Collage Journaling

It Looks Like I Found Some Words

~ Patty Radish ~ 9 Comments

Over the years I have gone back and forth about sharing. Maybe it’s life that gets in the way, or it could be me getting in the way. At any rate, it occurred to me over the last day or two that ‘creating things to share’ is very different from ‘sharing things I create’, which is where I may have gone wrong and created way too much stress and anxiety. This goes double for making videos.

Asking the right questions.

I don’t know about you, but when I search on YouTube for videos, I want to see how people decorate their pages, not just more tucks and pockets to bulk them up. Or it seems as if everyone wants to either make ‘projects’ to sit on a shelf or sell their journals. I thought I could fill this gap, but the enjoyment of creating can go right out of the window when you’re filming the process, but that isn’t quite what made me reevaluate ‘the why’.

How do you feel about this? I can’t believe I have never asked this question, but what kind of content do you look for?

Then the strangest thing happened.

Right about when I was going to dive into YouTube full on, a bunch of people I follow went dark, for issues ranging from health to burn out. I found myself waiting daily for my favorite creators to show up, and it made me a bit frustrated because it was the bulk of them, but it also made me think, ” At this stage in the game do I need all the hassles of creating content?”. Especially when I have zero intention of monetizing my channel, or Instagram, or this blog…uh no! I feel as if the people I follow struggle with this issue just as much as I do, but they are locked in because it’s how they pay their bills.

For the Love of it.

Now, I have a lot of sh…stuff on hand I need to use up, so I gathered all of the crappity crap I have been holding on to for the last decade or so and organized it into little bags and containers. I didn’t flinch, I stayed with it and worked with these bits and pieces until they were all gone, and this journal is the result. I was so happy with the way it came out I decided I had to share it with you. Believe it or not, it was finished 2 weeks ago, I was having that much fun!

A bit of a hot mess.

I would love to tell you that this journal wasn’t a struggle, just look at some of the things I was working with, it was! But now it’s filled with memories of Happy Mailings, thrifted finds, shoppe leftovers, and even a piece of backdrop paper from too many years ago to remember. There will be even more memories tucked into the pockets and envelopes in the form of my daily journaling printouts.

Looking forward.

Like I said, this journal is finished and I hope to create the time to share the rest of it with you over the Holiday Season. Truth be told I have also made an Advent journal filled with ‘self care’ prompts, it just needs some finishing touches before I can share it.

In closing.

All your wonderful comments and encouragement in my last post warmed my heart more than I can ever tell you! Right now I can’t say where I’m headed with sharing on social media, because I have hit burnout too many times before. If you are here right now, Thank You for your patience. Many of you commented that you would be here if and when I decided to come back, I never would have imagined it would be this soon, but here we are.

So with that being said…

As always,

Thank you for the visit,

Have a great week,

~Patty

July’s Journal: Beach Themed

~ Patty Radish ~ 11 Comments

Last time I was on here I was on my trip to North Dakota. I’ve been back for a while, but decided to take a break from posting and do a little research. I became obsessed with watching junk journaling videos, and I’m glad I did! SO much inspiration out there!

But, in the meantime I neglected to share my ‘Beach’ themed journal, so here’s a bit of it.

Still loving the vintage vibe.

I have a box I throw anything ‘seaside’ into in case I get inspired. You probably won’t be surprised to know I have several ‘themed’ boxes I throw things into when I find them. Do you do that too? I’d love to know I’m not alone here!

Well, somebody went to Hawaii!

As I said in my last post, my daughter and grandson went to Hawaii, so I have lots of photos of them in this journal. I love the mix of decor, memories, and journaling. I thought about doing away with my “Monthly” journals, but it’s working for now, and it’s keeping me creative.

My grandson at a luau.

Also, it’s nice to use up ephemera I have been holding onto (hoarding) for years. Mixing with digitals gives them new life. If you have inquiries about any of these digitals I can send you the links, just ask.

Two of my favorite faces.

Summer feels over where I live. As I write this I can smell wood fires burning (in chimneys to be clear), there is definitely a chill in the air. And I’m drinking coffee with pumpkin spice creamer, that makes it official!…right!

