The latest happenings at Casa de Radish is a kitchen remodel, and I am happy to say that it is almost finished, Monday should be the last day. Three weeks without a kitchen is quite a challenge, but it was actually fun not cooking (just not doing dishes in the bathroom sink!). So, we did a lot of barbecuing with ready made sides and relaxed in the backyard.

I knew not having a kitchen for a couple of weeks was going to be stressful, so I decided to cut myself some slack and take a little vacation from obligations to see what happened. It actually gave me enough space to see that I had over committed myself once again.

Busy work.

When the remodel started, I hid in my room with our elderly pooch and listened to audio books, art journaled, and posted, posted, posted, but after a while even that got a little tedious. I had joined the #100dayproject in an effort to get some of my art journals finished up, and it worked out pretty well in the beginning, but falling behind then playing “catch up” took too much time and energy, so I dropped out. Taking photos and posting on Instagram became more time consuming than it was worth.

Making adjustments.

I had also joined an online art journaling group hoping that it would inspire me to dig in and get some journals done, but it actually just felt like another obligation. To be honest, I think I have had a hard time adjusting to retirement and taking care of a family, so I keep looking for things to feel relevant and social media filled the bill for a while. I also thought that when my daughter and grandson moved out of state I would have a lot more free time to spend on ramping up my shoppe and social media presence. It definitely helped me refocus my grief, but now that I am on the other side of adjusting to their leaving, I’m finding lots of other things to keep me busy!

Going “small”.

Sometimes I wonder if I should let go of any kind of social media presence because popular opinions say that if your not “killing it” you’re wasting your time, It’s a lot of work to stay relevant in today’s social media world and I used to dream of being a “big deal” online…but now I’m over it. A couple of people that I was having a great time following have dropped out, and I’m actually pretty sad about it. It makes me wonder if they felt like even having a small presence wasn’t worth the time. I hate to see them go, but they have to make decisions that’s best for them.

Still sticking around.

I have to say that I have been enjoying taking a small break from posting on social media all the time and I’m going to post here when the mood strikes, (along with YouTube and Instagram (Facebook is long retired) because I don’t feel like retiring yet, I just want to take things a little more easy and give that little voice that nags me to post more often the “heave ho!”.

I have a lot of creative things I’m working on and I will definitely share here as much as possible, but not on any schedule, just as the mood hits me.

So, until next time,

Thank you for the visit,

Have a great week!

~Patty

(p.s. I want to do a downsizing giveaway, so look for that sometime soon!)

It’s been a long time since I’ve worked on a Happy Mail binder, but I recently made one for a friend, and was inspired to make another one for myself. This one is a lot different than any of my old ones. I decided to join the binders up with the art journals, and I’m definitely having more fun decorating them up…and making videos in the process!

I’ll be the first one to admit that it’s not like me to make a video and not talk about it on here, let alone four! At the bottom of each of these photos is a little blurb and a link to the corresponding video…

Video #1: “Happy Mail Binder Series: Episode 1“

In this video I do a flip through of some of my Happy Mail binders and talk about how I use them. Then I share what’s inside my “happy mail box” and create a pocket page for postcards.

(4×6 plastic pockets Amazon )

Video #2: “Happy Mail Junk Journal: Pocket Pages”

In this video I create more pocket pages for my Happy Mail Junk Journal (I changed my mind about what to call it as I went along, I like “Happy Mail Junk Journal” much better). These are some of the pages I took out of my old Happy Mail journals that I changed my mind about.

I’m taking my downsizing seriously!

Video #3: “Happy Mail Junk Journal: Decorating My Pages“

In this video I create some junk journal pages with collage clusters and happy mail ephemera, five super quick pages.

Video #4: Happy Mail Junk Journal: Decorating Pages Part 4

In this video I create 3 junk journal pages with happy mail ephemera.

In the midst of making this video series I received an awesome package of Happy Mail ephemera from one of my friends from here on my blog! Oh my gosh have I been having fun with all of it!

Thank you Nancy!

iHanna is hosting another postcard swap!…and here’s the link if you want to join. It just started so the due date to have your postcards ready is May 12th. If you decide to join, please let me know in the comments so we can make an extra one for each other and swap.

Thank you so much for visiting,

Have a great day,

~Patty

Like many people, I have a collection of Travelers Notebook type fabric covers for my journals, some are purchased and some are homemade. But after seeing so many cutely decorated art journal covers out there, I thought I would try my hand at decorating mine up a bit.

The Before.

As you can see I chopped off the edges here, I’m not sure why I made this one such an awkward size, but there is a fix…

…use up all your scrappy bits!

