Collage Journals

Back So Soon?! …you betcha!

~ Patty Radish ~ 6 Comments

Under the heading of “reasons/excuses” in my last blog post as to why I haven’t been keeping up with my blog is the amount I post to Instagram, the redundancy factor. But, I’m also realizing that not everybody likes IG or FaceBook (I’m not a fan of FB). So, whether or not I post to IG or FB will no longer have anything to do with my blog posts.

That being said…

Here’s a little something I worked on last night.

I felt as if all I did over the weekend is play “catch-up”! I needed a little art time to counter balance the steady onslaught of To Do lists! In other words, some Me Time!

This vintage post card has been making the rounds from shelf to shelf for a few months now, I just wasn’t sure what to do with it. My usual M.O. is to stick it in a container of some sort and forget about it.

The problem was, it has all this wonderful writing on the back and I didn’t want to just glue it into a journal willy nilly and loose all those memories. I think this card is from 1910, it’s a little faint.

Luckily for all concerned, I just happened to find my photo corners the other day, so problem solved! And now somebody else’s keepsake has found a new home.

It occurred to me that underneath this card would be an excellent, secret journaling spot, that may or may not ever happen.

I would really appreciate your input on the Instagram/FaceBook issue. How do you feel about these social media outlets? Do you prefer a blog? Or all three? Please let me know in the comments. Personally, I feel as if blogs are a little less noisy and a lot more friendly!

Thank you for the visit,

Have a great day!

~Patty

August Memory Journal Catch up…and my page process

~ Patty Radish ~ 1 Comment

Yes, it has been a while. There are too many reasons/excuses why I’ve been gone so long to try to explain, so I’ll just get down to it.

I spent some time in January catching up on May thru July in my Memory Journal and posted the photos on Instagram. So if you would like to see more of these pages, search the hashtag #pajmemoryjournal on my IG account, and you will see just about the entire journal.

I have had a lot of people ask me for a video tutorial on my layering process, but time is a bit of a squeeze right now, its everything I can do to keep up, so the videos will have to wait a bit.

This is a store bought journal insert that I wanted to use up, but the page prep is the same as in the journals I make and sell. I try to prep the entire journal in one sitting to make the process go a little smoother. There’s nothing like cleaning up paint after every page to discourage forward movement!

Either I use this little bubble wrap stamp, paint scrapes, or stenciling as the first layer. I use a makeup sponge to apply the paint to the stamp so it doesn’t get too goopy (I’m pretty sure that’s a word).

I don’t usually do a second layer of paint, but because I’m working with plain paper, I felt it needed a little contrast. I wanted to have a “spray painted” look, so I kept the makeup sponge dry and just did a light stamping with it in spots.

The last prep work layer I do is random pieces of tissue paper. All I use is a glue stick, some wax paper, and a brayer. If you don’t own a brayer, not to worry, all you really need is the wax paper to help you press the tissue paper down so it doesn’t tear because it’s sticking to your fingers.

I understand that I do a lot of these, so I may have left out something…or two, please let me know if you have any questions.

Now, a finished page…

A photo of relaxing in the back yard with wine, business cards from restaurants we ate at, and photos of my grandson playing learning games on my iPad.

There is still a lot I need to learn about memory keeping, and there is so much info out there. So, one of my go to YouTube channels is Traci Reed, she puts out 2 to 3 videos per week! Amazing! You should check her out!

This journal isn’t too terribly exciting, but it’s the accumulation of small moments that gives our lives it’s deepest meaning. (the little schnookims!)

So, there you have it.

I have a few fun changes coming up in my world. I’m still working on the details, but I will be sure to let you know about them soon.

As always, thank you for popping in,

Have an awesome weekend,

~Patty

Keepsake Journal: April

~ Patty Radish ~ 3 Comments

My memory keeping for April went a little awry! Somehow I deleted most of my photos, and lost the ephemera. Due to the frustration of it all, I’m behind…again!

But, I’ve decided to soldier on and make the best with what I have because my little organizer is busting at the seams with the next few month’s goodies.

This is a page spread I made with the brochure from a winery we visited…and club we joined 🙂 It was my birthday, and my daughter gifted me with a weekend in one of our favorite wine producing spots, Lake Chelan. We shopped, we ate, we talked, we drank copious amounts of wine. Girl’s weekends are the best!

This is the only photo that survived (don’t ask…I have no idea what happened!) The background piece is from a bag some lovely wine came in, I still have the bottle, it was a gift from my daughter. I decided to use a few “scrapbooking” tricks to give my lonely little photo some interest, which I have to say was pretty fun. I’ll be binge watching scrapbooking videos on YouTube soon!

So, since there isn’t much ephemera to work with, I decided to go all out with journaling while I still have the memories. I’m on the road right now, so I’m making due with what I packed. Luckily, I always pack lots of tags!