I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to cooler days and Fall feels. We have a granddaughter on the way, due in October, so Fall is going to be pretty exciting. Let me know how you feel about Fall being around the corner in the comments, I’d love to hear from you.

Until next time,

Thank you for the visit,

Have a great week,

~Patty

Garden Inspired Journaling Pages

~ Patty Radish ~ Leave a comment

Hi Friends, I’m back!

I took a short break to focus on organizing our home, a little family time, and some much needed time in nature. There’s always so much to do, it’s difficult to fit it all into one day…and before you know it a month has gone by. Oops!

A cookbook divider with a handwritten recipe.

But, I’m happy to say that I’ve at least set some time aside to be creative. I still have quite a few of these ring bound journals sitting on a shelf, and I thought it would be fun to dust a couple of them off and see what inspires me.

A photo at a garden center I took years ago.

At the end of the month we will be getting new siding and windows on our 60+ year old house, so I’m not doing anything in the garden this year. It feels strange not to be obsessing over a garden, but I can enjoy a bit of gardening in my journals…and enjoy a break!

Saving a page disaster.

This has been the year of the Dragonfly in our area and I wanted to include them in some of my journal spreads. So I looked for a cool digital on Etsy and found some really cute ones. Here’s the link if you’re interested: Store4Fun This page has been sitting unfinished with those paint scrapes for years, it’s amazing what a few paper scraps and paint dots can do.

Muted tones with black paint rings.

Anyway, I hope you are enjoying your summer. I know it’s pretty hot here in the Northern Hemisphere right now. It’s going to get up to 109 F. here in a couple of days, but I’ll be in North Dakota for two weeks getting a break from it. I made a special journal for my trip with lots of trees, wild flowers, birds, bugs, and a few fairies for fun. I may actually share some pages while I’m on my trip, I’ll see how things go.

Until next time,

Thank you for the visit,

Stay cool,

~Patty

Checking In

~ Patty Radish ~ 4 Comments

Hey Friends, just a quick post to let you know I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth.

I have been keeping busy organizing and using up several years worth of ephemera.

I usually just organize then loose interest, but this time I am actually putting it to use.

…and I have almost filled up a journal at this point!

Let me know in the comments how you are doing and what you’re up to.

As always,

Thank you for the visit,

Have a great week,

~Patty

Playing With Painted Pages

~ Patty Radish ~ 6 Comments

This is one of those things that I wish I would have thought of a lot sooner! In my last blog post I shared about getting a lot of inspiration from YouTube and Etsy digitals. Well, last week I put “Bright Digitals” into my Etsy search and found a shop that sold some beautiful digital copies of her art. Bingo, into the cart!

Then, while running errands the other day (I get my best ideas while driving), it occurred to me that I might be able to do the same thing with some of my painted pages.

Before.

These are some of the backgrounds that I had painted for pages in my art journals. I had muted down the color a bit with tinted watered down gesso because they were super bright.

But I wanted “Super Bright” pages to work with in my art journals. Hmmmm…

After!

I scanned them into my computer as a .jpeg so my photo editing app would accept them, and turned up the dials. There were so many options on how to manipulate the color, I was in heaven!

Now, I know that these are a little blurry from all the playing around I did on my computer, but this is just a start. Besides, these are to tear up or use as backgrounds so no worries. Also, I have quite a few more painted background pages to work with that I can paint over, stencil, and do all kinds of colorful decorating on before scanning.

Where it stared.

That little pink paper scrap in the background is from a page I painted a while back. I loved how it came out by combining it with digitals and a few of my own “art scraps”, but I was using up a favorite painted page! Now, I’m all about downsizing and using things up, but if you scan it before using it up, then it’s no longer taking up space, and you know where to find it. Which is a game changer in my world, you have no idea how much time I spend looking for things…but that’s another story.

Matching up colors.

I’m in spring mode right now, so I wanted to use a more muted art paper in the background, all I had to do is tone the color down a bit before printing. If there is a particular image or focal point that you want to match, it’s easy to just play around with the color a bit to match them up.

I have so many of ideas I’m playing with right now and I will share more of them here soon. I hope you will try this out. Please let me know in the comments.

Until next time,

Thank you stopping by,

Have a great week,

~Patty