Decorating

Holiday Decorations

~ Patty Radish ~ 6 Comments

Today I was taking photos of my decor because I’m hoping that if I have this to refer back to, things might go a little easier next Christmas. I also plan to pack it all away and label it per the particular tree or area. I thought since I took a bunch of photos it might be fun to share.

Yes, I have many trees. I do kind of a Retro-Woodland-Glam thing, lots of trees, animals and sparkle.

These trees are in our front window. The only “outdoor” decor this year until my hubby’s knee is ship shape (no ladders this year mister).

The sweater gang.

The shelf above our TV. I have been putting those Santa pictures on our mantle for over 30 years. I’m not sure about this arrangement yet, but I love the wooden nutcrackers. I found the fisherman this Christmas, the new guy. I started on the nutcrackers after my mom sent bunch of them to us one Christmas. They’ve been a fixture ever since.

We have a few rather large ornaments, so I hang them deep into the tree to give the decor a little depth. The disco ball was an addition from our son a few years ago when he flew over from Korea one Christmas. A sweet keepsake, we don’t see him very often.

Our mid century hutch and pencil tree. All my small ornaments go on this tree, acorns, walnuts, little pinecones. It may sound funny, but I remember where most of my ornaments came from and who I was with when I bought them, or who gave them to me. It’s always so much fun to bring them out every year.

I repainted all my nutcrackers a few years ago to match my Christmas color scheme. I’ve gone almost completely neutral, so these guys will get a makeover next year.

The shelf in the corner of our dining room, I usually have plants on it. Yes, I pretty much strip the house at Christmas then deep clean and redecorate after the first of the year. It’s also when I clean up my plants and give them some new top soil, it’s a great way to start the the New Year.

Lily has to get into the action when I’m taking photos so I thought I’d toss her in too.

Well, that’s about it around here right now, relaxing and crafting…and eating

I’m working on the memory pages in my “Holiday Journal”, so I’ll be sharing those later this week.

Until then,

From our home to your’s HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope 2022 a good one for you and your loved ones!

Talk to to you soon,

~Patty

Making Room for Sweetness

~ Patty Radish ~ 4 Comments

There is somebody that I have been following for many years that mentioned the impact that cleaning, clearing, and de-cluttering has made on her creative life.  Now this is a great idea in theory, but it’s work, so I wasn’t too terribly interested in really getting serious about it…until this happened…

…making room for this sweet being in our home.

I love my art room, but I love him more! And what a great excuse to finally go through years of stuff to make it fit in here…

…the office.

Half the size of my old art room, with stuff already in it. That spells touching everything before even attempting to make it fit! (this photo is after working on all the crap on the floor!)

Fear not, progress has been made. I’m sharing this photo so you will appreciate my progress. This room isn’t as cute as my old art room was, but I’m hoping it will grow on me.

There are a few more decorating projects to be done like painting and such, but everything is cleaned and organized.

I actually have some empty boxes and space to fill, and I’ll need it, I’m not through!

I was also once told that inspiring decor helps your creativity, I’m inclined to agree.

In case your missing the theme here, I need a shot of creativity in my life, along with downsizing. Art has been pretty much put on the back burner as of late, because I’m just feeling a bit overwhelmed by all that needs to be done. When my husband retires, we plan to move into smaller digs, so this definitely needed doing.

My journal makings have become part of the decor.

Things I like to keep handy, and a perfect way to fill a corner.

This table sits right under a window, so no decorating here. This will be my only work surface in the room, which is why I didn’t mind filling the larger table with supplies. I’m hoping this will work. Please excuse the plastic table cloths, when the paints come out “It’s every man for himself!”…or woman.

There’s something about a clean space that makes me want to make a mess and get creative, I’m not sure if that’s just the nature of things, or my inner 10 year old jumping up and down.

Anyway, I have a few more moves to make, so I better get at it. I just wanted to check in and share the latest.

Have a great weekend,

Thanks for the visit,

~Patty

Hearth and Home

~ Patty Radish ~ 5 Comments

Hello, I thought I would pop in quickly to let you know I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth 🙂 I have been keeping super busy with personal life stuff and not much art journaling, so I didn’t quite know what to share. Lately, I’ve been enjoying diving into working around the house, visiting with family, taking time to talk on the phone, all the things that I used to think  “I had to make time for” because I was trying to “Run a shoppe”. I’ve not been this happy since my kids were little!

It’s the small things that make me smile, like finally getting to some decorating done in my laundry room. I will be painting that chest of drawers when I make up my mind about color. I have a long list of projects I want to do around the house, and I am finally ticking them off.

At the end of the day I work on this, it’s coming along quite nicely.

It’s that time of year again. This was two days of hard labor to pull up some unsightly ground cover that looked ratty and made a nice home for weeds to grow. We still have a few more things to move and remove here, but progress is happening.

On the news front, one of my journals was chosen to for the next issue of Art Journaling magazine, it should be out this summer. I didn’t write my article on this little beauty of course, this was just a nice excuse to share a recent gift.

This has been my latest obsession, Ali Edwards “Week In The Life” project. I had joined up last spring when my son was visiting from Korea, and I took loads of photos, but it didn’t get any farther than that. So, I decided to do a trial run with the photos from his visit before my niece arrives for her annual visit. I can’t tell you how much fun it was to look through all the photos and remember and our little adventures together. But, I’ll have to put this on hold until after my niece flies home. She and I will be filling in a couple of these albums documenting her visit, I can’t wait!

