Holiday Journals

Holiday Journal: Journaling Pages

~ Patty Radish ~ 4 Comments

The last installment of the Holiday Journals series, Yay!

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to move on.

I used my journaling pages for memory keeping and devotional tracking. The library cards tracked the date and scripture I read that day, and the tags are for memory keeping. Between social distancing and the weather, we didn’t get up to much, but there were a few things worth noting.

I had so much fun making these pages and decorating my tags that I’ve decided I want an entire journal of tags and pockets. Coming to your local blog soon! (The ugly sweater tag was a gift from a sweet friend=memory)

A selection of the tags from this journal. I loved having painted backgrounds with an addition of tissue paper or clear sticker paper, and then playing with the tags and pockets.

And now it’s 2022! Well at least in my journal.

Like I said, I’m really chuffed with these pockets. So much so that I went thrifting with my daughter and picked up as many “Discarded” library books as I could find, just for the pockets…so much fun!

Well, I hope you enjoyed this series as much as I did, but I’m ready for something new! How about you?

There’s so much inspiration out there, but so little time!

As always,

Thank you for stopping by,

Have a great week,

~Patty

Holiday Journal: Organizing

~ Patty Radish ~ 4 Comments

I changed the name of my journal to reflect the way I’m actually using it, mostly for art making and a little bit of journaling. My Advent journaling migrated over to my faith journal.

That being said, because of all the Christmas season commitments, I have fallen way behind on this journal. So in an effort to catch up, I had to pull apart the box I keep all my favorite Christmas journal ephemera in, and organize it all into small bins.

I organized my bins in order of size and use, meaning what I will start building my page up with first: backgrounds, tissue paper, paper pieces, doilies and larger images.

What I like to call the medium pieces, the most used to build up the page: smaller images, stickers, die cuts, memory keeping ephemera.

The smaller finishing pieces: postage stamps, labels, dates, word strips, small what-not.

Now when I try to blast through some pages, I just grab the right stack of bins and go to town! I may even try to get several page’s backgrounds done in one sitting, then go back and decorate. I hope this doesn’t sound too uncreative, but I like a challenge and throwing things onto a page with high hopes works for me.

Working with some of the things I’ve been holding onto for years is really a big part of my process right now. It’s really about getting some of this stuff onto the page!

So if I’ve kept it, I need to use it!

Well, I hope that this was a helpful post. Try this if your having a hard time getting a project finished, it might help. I’ve had to do this many times in the past. I tend to get overly inspired and have too many open projects that need tying up

I’ll be working on the memory keeping part of this journal in the next few days, so hopefully I’ll have another blog post up this week.

As always, Thank you for the visit,

Have a wonderful week,

~Patty

Advent Art Journal: Backgrounds

~ Patty Radish ~ Leave a comment

This week I’m going to share a little about how I create some of my background pages. Usually I mix in some book pages and scrapbook pages when I make my journals, but I had a lot of painted backgrounds I needed to use up…and still do.

On the righthand side of this page page spread there wasn’t very much paint, so I was able to use a book page I’ve been holding on to for quite a long time. I love Christmas city scenes!

When I’m tea or coffee dying I’ll let them dry on large sheets of paper, you can see at the upper right where I dyed a paper doily. On this one I scraped on some paint, scribbled with gelatos, then squirted it with water.

Here are a few things I work with when create a background page: acrylic craft paint, gelatos (I’m trying to use them up before they dry out), and a water bottle for drippy bits. I’ll use 9″x12″ mixed media or 18″x24 drawing paper, or whatever is available or on sale. I think I prefer 70 pound paper, I find once you’ve filled it with paint it becomes strong enough to take any mixed media you want to use on it.

Once I’ve painted to my hearts content (or until I’m tired of cleaning up), I’ll add some neutral accents with small jars, rubber stamps, bubble wrap, stencils, and lines with my mom’s old pie crimper. (Funny, I don’t remember any pies growing up, she more than likely used the bottle opener. That’s my Mom!)

The other day I was thinking that some of the backgrounds looks like the Northern Lights

You can see how some of the elements seem to melt into the page and the neutral images calm the color a bit. I specifically chose a lot of muted ephemera pieces for this project because some of the backgrounds were so vibrant.

The more I work in this journal, the more things I find I want to share, I’m making a list.

Hopefully things won’t get too busy to keep up with this season, I seem to keep finding more creative things to do! Lots of fun, but a bit tiring.

If I missed something and you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the comments.

As always,

Thank you so much for stooping by,

Talk to you soon,

~Patty

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

2017 Holiday Journal

~ Patty Radish ~ Leave a comment

Well, it’s that time of year again! Time to start documenting the Holiday season. There seems to be something more special about every year that I want to record, our family is growing, and there is so much to be thankful for right now!

This journal sat in my shoppe for two years, it needed some love. So, I took it apart and added lots of fun, kitschy pages, along with some fall themed because I start these journals on Thanksgiving and work on them until the new year.

The first page spread is a pocket pages and a vintage book page I fell in love with. I spent this day getting the house ready for guests, and this homey scene captured the mood perfectly.

This little Dennison envelope had been bouncing around for a few years and I wanted to give it a home before it fell apart. It reminds me of those little “shakers” people are adding to their pages and happy mail.

Because I don’t always have room on my pages to journal, I decorated an envelope to keep some journaling paper in. Once in a while I’ll pour extra coffee onto a cookie sheet and dye vintage paper to have on hand. (maybe I should add these to my shoppe journals soon!?)

This year, I’m going to have my date stamp on hand! I put together a little tote from Hobby Lobby to keep all my supplies organized, I’m still driving over the pass to the east side once in a while and don’t want to forget things, but I’ll share more about that on another day.

The day after Thanksgiving we had a full house! Kids, dogs, new friends, and hopefully, new family!

My soon-to-be weekend page.

Of course, not everyday is a smash up success, I have crappy days like everyone else, but these journals give me a chance to reflect on the wonderful things that I want to be grateful for, especially with all the blessings I have in my life right now. I sometimes wonder if I would even notice my blessings if I didn’t have a place to document them.

And I have to say that You, my readers, are one of my many blessings!

Until next time,

Thank you for stopping by,

Have a great week,

~Patty