Happy Mail

Happy Mail Winnings!

~ Patty Radish ~ 4 Comments

Last month one of my favorite artist on Instagram, artandwhimsey, hosted a giveaway. Long story short, I WON!

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Seriously, are you jealous yet!?

I could have done 6 pages with all this gorgeousness, and that’s still an option!

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A few close-ups in case your not drooling yet!

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This is the page I came up with. I have decided it’s time to step it up a bit with my pages, so I added some stenciling and doodling.

Belen made that tag on the right, I punched it with my Bind-it-all , clipped the edge, and popped into my journal! Love!IMG_0807

Doodling and I are not fast friends, but an attempt has been made, and I’m ready to take it on!

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An embellished tag with one of the super cute velum, handmade stickers and hand dyed ribbons Belen sent.

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So, there you have it!

If you would like to see some more of Belen’s beautiful work, head over to her IG account, or pop over to her blog: Art and Whimsey!

Once again, thank you so much for visiting my little blog, your visits are always appreciated!

Have a great week,

~Patty

Dori Making, Faith Journaling, and Expectations

~ Patty Radish ~ 2 Comments

In the midst of getting ready to drive over the mountains to spend Easter with my daughter, I decided I needed to take on learning how to make a “Fabric Dori”, to keep my faith journaling inserts in. You see, I had ordered some Illustrated Faith inserts a couple of weeks ago, was expecting them any day, and I wanted to be ready!

Well, it may sound strange hearing this from me, but I have been questioning the amount of time I spend on my creative pursuits. Thinking about them, planning them, buying supplies, then talking about them on social media. You can imagine how patient my husband must be! But he fishes, a lot, so let’s not go there…

IMG_2583Anyway, the inserts of course arrived when I was gone, but I had printed up some freebie downloads, and glued them in an insert I already had. That was all I really needed.

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When I got home, there was a gorgeous pile of Happy Mail waiting for me! So, I set to filling this Dori with Faith Journaling goodies!

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The insert on the right is a plain kraft paper one I’m going to use to art journal in. The one on the left is an Illustrated Faith insert from the “Beautiful” devotional kit.

Now to the expectations…

or lack there of…

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The first page in my I.F, “Created to Create” insert. When I read through it the first time, I didn’t know what to say. You see, I’ve been referred to as an artist in the past, I just don’t see myself as one. Maybe I have a different idea of what an artist is. All I know is, I feel a lot more comfortable with the label “Creative”, so let’s stick with that.

The most wonderful thing I realized after working on this page spread is that I don’t have to feel guilty about the amount of time I spend creating! My creativity runs throughout my life, my cooking, decorating, gardening. In a nut shell, I live a creative life! It truly is a gift from God!

So, no more guilt! (I hope!)

Thank you once again for stopping by,

Have a great day,

~Patty

Thrifty Thursday Happy Mail Organization

~ Patty Radish ~ 4 Comments

Yep, I decided to bag “Throwback Thursday” and replace it with “Thrifty Thursday”. If I’m going to share about a bunch of old crap, I’d rather it was once somebody else’s old crap!

That being said, let’s move along…

IMG_2263At the beginning of March, I shared about some of my thrifted finds, and said I’d get back to you on this sweet, little overnight case.

IMG_2265When I first bought it, I had no idea what I was going to use it for, but I just had to have it. I didn’t take long to come up with a plan…

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…my new Happy Mail Organization case! Yay!

Up until now, all my happy mail was thrown into a box with no rhyme or reason. I love to use the ephemera that people send to me in my journals, and I like to keep track of who sent what, so organizing was a must!

Isn’t that rectangular case perfect for stamps?  I’ve been tearing stamps off letters as long as I can remember. There’s quite a few years worth in there!

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So, I went through my box of happy mail and gathered up all of the envelopes, put the pieces into these large plastic envelopes, and labeled them. There is a pocket on the backs of these envelopes for any larger pieces that don’t fit inside, perfect!

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Speaking of Happy Mail, here is the latest from my dear friend Iryna.

Some beautiful post cards.

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Stamps, journaling pieces, and educational floral cards.

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Bird cards, stickers, and hand written phrases.

Thank you Iryna!

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This is the page I put together from the ephemera in Iryna’s letter. There was even some gorgeous bird tape and stamps on the envelope that I carefully removed and used! My only addition was some colorful washi tape to pull the colors together.

I love the message on this page, “Time to Fly!”.

