how a creative moment doesn’t need to be complicated to mean something. And it absolutely doesn’t need to “say” something in order to say something.
Let’s take a look.
1. Let Easy Be Enough
I added adhesive to the back of a postcard, cut it apart, and rearranged the pieces in a pretty way. Nothing groundbreaking, just paper, glue, and a few quiet minutes at my desk — and that was exactly what I needed that day.
Daily Pages: Let Easy Be Enough
I needed something easy today. I’m trying to embody all the rest that I’ve been talking about so openly this week. Listen to this week’s podcast if you haven’t already.
2. Stay Open: Interactive Doors Page
This one might be my favorite from the bunch. I cut out a Brandi Kincaid card and used Scotch tape to create little hinges so the doors actually open—just like real ones. It’s a tiny moment of interactivity that makes me so excited every time I flip through this notebook.
3. Tissue Paper Color Collage
A bright, messy tissue-paper collage that helped me through an overwhelming week. I made my own self-adhesive tissue paper and just started cutting shapes and layering color. No plan, no words, just color therapy in motion.
Tissue Paper Color Collage
Today I decided that I wanted to take a couple of minutes and make myself some more self-adhesive tissue paper (details below). Now I’ve got a whole stack of different colored tissue paper rectangles that I can use whenever I want. I don’t have to pull out the whole stack of tissue paper, find the color I want, get it on the adhesive—instead I can just grab a sheet and go.
4. Playing Around with Foam Stamps
Sometimes play is the whole point. I pulled out a foam stamp, some paint, and my gel plate, experimenting to see what kinds of patterns I could make. It turned into a page that reminded me that experimentation is progress.
Playing Around: Foam Stamp + Gel Plate
Today I played around with a foam stamp, some paint, and the gel plate. My original idea was to see what type of pattern I could create on some cardstock. I was hoping for a cool tone-on-tone look. Once I got myself set up, I realized that I had the time and the extra paint to make a few more prints.
5. Simple Shapes & Sharpie Markers
A bold color moment — testing Sharpie Creative Markers on a black gel print background. I love the contrast and how the imperfect lines feel energetic. It’s one of those “let’s see what happens” pages that makes me want to grab my markers again.
Simple Shapes + Sharpie Markers for Amazing Contrast
Last week I used the markers for some journaling, and I didn’t necessarily love how the colors looked on the gel print background I picked out. So today, I wanted to try out a few of the different colors on a black gel print background. I really do love how it came out—I might want the white to be a little bit darker, but once it dried, I think it totally works.
6. Monochromatic Collage (Red Edition)
I dumped out my bin of red embellishments and started sticking things down. Used stamps, clear frames, tiny stickers — all living together on one vibrant page. Sometimes a single color story is all the narrative you need.
Monochromatic Collage
I’ve got all my embellishments sorted by color. So to get started, I dumped out the container that holds all my red stuff and pulled out some fun flat things to stick down on the page.
There are so many cool little things on this one page — those used stamps, the clear frame, and all the tiny stickers. I’m looking forward to making more pages like this one where I get to pull out all the fun things and stick them down.
7. Color Is My Happy Place
Using Japanese calligraphy paper from Daiso, I tested watercolors and stamping. The texture held up beautifully, the colors stayed bright, and I loved how meditative it felt to layer washes of color.
Color is My Happy Place -- What's Yours?
I used some Japanese calligraphy paper that I picked up at Daiso when I was back home last year. It’s got a bit of a tooth to it, but it doesn’t seem to pill up at all with the watercolors (what I really wanted to test). I love how vibrant the colors turned out. And there’s zero bleed at all—which is super important if you’re going to stamp on top like I did in today’s page.
8. The Tiniest Stickers
I was dealing with a headache that day, so I kept it simple: two coordinating sticker sheets, a page layout that didn’t require thinking, and a quiet few minutes of sticking things down. Low effort, high comfort.
The Tiniest Stickers
I’ve got pretty bad headaches today, so I needed something that was going to be super simple on my brain. One of the sticker challenges we have this month over at the ALP is all about using tiny stickers. So I pulled out my sticker binder and found a sheet of tiny stickers and another sticker sheet that coordinated.
9. Precision Cutting
Even when I’m sick, I can cut things out. I grabbed my precision scissors and trimmed a floral illustration from Brandi Kincaid’s Extravagant Hope mailing, surrounded it with a few stickers, and called it done. Sometimes creative care looks like this.
Daily Pages 12/27/23: Precision Cutting + Matching Stickers
It’s the first after-December-Daily-Pages page! I was sick in bed all day yesterday, and I’m still not feeling great today, so I wanted something that was easy and took my mind off feeling crappy.
Enter Brandi Kincade. Any time I need a lift, I go to my Brandi supplies; most of which I get in her monthly mailing — Extravagant Hope. With today’s page, I took out my trusty precision scissors (learn more about all scissor types here) and cut out this really pretty floral illustration. I added some Brandi Kincade stickers around the flowers and called it a day.
10. Full-Photo Simplicity
How easy can you make it?
I printed a single photo, added a small numbered ticket, and stopped there. No journaling, no embellishments—just the photo doing all the talking.
December Daily Pages 12/09/23: Full Photo Disco Ornaments
I snapped a photo of three of my favorite Christmas ornaments. I got these the first year we moved to Michigan, and the way that they reflect the lights from the tree is so beautiful. It felt like a really perfect visual for our Saturday.
Here’s what we covered today:
Ten creative page ideas that tell a story without words
How color, shape, and texture can speak louder than journaling
The value of low-effort creative play when you’re tired or overwhelmed
Why sometimes, showing up quietly is enough
Action step: Try making a page this weekend that uses little to no words. Let texture, shape, or color carry the story. You might be surprised how much you can say without saying anything at all.
Hit reply and let me know how your creative week went!
Talk to you next week!
xoxo,
Kristin
P.S. If you’re enjoying these newsletters, please consider sharing this edition with a friend who might need a little creative boost today.