Just stitch (hand or machine) fabric strips along all the edges to close off the openings and stitch the pockets down. I liked experimenting with different stitches with my embroidery thread.

I added a little lace along the top edge of the pocket, and some accent trim on the side for fun!

Tip: Just keep adding stuff till it looks like a hippy bus…then add more!

More trim, mini doilies, lace, buttons, beads, and dangly bits. I love this makeover! I didn’t start out with a bohemian theme, it just worked out that way.

Small Details.

I did try to stay in the color family of this fabric as not to go too wild. My favorite accent is the beads on the elastic closure, that’s going on all of my covers going forward, but that button has inspired me to try a closure with large buttons on my next project, sooo…

Making Dangly Bits:

And I am finally using up beading supplies that I have had for far too many years. My heart skips a beat when think about how much of my hoarded stash is going to be used in this project!

Where it started.

The two on the left are the newest covers that really got me started on this project. Just something fun to work on in the evenings, (looks like some beads on the elastic are in order!).

To be continued…

Even though these will be sitting on a shelf filled with finished journals doesn’t mean they don’t deserve a facelift, right!

As always,

Thank you for stopping by,

Have a great week,

Much Love,

~Patty

(p.s. please don’t hesitate to ask questions in the comments or email me)

The “Junk Journal January” challenge was such an encouragement for me to get my art journals finished up, I joined another one. It’s also a daily challenge, but without the prompts, and it’s for anything creative. Actually, I took a couple of days off to work on some crochet, and counted those into the challenge…

…that seems to have been a popular decision, cuddles abound!

The good, the bad, and the finished!

This weekend I spent a little time decluttering and organizing the room that I use to film my YouTube videos. I wanted it to feel a little more inspiring than just an extra room with a bed, so I turned it into art journaling central. I shifted things around and made this shelf to house some of my finished art journals. I can’t fit another journal in, that’s a little scary. Especially when I had purged a few of my journals when we moved into this house!

Last week I had spent a day or so creating some pages ahead of time so that I didn’t fall behind with the challenge while working on other projects, and I wanted to share some of them here before posting them to Instagram. If you want to see my pages the first few weeks of this challenge, the link is in my sidebar. I always feel a bit cheesy when I post photos here that I have already posted to the IG’s.

All of these pages are made from pieces I pulled out of art journals that I had changed my mind about. And now I have quite a pile of collage clusters ready and waiting to fill my pages. So, not only have I knocked unfinished projects from my list (art journals), but I can quickly pull page spreads together. Win!

Along with plenty of collage clusters, I have also splurged a bit on painted background printables from my new favorite shop: ArtPaperJoy, (please go check her out).

Another quick addition to my pages is painted masking tape (upper left side of page). A video of how I make painted masking tape is up on my channel if you’d like to take a look:

EclecticArtJournals

This page was half finished before I added this collage cluster and the flower.

Gesso, a tinted dictionary page, scrapbook paper, collage cluster. I’m on a roll!

Update on the internet sitch: we switched companies and our internet is above and beyond expectations now! I do too many things online to be in a constant state of frustration. Definitely one of the best decisions we’ve made in a while.

And now that it dosn’t take hours or days to upload, I’m working on getting more things into my shoppe (including “curated art” ephemera packs soon), making videos (I started a new series, the first installment is up on my channel), participating in this 100 day challenge, decluttering, organizing along with all the home/house/family doings…I need a nap!

I think that’s about all for now. Although I have a lot of things going on right now and I will try to check in more often with the latest.

Until then,

Thanks so much for stopping in,

Talk to you soon,

Much Love,

~Patty

I started filming the video of this page on Wednesday the 15th with the highest of hopes. Finished filming it on Friday and started the upload to YouTube at approximately 1:pm.

“Okay”, I thought, “This should be up and ready by Saturday morning.” I woke up Sat. morning ready to write this blog post announcing “Another Video Up!”, but this was not to be!…it was still at 3% almost 24 hours later.

Are you kidding me?!

Oh for my goodness sake! Really!

Anyway, I packed up all my gear and drove to Starbucks to see if their internet a was any better. It was but how many coffees can one drink in one day, so I left at 35% after about 2 hours. Progress, but not what I was hoping for.

So, the next morning back to another Starbucks to see if their internet was better, not really. So, after about an hour and a half I packed my up my gear and went to a local coffee shop in town to see how that would work. It was awesome! It finished loading in about 30 minutes!

Moral of the story: blow the dust off your bank account and pay for better internet service Patty!

The End!

Oh, and here is the link to my video “Journal with Me: Backgrounds and Decor”

Love you guys! 🙂