Family Time

Hello-o-o-o…

~ Patty Radish ~ 14 Comments

Well, that was weird! It seems that taking a break was a good thing, but now I have some “Splaining to do Lucy!”

Hmmm…where do I start?

First a huge THANK YOU for all the beautiful comments when I said my sad farewell! THANK YOU!!!

Now to explain:

Simply put, things were just a little too crazy when I made that decision, family stuff you know. I had recently gone through some family stuff and tried to keep this all together, and it wasn’t fun. Next time I’ll just take a break.

 I do want to apologize though, I hate being wishy washy, but I’m over the stress hump now, and I’ve realized how large a hole was in my life without all this!

Now to the fun stuff…

I’ve been staying busy in the garden, but have managed to put a little time aside for art journaling. I pulled this one out of the shop because I loves him! So Cute!

I’ve been playing around with some “Back 2 School” ephemera I put together (there are some ephemera packs in my shoppe). So, I thought I would share something I worked on this morning.

A process post, Yay!

Because most people don’t have a Zutter binding machine, and I suck at lining things like this up, I used a regular old hole punch and a pair of scissors to pop this card into my journal. You just punch the holes accordingly, then snip along the edge, and pop it into your journal.

As you can see I prepared it with a few swipes of gesso.

Next, I added some color. I’m keeping the other side of this card intact, I love the retro look of it.

I added a white doily as a background. One thing I like to do is hit the edges with sand paper while it’s still a little damp, it helps seal the edge so that it doesn’t pull up or peal.

Here’s the finished page. I used a #8B pencil to go around the edges of the images.

So, there you have it. That wasn’t too difficult…in other words…next time, just a break!!!

I’m having a few technical difficulties with my blog right now, I’m in the process of working them out. So, I would really appreciate it if I got a few comments letting me know that this actually got to a reader or two.

So PLEASE give me a shout if this makes it to your door!!!

Once again,

Thank you for the visit,

Much Love,

~Patty

(p.s. I’ve filled my shoppe with lots of newness if you want to check it out. Get 20% off your entire purchase with the coupon code CUSTOMERLOVE20 at checkout)

 

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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

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

Just Checkin’ In

~ Patty Radish ~ Leave a comment

Well, it has been little over a month since I last blogged, it seems like longer! I didn’t announce a break because I didn’t plan one, it just happened.

 I thought I would pop in quickly and let you know I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, or less dramatically, stopped blogging.

With all the whirlwind visits and obligations since the beginning of the year, I just kept falling farther and farther behind on just about everything in my life. So, I decided to drop a few obligations and play catch up…

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I’m slowly getting my house in order.

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The “Great Weeding Project” is well under way.

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I’m in the process of reworking another “List Journal”, a summer theme for this one.

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I have managed to fill my shoppe up a little.

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And, I try to start my day with some faith journaling.

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I have even managed to get a long awaited project off the launching pad, Project Life. This is a digital version, but I have also taken 35 years of photos out of very old photo albums, organized them chronologically, and started putting them into Project Life albums, Yay! I’ll be sharing more on this soon.

This is my life in a nut shell. It has been a mad scramble trying to get everything done, but well worth it!

I’ve decided that writing on this blog once a week will work for me much better than three times a week, at least for a while just to free up some much needed time.

Thank you for stopping by,

See you in about a week,

Patty

Auntie Patty’s Craft Camp

~ Patty Radish ~ 2 Comments

This is year two that my niece has flown up from San Francisco to stay with me for her Spring break. She’s 11 years old and loves to craft, so it’s a treat for both off us to have this time together!

We have been busy with one thing or a another for almost two weeks now, and we thought we would share some of it with you.

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 I told her I had some fabric pens she could keep, and this is the project she came up with. Personally, I’m amazed! We printed this “Tribal Heart” off the inter-webs, then she traced these from a black and white copy. Brilliant!

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Apparently Shrinky Dinks are big in her world. A circle punch, a 1/4 inch hole punch, colorful Sharpies, Shrinky Dink sheets, jump rings, earring hooks, and you have fashion!

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Today is her mother’s birthday, so a card is a must! Even the envelope is super cute! Love!

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We watched a video on watercoloring and this is what she came up with. I love that neckless, and that quote…she amazes me! Seriuously, I couldn’t write that with a pen let alone with a paint brush!

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This is the art journal we made together last year. She wanted to work on it while she was here. I love it!

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Last, but certainly not least, I made her this Fabric Dori with a couple of inserts. This is her first page spread in it. So sweet!

These past two weeks have been a whirl wind of trips, crafting, a movie, a picnic on the beach, and family time! We need a vacay!

Hope you enjoyed our trip!

Thank you for stopping by,

Have a great weekend,

~Patty