Author: Patty Radish

Junk Journal January: Week 2

~ Patty Radish ~ 8 Comments

Some of the prompts at this point started to throw me. If you’re following me along on Instagram, I’m all over the place. Jumping from ‘catching up’ to the present and back again. As a matter of fact, I wanted to write this blog post last week, but “Garden” wasn’t even started…that’s ‘Day 13’. But, I’m pretty well caught up now.

Day 8: “Neutral”

Some of my favorite neutral images on one page spread. I have been holding on to some of these images for years. It’s alway a good feeling when precious ephemera finds a home. This is the backside of “Stitched” and I wanted to use that paperclip somehow, so I made that old photo into a cabinet card and dangled it.

Day 9: “Foliage”

The background images on these pages are some favorites, but a bit dull. I stenciled over them with some bright greens to liven things up a bit and added the usual suspects…postage stamps and butterflies. I have found Butterfly heaven in one of my new favorite Etsy shops TheJunkJournalStudio There’s a lot of fussy cutting involved, but boy is it worth it!

Day 10: “Layered”

I started with layering some tissue paper bits, brushed on some watered down gesso to push some of the color into the background, then added some neutral paper pieces to help pop the bird, butterflies and flowers. That’s definitely some layers.

Day 11: “Eclectic”

I threw everything onto this page spread. This one is at the end of the journal because I wanted to use that tea dyed envelope, and I couldn’t make it work anywhere else. It was a lot of fun just playing with odds and ends here, I’ll have to do this more often.

Day 12: “Torn Edges”

This is a technique I’ve added recently, inking the paper edges. I used to think it was more work than it was worth, but I have a lot of colored ink pads that I need to use before they dry up, and I thought this would be fun.

Day 13: “Garden”

This did not turn out the way I had planned. I totally made a mess out of the stenciling, flowers and butterflies to the rescue!

Moving along…

Day 14: “Pattern”

Of course the first thing I think of is a sewing pattern. Oh, the hours spent pinning tissue paper to fabric to cut and sew, I loved it! I used some images from a vintage sewing book, pieces of an old quilt, then drew in some hexes with pencil. I really had fun with this one.

Well, I hope you are enjoying my travels with “Junk Journal January 2024”! I go back and forth about how I feel about prompts and daily page spreads. Next time I may try to do one page each, or make 2 journals. I can barely close this one already!

I’m hoping to post ‘Week 3’ next week Wednesday since I’ve finally been able to catch up

As always,

Thank you for the visit,

Have a great week,

~Patty

Junk Journal January 2024

~ Patty Radish ~ 11 Comments

Hello, it’s been a while! I hope your new year is full of love and light so far!

Even though I haven’t spent a lot of time here in quite a while, I have definitely been keeping busy. Over the holiday season I worked on finishing up two Christmas journals (I shared those mostly on YouTube). It was fun until I caught something that knocked me on my butt for the rest of the year. I’m better now and decided at the last minute to join “Junk Journal January” on IG. Now, I went back and forth about this because I took on a pretty big custom project for my shoppe and it was so much fun to work on I couldn’t put it down. But, I dipped back into J.J.J. a little late in the game, and I’ve really been having fun with it.

I’ll be sharing ‘week one’ today, ‘week two’ next week, and so on.

Here goes…

Day 1: ‘Resolutions’

I kept my resolutions (printed on the bag of that tag) to a minimum. “Healing” my ‘Word of the Year’, “My Shoppes” I (re)opened my other shop to sell home stuff and jewelry, and I have a lot of stuff I could sell in my art journaling shoppe, “YouTube” so far that hasn’t gone anywhere, “House and Garden Plans” still in the works. And I’m continuing some of the good habits I picked up last year, like actual journaling, more on that in a later.

Day 2: ‘Quote’

Having a ‘Word of the Year’ has really helped me through some tough issues over the years. It’s a great way to focus your thoughts when they start jetting around your head. So, I wanted my WOTY this year to be “Healing” and I found this awesome quote to go with.

Day 3: ‘Throwback’

This prompt always throws me, it can mean so many things, but that’s what YouTube is for. Being late to the party with this challenge has its advantages, you can see what other people are doing and get ideas. I found this subscription form in an old book and I loved the garden theme, I glued a journaling spot on the back of it.

Day 4: ‘Tuck Spot’

I made two. That’s an envelope on the left. I do all of my journaling on the computer now, I print them up then stick them into my journals. I realized last year that the reason I stopped journaling was because my brain worked faster than my hand could write, and was losing my train of thought in the middle of my sentences, then I’d just give up. I don’t know why typing helps me keep my train of thought, but it does, and if it works, go with it! (also, spell check is my friend!)

Day 5:’ Daily Log’

This isn’t as much a ‘daily log’ as much as a reference list. This is what I referred to while working on the project for my shoppe. I really had fun with the decor on here. The stitched cluster paperclip was something I saw on Youtube, and the photo in the pocket is an old postcard that needed a home. Most of my pages in this journal are on the muted side, but it’s a nice vacation for the eyes after all that color I used in my Christmas journals. I did a flip through on my YouTube channel if you want to check those out.

Day 6: “Memory”

This was serendipitous, I had grabbed a book the day before and a dried, pressed flower fell out. It was a flower that my grandson had picked for me in 2022 I had forgotten all about. The flower on the right is pressed between some clear label paper and tracing paper. The one on the left I used some packing tape and tracing paper. I’m sure there are better ways of preserving flowers, but they needed a home before they fell apart, or I lost them again. The hydrangea photo is from a trip to visit our sons last year.