And so it is!

Thank you so much for the visit,

Have a great rest of your week,

~Patty

Vintage Supply Findings

~ Patty Radish ~ 7 Comments

This is what happens when you wait too long to share, it piles up! It’s been two months, to the day, since I last wrote about my vintage findings. And it seems I’ve been very busy!

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These are a few things I picked up while spending the day with one of my best friends. Milk caps and vintage Japanese postcards. I’m not sure what I will do with those postcards, I may have to come up with some kind of postcard album, just so I can look at them once in a while instead of poking them into a drawer.

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Dennison goodies from Ebay. I have since found a much less expensive alternative, I’ll share that in a bit.

Those Thanksgiving seals will be fun for journal decorating around the holidays, I have no explanation for the music dictionary.

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Books that have seen better days. There’s an antique mall in the next town that has loads of books that are in pretty bad shape, but for a decent price. I just love the covers on these, I don’t care if they’re falling apart, I think it adds to their character!

I have to say, I love taking something that other people might look at as hopeless and making something useful out of them!

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French Prayer cards from “French Vintage 4 You” on Etsy. Her shop is in France, but the shipping was very reasonable. This is just a portion of what I received, I just love them!

She has lots of great antiques and ephemera too, go check her out!

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Some super cute ephemera from “Feed the Birdies” on Etsy. Her shop is filled with so much cute, vintage ephemera, it was hard to choose. I love that she sent a report card from Moses Lake, WA. That’s where my daughter lives, how cool is that!

I’m considering writing my name at the top of these, I couldn’t bring home a report card like these in my wildest dreams!

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A treasure trove from “Saturday Morning Vintage“. I ordered this ephemera pack along with some Dennison labels. I had the hardest time getting all this into the photo, there was so much of it!

I have to admit, I didn’t pay very much attention to the shop photo when I purchased this because I was in such a hurry, so what a great surprise it was when I went through it and found so many awesome little goodies! There isn’t one thing I’m not in love with here! Swoon!

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Here are the Dennison labels from her shop. The rest of that, at the right, is the gratis pack she included with my order! Again, I love every bit of it. (I hope you can sense my excitement over all this!)

I don’t know where she finds all this awesomeness, the lucky duck, but you have to go check out her shop, its fantastic!

Well, thats it for now. I hope you will go check out the shops I mentioned.

Till next time,

Thank you for stopping in,

Have a great day,

~Patty

My New Happy Mail Journal

~ Patty Radish ~ 4 Comments

Sometimes I feel as if I need an art journal for everything I do! Well, at least everything I want to remember or keepsake.

Over the last year or so, as I received more and more happy mail, in the form of envelopes stuffed with ephemera goodness, it became increasingly apparent I needed some organization. So, as I shuffled my treasures from basket to box to larger box, I began feeling a bit like a hoarder! Also, I realized that these were gifted  to me to use and have fun with, and that they have a very special meaning to me. The only idea I could come up with was to use them in my mail art, but that would mean sending them off. So, when I had my Aha! moment the other day to use them in a mail art journal, I couldn’t wait to get started. As you will see…

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…you may remember this photo from the other day. I chose the one with the owl on it to start.

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This is the first page I did. I worked on it later that day. Being Valentine’s Day, I ran with it. It’s a bit on the busy side, but I was a little excited!

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There were a few pages done in this journal, so I just restructured them a bit, added my gifted ephemera, and ink stamped here and there.

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This journal is filled with lots of wonderful illustrations and images that I would prefer not to cover, so there’s the occasional scrapbook paper work around.

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Another page re-do. I’m getting a “retro vacay” feeling from this one. Although, I rarely dress to the nines anymore, let alone on vacation!

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I had put together some pages with places to journal on. This page has enough to say, so I just decorated over it.

Again, I rarely dress to the nines when cleaning my bathroom anymore!

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One of my favorite pages right now! This is an envelope I received from my dear friend Iryna quite a while ago. It is perfect for storing handwritten letters in, it has kind of a vacation travel feel to it that I love! (Hmmm…that vacation word again!)

Last year, I had put together some small binders to keep my artist post cards and some of my gifted ephemera in, I can’t tell you how much I love having a permanent place for my letters too!

I hope to write about my happy mail ephemera organization sometime soon. I’m afraid it’s not too terribly exciting, but you may find it useful.

Till then,

Thanks for the visit,

Have a great week,

~Patty