Art Journaling

Advent Art Journal: Using Downloads/pdf.s

~ Patty Radish ~ 2 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve taken the time to work in an art journal. There was a lot going on this fall: I was on a creative team,  wrote an article for “Art Journaling” magazine, did the bi-annual iHanna postcard swap, plus working on several crochet projects…then there’s my shoppe. Then to top it all off, I reopened my “home decor” Etsy shop. Clearly I have had a lot to talk about, but getting in front of the keyboard seemed to be a struggle.

I try to make a “Holiday Memory”  journal every year because I have come to rely on them for my Project Life albums (which are still gathering dust…ahem!). This year I decided to combine my Advent journal with memory keeping. Here’s the page I made for Thanksgiving:

A  little about how I will be sharing this journal. I used a lot of elements that I had planned on blogging about this past year, but procrastinated about…yep that’s the truth there for ya. Anyway, here are a few things I plan on sharing about in the next few weeks. I’ll start out with the pdf’s I used, then the painted backgrounds, coffee stained elements, pocket pages for memory keeping, and anything else that pops into my head as I go along.

Now to the downloads: This year I have been relying on these more than ever. It started with phrase stickers printed on clear label paper, to using black and white florals like ink stamps, then wanting something to add to my painted pages without covering the painted bits. You know I love my layering, but I don’t like always covering everything up.

I use Google Docs to play around with phrases and quotes, fonts, sizes and such. You can spend a lot of money buying words and phrases from people, it’s just as easy to make your own with the fonts you like, not to mention the words.

I find most of my florals on IllustratedFaith.com and KellyBangsCreative.com and just set my printer on black and white. I print them in color too, but not for this project. The angels, Madonna and Child, and the floral page I purchased from Etsy shops, I’ll link those at the bottom of this post.

Nov. 26-27: I worked in this journal all day Friday, ate leftovers, and napped, so a super simple page there. On Saturday I went to evening Mass, so I wrote out one of the Scriptures from the reading. I had started out in a different direction with these two pages before I figured out what I wanted to do, but it was fun to find work-arounds.

Journaling Page: as I have mentioned before, I’m not a huge fan of sharing my journaling, so at the end of each week I’ll have a pocket page with tags and journaling cards to jot down thoughts and memories.

There are a couple more pdf.s I use quite a bit, but I plan to share more about those in a later post.

This is just the beginning of this “Advent Journal” series, so if there’s anything else you want to know about these pages or have a post suggestion, please write them in the comments. 

As always,

Thank you for stopping by,

See you soon,

~Patty

For digital paper and images:

Romantic Arts

Nativity Images:

Illustrated Faith

Clear Label Sheets:

Avery at Amazon

Art Journaling: Using My Photos

~ Patty Radish ~ 6 Comments

Many of you know that I like to use “real photography” in my art journals. Sometimes my own, sometimes other people’s. But, for the most part I use them for memory keeping.

Even though these are memories of my garden or a trip to the garden center, they don’t fall under the heading “memory keeping”, at least not any more. I’ve decided to start including them in my shoppe ephemera packs.

My latest “ephemera pack mood board” “Wild Things”, now available in my shoppe.

 Check out that albino squirrel, the raccoon doesn’t know what to think “What the what!”.

An art journaling page with some of the ephemera pack leftovers.

I love the challenge of seeing what I can do with random bits. The big green swirly sticker in the background has been bouncing around my art room for well over 10 years. The stamped piece along the sides was a scrap of sticker paper was experimenting with. I used black and white florals on clear sticker paper to blend the elements a bit.

A photo I took at our local Botanical Gardens a couple of years ago. Some of my favorite pix to take are where it looks like a Hobbit or a bunny might pop out.

I have already started including “my photos” into my ephemera packs.

My dream is to get through most of my vintage ephemera and make packs with my own “makings” in them, a lot like my “Curated Art Findings” ephemera packs. (as of this blog post I have only one left, they really like these in Canada for some reason.)