That’s it for now. I’ve signed up for the iHanna Post Card Swap again, so hopefully I will share about that this week some time.

Until then,

Have a wonderful weekend,

~Patty

Sewing My Little Heart Out

~ Patty Radish ~ 6 Comments

This year is all about getting our house in order. I had the same intention last year, and I was really quite successful, but there is still so much to be done!

I love having handwork to do in the evening in front of T.V. or listening to an audio book (and ticking WIP’s off my list, win!) so hand quilting small projects is perfect.

img_6144Here are my latest creations. The two at the top were put together and quilted before the Holidays, but needed binding. The runner on the bottom was pinned, but needed the fabric pieces stitched on, then bound.

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You may be wondering why I need so many runners…

Full Disclosure:

I really dislike dusting! Every once in a while, I will take a few runners and throw them in the wash. Or, if they are in a hard to remove kind of place, under a T.V. and such, I will just use a vacuum attachment on them. I don’t know, they just seem to make the furniture look cosy, and I love making them.

img_6151I had originally made this one for my bedroom, but I really, really disliked it there. So now I have one less runner to make for my sewing room. 🙂

img_6152Just so you know, this and the previous runner, were made out of blocks from quilts I had started many moons ago, and had never finished. It’s such a huge relief to use things up and move on!  This one is going into my sewing room too. I have about 8 runners to make for my sewing room alone, but I definitely have all the fabric I need.

Yay for using up supplies!

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This runner is for our dining room table. It’s made by stitching fabric pieces onto linen with vintage wool thread. I wanted to use thick colored thread on this because I wanted the option of flipping it to give my table a more neutral look.

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Here is the wool thread I used. I found several spools of this gorgeousness at the thrift store a few years ago, Love! You can find some on Etsy and Ebay too.

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One of the reasons why I’ve made getting our house in order this year, and last, is because we will be selling this house in a few years, and I want to be ready to de-personalize and neutralize our decor. As you well know by now, I love color, so this is an easy fix!

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This is what it looks like on our table, just the pop of color it needed. I’ll be starting the placemats this week, I’ve chosen a leafy, vintage-y fabric for them, and muslin for the backside. I’m not sure If I will be doing any hand stitching on them yet, we’ll have to see.

In between stitching my heart out, I have been busy with working in my faith devotionals from last year, planning out my year with Lara Casey’s “Goal Setting Planner“, and I signed up for Ali Edwards “One Little Word“, mine is “GRACE”. I will be talking a little more about those things as soon as I’m a bit more organized. I fell off the “No spend” wagon, but hope to jump back on asap! 🙂

So, until next time,

Thank you so much for stopping by,

~Patty

Getting to the Heart of the Matter

~ Patty Radish ~ 13 Comments

The past year has definitely taken me places I didn’t foresee. It was around this time last year that I decided I needed to step back from my shoppe and reevaluate why I was doing it. With a lot of prayer and introspection, I find myself not only happy with that decision, but I’m stepping back even more! I’m not closing up shoppe yet, it just isn’t my main focus any more.

So, with the extra time on my hands, I’ve been diving in and taking care of my home, myself, and letting go of pipe dreams.

Pipe Dream: noun; an unattainable or fanciful hope or scheme

Case in point…

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Isn’t that a lovely scene?

This is the top of my dresser o’ yarn. I had been working on this blanket for a few weeks. I needed to use up some yarn from other projects, and thought I had found the perfect scheme.

The other day, I laid down all the squares I had finished to come up with a plan, and to my horror it was the ugliest blanket I had ever scene! What to do? I had already spent countless hours working on this, looking for inspiration online, plotting, planning, crocheting. I decided to cut my losses and hope that there may be someone else out there that could use a partially finished afghan. Anyway, off to the thrift store it went, along with a few bags of trim, knick knacks, and old books.

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Redemption!

The next day, I decided that the granny stripe afghan I had high hopes for was a bust also, so I took it apart, gave away the yarn I didn’t like, and started on something new. So far, I’m in love!

I’ll spare telling you how many schemes and projects I have let go of over the past few months. All I know is, I feel tons better. There are so many things I actually need to be doing, and my projects were holding me back!

From things like this…

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Dog walkies.

This has been calling to me for a long time! Fresh air and exercise. Of course I pick a time of year when the weather is getting rough, but oh well.

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A photo of my son in Myanmar last month. I stole it from his IG. I just love it!

The most important thing I need to focus on right now are my relationships! I am lucky to say that I have a lot of wonderful people in my life, and I need to put them at the top of my priority list, not just make room for them in my schedule!

I well and truly wish I could do it all, but I’m just not built that way. I will continue to scale down until I can do all that I need to be doing!

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Art journaling is still on the top of my “must do” list, but I’m spending more time ‘journaling’ than ‘arting’ as you can see. Lately, I have been finding that I really need to organize my thoughts through journaling. This is also a great way to use up old stickers. The washi tape helps keep my writing straight, such a struggle.

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So, I hope you’ll join me on my journey of scaling down, letting go, and simplifying my life. I can’t wait to share on this blog many of the things I did on my old one like gardening, cooking, makings, and what ever else I’m up to at the time. I will still share my art journals of course, I just think it’s time to share more of my life with you. Hope that sounds good!

Have a beautiful day!

Thanks for stopping in,

~Patty