I attached the tags to vintage milk cap by pulling the strings through the hole, then stapled it to the page with my Tim Holtz “Tiny Attacher”.

Like I said earlier, my little memory keeper is bulging at the seams, so I’ll be getting May started ASAP. There’s a lot going on right now, so it would be great to get caught up, especially with the Holidays looming!

Hope you enjoyed “short and sweet” April,

Thanks for popping in,

Have a great week,

~Patty

My Latest Journal Addition…and coming clean

~ Patty Radish ~ Leave a comment

Over the past few months I have been adding black and white embellishments to my pages to give them a little structure, a little color can go a long way, and I find that pops of black gives the eye a place to rest. But it occurred to me this morning that I may be giving the wrong impression when I share my pages on social media.

Namely, that I can draw! …I Can’t!

Of course there are those lucky people out there that because sketching and drawing is like breathing will say ‘I just need to try harder’, but it’s really a matter of too much self criticism on my part. Oh, the Angst!

 And when there are super talented people out there creating beautiful illustrations, I say why not support them! This is a printable from Illustrated Faith’s “Print & Pray Shop“. All I did was put my printer on ‘Black and White’ and print it up on clear sticker paper. Easy peasy!

The other thing I need to come clean about is the fact that I don’t know how to do script writing, or any other decorative writing for that matter. If you look closely, you can see the sticker paper, so I fussy cut as much as I can to minimize the “taped” look.

 I made a few sheets of these by googling “positive words” and writing them in ‘Word’ with fonts I really liked, then printed them up on Avery 8665 clear sticker paper.

I have about 30 of these words to choose from in my arsenal now. Another benefit of having these words printed out is that I can move the word around the page to see where it will work the best before committing to where it will land. I’m not always very good at judging how big or small my writing should be to fit on the page or around an image.

It’s fun to choose a word that captures my feelings at the time I’m working on a page. Not quite journaling, but sometimes one word is sufficient.

So there you have it, I’ve come clean!

I put a few links in there to help you find a couple of my sources, I don’t get paid, just thought they’d help.

Gotta go now…lots to do!

Thank you for stopping in,

Have a great weekend,

~Patty

My “Camp Reset” Journey

~ Patty Radish ~ 4 Comments

I’m not sure what happened, because I’m not much of a joiner, but I went to “Camp Reset” this summer, and it’s been a blast! It’s a virtual camp put together and run by Cori at “The Reset Girl, and it’s all about self care and goal setting, and boy did I need it!

My usual routine was to jump out of bed and start ticking things off my to do list, but since “arriving” at camp, I’ve changed things up a bit. I wish I could say that self care is my new “jam”, but I’m pretty stubborn and definitely set in my ways…

…but a few changes have been made…

…and I’ve created a couple of “self care kits”.

I was shocked at how many products I had tucked around the house with good intentions.  I pulled any hand and feet care products into a vintage suitcase in my bedroom, and the rest of this into a smaller basket in my bathroom. And now I use all of it! Amazing!

My “cabin”.

Located in my sewing room, this is creativity central in my home. When camp is over, that fabric covered foam core will become my new vision board. Making a vision board was one of the camp activities, but I wanted one where it was more “in my face” so to speak.

The suitcase in the previous photo is now my Faith journaling organizer. I haven’t said much about that on my blog because I was still working out how organize prayer time into my schedule. But, after watching Cori’s Youtube video on how to put together a prayer binder (on continuous loop) I’m pretty much set.

Above is a bible journaling page I did during “Chapel Day” at camp. Oh my gosh, it was so much fun! I went to a Catholic camp as a kid, so we had chapel everyday and Mass on Sundays, so this really took me back to camp as a kid. This page is a “tip-in” style of bible journaling that Cori prefers, and I think I prefer it too.

Art journaling activities. You know I was on board for this!

And YAY…I added another piece to my never-ending list of creative pursuits, Discbound  notebooks!

I started my Camp Handbook in a large 3 ring binder because I needed the freedom of moving things around, but I just didn’t like it. I hesitated at the expense of investing in a whole new system,  but I’m glad I relented, I love it! I’m going to make another discbound notebook for another project soon, so I’ll share some photos and how-to’s on that later.

Camp isn’t over until next weekend, but I have a few irons in the fire, and I didn’t want to put off sharing this for too long.

Cori, aka; The Reset Girl, will be hosting a “Winter Camp” in January, at least that’s the plan. If you don’t know her work, here are a couple of links help you find her: YouTube channel and Website. She loves all things paper crafting, so you will find her website full of inspiration.

I hope you will find Cori’s community as inspiring as I have!

Until next time,

Thank you for visiting,

Have a wonderful week,

~Patty