I spent a whole day gathering, organizing and editing photos. I will write a post on how I edit my photos and what I used make them into polaroids if you’re interested, just let me know in the comments.

Until next time,

Thanks for stopping in,

Have a great week,

~Patty

My Latest Obsession: Mood Boards

~ Patty Radish ~ 10 Comments

And it all started out of frustration!

Sometimes there are so may moving parts to my projects, I have a hard time remembering all of them…so I make lists. That’s great, but even then, I’ll loose my place on the checklist. And really, how inspiring is a list?!

“Happy Mail Mood Board”

As you can see this combines elements with lists, and even some room for detailed notes…game changer. There is so much more to this than words and ephemera, it’s also a springboard for more ideas (and probably a new mood board)

“In the Garden” ephemera pack.

It started with this page spread. I got flustered with constantly referring to my notes and thought instead of making a “memory page” when I was finished making an ephemera pack for my shoppe, I decided to make the page spread ahead of time to remind myself what “goes” into it as opposed to what “went” into it.

“Art Journaling” page.

Now, you’re probably going to think it’s a bit silly after all these years to need a reminder of the elements that go into one of my page spreads, but it’s not. When I decide to create a page spread I’ll usually go through some of my old favorite art journals for ideas, especially if things aren’t clicking.

Now I have an idea book to refer to when (not if!) I get stuck!

If you look up “Mood Board” on the internet, you will see these used for home decor  and fashion ideas, I think you can use them for just about anything creative you are working on, like cards, a quilt, or even a crochet project.

The beauty of this is there’s no more hunting around for the perfect art journal for inspiration, it’s always where I can find it, right above (or on) my desk.

I made this journal by printing “dot grid” onto white card stock and  binding it with the covers of a large vintage book, but you can make something like this in a binder, an art journal, or something to hang on your wall.

I have quite a few more ideas for ephemera packs and other projects, so this may become a series, so I hope you are as excited about my new obsession as I am! 🙂

As always,

Thank you so much for stopping by,

Have a great day!

~Patty

 

Junk Journal Pages

~ Patty Radish ~ 6 Comments

What happened to July!? It turned into one of those months that everything happened, I had a hard time squeezing everything into it…guess the blog didn’t make it. Lol!

I’ve been trying to keep up with the downsizing project, and it’s actually been pretty fun, especially in my craft rooms…Yes, I have two now 🙂

Making the time to finish up olde junk journals is on my priority list right now. I’m afraid to look at how old this one is, I’m sure there is a date in there somewhere.

I’m happy to say that I actually journaled on that card in the pocket, something that I don’t do unless I have something on my mind that just won’t settle. Me hubs (my husband) has had a couple of health issues this month, so that took a little air out of my tires. But, things are looking up as we work through it.

I spun my wheels on a few projects that didn’t seem worth the time this month, but water under the bridge, it kept me busy.

To the point, this is why I started art journaling to begin with. The combination of art therapy and journaling is the perfect fit for me. I sent in an art journal to Stampington’s “Art Journaling” magazine a few weeks ago, hopefully that won’t turn into personal drama, my last one was sent back saying “thanks but no thanks”.

Well, I just wanted to check back in and say hello. I’ll keep working on downsizing olde art journals and hopefully take the time to post as I move along.

As always, Thank you so much for stopping by,

Have a wonderful rest of your week,

~Patty

And We Have A Winner…s!

~ Patty Radish ~ 20 Comments

Because I was so blown away by the awesome response to my little blog giveaway, everybody that left a comment on my Giveaway post gets an ephemera pack!

“…you getta pack…and you gettta pack…and you getta pack…lol!

It will take me a couple of days to put 7 extra ephemera packs together. So in the meantime, all of you that left a comment can start to email your addresses to me. My “email button” is at the top right hand corner.

Whoa! 2020 flashback!

Okay, I’m done fooling around! Everybody get on to sending your addresses, and I’ll get back to work!

Thank you so much for participating,

Talk to you soon,

~Patty