Day 7: “Stitched”

This was fun! I took the inspiration from that small stitched paperclip and used it on this oversized one. The background of these pages are from an 80’s craft book, I lightly gessoed over. I added trim bits before stitching this mini file folder together to make a pocket, then decorated the tag with a simple running stitch.

Because these page are more than a week late, I have been struggling with when, and whether or not, to share them. Or, because I have shared these photos on Instagram, should I share them here? It’s a whole thing. In the end, I have been ignoring this blog because of my indecision. Let me know in the comments what you think.

I hope you will stay tuned for next week’s installment of this project!

Until then,

Thank you so much visiting,

Have a great week,

~Patty

A Quick Hello…with journal pages

~ Patty Radish ~ Leave a comment

Over the last few, weeks I have been spending most of my time making videos for my YouTube channel. I really enjoy the creative process, but it doesn’t leave a lot of time for much else.

I still have so many supplies, empty journals, paints, art supplies of every stripe, and of course…ephemera. So, I still have a lot to work with and use up.

I probably make and film at least five art journal page spreads a week now, and I really love the process. It’s quite the learning curve, but I really appreciate the brain exercises…to an extent.

This means a lot of creating, cleaning up, staging photos, and editing (I can whittle an hour down to 58 seconds for ‘Reels’ and ‘Shorts’ like a pro!) but not time for much else. I think we have a dust bunny colony growing in our living room.

But at least I’m having fun….and filling up journals!

I may not have a lot to say in my blog posts until I get a little more organized, but I can share fruits of my labors, aka; journal spreads.

If you are interested in seeing how these pages came together, you can visit my channel by hitting the YouTube button in my sidebar, I’d love to see you over there!

Until next time,

Thank you for the visit,

Have a great week,

~Patty

It’s That Time of Year Again

~ Patty Radish ~ 6 Comments

Time for the iHanna Post Card Swap!

I think I began participating in the iHanna Post Card Swap in 2014…or maybe 2013. I’m not sure how many years it’s been, I only know it was two blogs ago. My original plan was to repurpose an index card journal to make the postcards…boring! I was feeling much more creative today.

And this is what I came up with…

Painted dictionary pages on cardstock.

This is an experiment that I had zero plans for, until today. I had made these several weeks ago and stuck them on a shelf in hopes I would actually find a use for them…and I did. I will be making a video of how I make these soon, it’s a bit of a process. So, look for that soon if you are interested.

The ephemera bits.

I came across a container with loads of quote cards and such that I’ve been poking around from place to place hoping for inspiration. Nice to finally find a fun project to use them in…on, whatever. These beautiful butterflies are from one of my newest favorite Etsy shops: TheJunkJournalStudio

Olde paper bits.

Again, too much of a good thing. My love for variety gets me into a lot of trouble.

Handmade decorative tape.

These are from a video I made last week, so much fun! If you would like to see how I made these, here’s the link to my channel: EclecticArtJournals

The cards.

As you can see I only made four, I actually need to make 10…unless you would like one!

My plan is to make a video of my postcard making process sometime soon. I may decide to embellish these with a little paint if I get inspired. I really just wanted to get this blog post out there in time in case you were interested in joining up. The deadline to sign up is November 19th, the link to sign up is here: iHanna PCS

Did you catch that little hint up there about sending you a postcard? I think it would be so much fun to make more of these for my friends here, (international mail is more than welcome too). All you have to do is send me an email with your name and address, the button is at the top right of this page.

Sending a card to me is completely optional, I’ll put my address on all the cards I send out.

Until next time,

Thanks so much for stopping in,

Talk to you soon,

~Patty

Happy Stoppings and Startings…

~ Patty Radish ~ 4 Comments

A couple of years ago I thought it would be fun to put together a journal of the ephemera packs I make for my Shoppe, and like many things I start…yeah. (the link to original post is here)

At this point you shouldn’t be surprised that still have half finished projects that need tending to one way or another, meaning: either finish them or dismantle and move on. I’m happy to say that not only did I take a project off my list, I started a new one…again…wait a minute!

Oh well, If you are interested in my process, read on:

Step one: Tear all decor from said journal

This is one of my favorite photos, geishas in ‘Kiss’ makeup. I took this off the internet and printed it out to make a birthday card for my brother years ago. ‘Kiss’ was the first concert I ever went to, big bro took me of course. I have the best brother ever, fyi! I had printed an extra one out for me.

Step two: Make a pile of sticky backed journal decor

This tag is no great shakes but so much fun to make. I’m moving to a larger (wider) size of this style of journal and this tag helped me knock out a page of this one…that I’m moving out of… if you know what I mean.

Step three: Move said pile from one creative space to the next making sure they all stick together awkwardly

I really struggled with this page spread, but I’m really happy with the way it turned out. The large tag and the journal card are made from a painting experiment I’m still working out. The pocket is from the “pile”. (the flowers are from a different project I had to let go of…long story)

Step four: Pry the sticky ephemera off each other every time you want to work with it for extra frustration

The pocket and stamps are from the “pile”, the photo of my dog ‘Lily’ is from a different pile. Part of the “Gratitude Dailies” project that pooped out.

Step five: Put and end to it by cramming as much stuff on to two pages as possible…then add a butterfly

I’m the first one to admit that my pages sometimes look like a hot mess, but I’m having so much fun! One of my favorite things to do is find homes for wandering ephemera or repurposing journals that go awry. I seem to spend a lot of time with “Clean up on aisle 5” projects. But there is a lot of inspiration out there and a lot more projects to start, stop and drop like a hot potato.

So until next time,

Thank you so much for stopping by,

Have a great week,

~Patty