Family Time

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

Finishing Up My April-May Memory Journal

~ Patty Radish ~ 4 Comments

This was a last minute idea I had before hubby and I took a trip to the “westside” to visit family for a few days. I made a journal and gathered a few supplies hoping I would have time in the evenings to work on it. Most of what I did on the trip was gather and organize memories, then finished it up at home, which worked out perfectly.

This journal spans from about a month and a half, and because it became so thick and full it was difficult to choose which page spreads to share, but here are some favorites…

One of the first things I had to do was go to Daiso, one of my favorite stores. The tags on the left are from some little mesh bags I found, I never seem to have enough of them. Above them is a little art sticker from a local artist I picked up at Pike Place Market, and on the right a cute business card from a day at an arts and crafts fair. It’s tucked not glued so I can reference it later.

These are all from different days of our trip. Decorating these pages in chronological order was making this too much of a chore, so I decided to mix things up and just have fun with color and decor.

A pocket for my journaling page. That blue napkin on the right is from the Mother’s Day dinner at our son’s in-law’s house. What an awesome way to spend the day, chatting with my friend in-law while her husband cooked us dinner!

I tried to stick with what I had packed for the trip to work with even when we got home. I find that I am more likely to finish up projects when I limit my supplies. I can really go off the rails if I have too many options.

I printed up a few photos of flowers I had taken during a walk when my daughter and grandson were visiting. I print them up on copy paper, that way they don’t bulk up my journals and they make perfect backgrounds.

I made a tuck spot out of one of my “stash busting” clusters. That little art piece is from a little set I got at Daiso. A super quick page spread!

A little stacked cluster with some mini envelopes from Daiso to hold some of the business cards I collected on our trip. I didn’t want to lose the info on them, so this was a perfect fix. I got two of the business cards there on the right so I could use one of them as decor.

Also, you may notice that I’m inking the edges of just about everything lately. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but I’m having a lot of fun with it.

A card from a friend I received in April. I used some of the decor from the envelope to decorate its new little home. And just a cluster with some fussy cut flowers on the right. As you can see, I’m having a lot of fun with color by not sticking strictly to any order. Just get things in the journal!

Using the envelope from one of my birthday cards to hold some journaling. The card was too thick, and cute, to put in this journal, so I’ll be framing it instead. On the right is a collage of some memories of our trip to Pike Place Market. Kell’s is our favorite Seattle pub, such a fun day!

At the end of the month I remembered about 20 things I forgot to journal about, so I just made a list and printed it out. I use these journals to document things I might want to include in our photo albums later, so I try to add as many memories as I can…

…which is why this one got a new “journal girdle”!

As always,

Thank you for the visit,

Have a great week,

~Patty

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