Thrifty Book Finds

I had the best luck the other day! On a whim, I stopped into a thrift shop by my mother’s place and found the sweetest books at the best price I could have imagined!

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50 cents each! That one in the front is from 1907! It doesn’t have any colored illustrations, but I just love it!

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Here are a couple of pages from two of these books. These books are so old they are slightly falling apart, so they may have to sit on a shelf for a while until I figure out how I’m going use them.

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Three more. How cute are those! And the illustrations are just gorgeous!

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Lastly, these two. I would love to have a collection of vintage “The Christmas Carol” books! I have another one, but took it apart to make a journal out of  and have regretted it ever since. (In my defense, at least I read the book before I took it apart)

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So, let’s drink a toast to Uncle Scrooge and finding a treasure trove of great vintage books!

Thank you once again for the visit,

Have a wonderful day,

~Patty

The Challenge of a Painted Page

The painted pages in my journals have always been a bit of a challenge. Working with all the color, the empty space, but not wanting to cover up the good bits, then there’s the sheer size of the pages in this journal..

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I thought these daisy postage stamps echoed the background quite well and pulled some color into the circle. She looks like she’s balancing a huge ball on her shouldes, she’s certainly dressed for it!

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This is a riot of color, but I have been waiting for the perfect place to use that ’60’s desert image for a long time, it almost blends into the background. I echoed the houndstooth of her jacket with houndstooth paper punch outs. I pulled all the main colors into the bottom righthand corner by using that scrapbook piece like a mini journal page, a nice way to use smaller pieces with out cluttering up the rest of the page.

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As you can tell, I have relied heavily on black and white. I played around with tans and browns, but they muted the colors too much, the black and white seems to anchor the colors. The idea behind the placement of that flower was to pull those two images together and repeat the flowers in the background.

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I have been looking for the perfect home for this postage stamp for months! I pick it up to use every time I work on a project, I love it here! This black and white paper from an issue of Flow magazine is amazing! It has a mid century vibe to it, I use it a lot!

My large journal is coming along quite nicely, it has definitely been an awesome place to use larger ephemera pieces in, yet still leaving room for journaling.

I’m hoping to have some large ephemera packs in my shoppe by the end of the week, so look out for those.

Until then,

Thank for stopping by,

Have a great day,

~Patty

Shoppe Newness and a 20% off Coupon!

This month is the 4th anniversary of opening my shoppe! Although, in the first two years I went through many incarnations, the last two have been the best!

So to celebrate, I am offering 20% off your entire purchase with the coupon code RBANNIV20!

And now for the newness..

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Flower Clips! I have been using these in my journals and planners for a few months now, and I finally made some for my shoppe!

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Just the right touch for Halloween decor for your planners and journals!

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Finished off in the back with a button. Adding the yarn is a bit time consuming, but I just really don’t like naked buttons!

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They seemed to lack something, so I added a rhinestone to the middle.

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Packaging has become one of my favorite touches, another excuse to play with paper I imagine.

So, there you have it! Something new for the the shoppe!

I hope you will stop by and take a look around!

Until next time,

Have a great weekend,

Thanks for your time,

~Patty

Time To Streamline My Planner Decor

Once a month I take some time out to decorate the Mission Board in my InkwellPressPanner. It is a bit time consuming, so I tend to put it off till last minute. I feel like such a slacker if I don’t get it done, and sometimes it shows…

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…case in point!

Looks to me as if I just wanted to get the page done! Not a lot of composition there!

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That’s better! Less is more!

This is a lot of work for a page I rarely refer to, and when I look at this, all I see is ephemera I would like to have used in my journals.

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I guess I can remove some of this and reuse it, and I probably will.

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We should always try new things, but we should also be willing to let go of some things when we loose our enthusiasm.

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I’ll miss this project I imagine, but thinking about getting some extra time for the things I really love doing makes me smile!

I will be switching over to just having a week-on-2-pages in my binders to streamline my planning a bit. I’m on the look-out for digital print-ables that will suit my needs. Of course I will continue decorating my week-on-2-pages, I see those everyday!  I’ll share as soon as I find something.

Until then,

Thank you for visiting,

Have a great day,

Patty

October #listersgottalist Challenge

A new month, and time for another round of lists, and only one this time! I was pretty listed out last month as you can well imagine, but I’m looking forward to participating this month, the list prompts are fab!

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One of the things I’m super excited about is using up some Halloween ephemera that has been poking around in my studio for longer than I can admit! Some of it is super cute, the vintage pieces are from some paper I bought several years ago.

And some of it is pretty dang awesome! That background picture of the house for instance, is a piece from Somerset Studios magazine I bought maybe 8 or 9 years ago. Part of their “Art to Borrow” that they include with every issue, I tend to hoard it.

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Day 1. I’ve been able to use some of my vintage ephemera here and there, I’m trying to mix it up a bit. I absolutely love my new leaf punch by Fiskars! I think there may be a leaf on every page of this journal before it’s over!

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Day 2. I keep my beverages pretty consistent, but I do try something new once in a while. Pumpkin ale has hit the list of goodness for the season!

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Day 3. The only scary thing about this page is the idea of eating legumes from the 1970’s! But those jars are super special!

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I absolutely love the gorgeous girl sitting on Scary Pumpkin’s lap! Where is he looking?! The cad!

I have to say that it was a unfortunate decision to delete photos from my media library over the last few months. I had no idea that it would erase them from my blog posts. So, because I had also deleted my #listergottalist photos from my computer, they were actually the only posts I couldn’t save! It was just going to be too time consuming to take the photos all over again! Ooops!

Lesson learned!

I thought about taking a break from listing, but then found I missed it too much to walk away. It has become a different way to journal for me, and I need someone outside my world to help me think about my life in new ways. I hope Cori at The Reset Girl keeps doing this for a long time!

Once again,

Thank you so much for the visit,

Enjoy your day,

~Patty