Junk Journaling

Junk Journal January: I Quit!

~ Patty Radish ~ 8 Comments

This probably seems a bit strange to quit when I’m almost at the end of this challenge, Day 26, but I need to move on. I did a page spread a day during the Holidays, even when I was under the weather, so I have been ‘at it’ for two months now and I need to get other things done. I’m going to try to finish up this journal using the prompts, but not every day. There are five left.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had nothing but fun doing this challenge, I just hit a bit of a slump creatively (at least for this project) and want to work on something else. But since I have finished four more pages, I thought I would share them with you.

Day 23: “Texture”

A scrunched up doily, a paper cluster, some layered paper pieces painted with gesso, a bird holding some dried weeds, and some dollops of pink paint. This page spread brings to mind a bit of the reason why working in this journal has become a bit daunting…it’s massive! I realize I am the one who decided to add all the layers, but I think next time I do one of these challenges, I’ll make two journals.

Day 24: “Fabric”

In my attempt to cut down on pages in this journal, and to help keep it closed, I made this quilted cover. These are so easy, and so much fun, to make. Although I used an old quilt for this one, these are just as easy to make with two pieces of fabric and some batting…and a little decor. I want to make a video of how I create these. Let me know in the comments if you would like me to share the instructions here too, I could do both then share a link to the video.

Day 25: “Ombre”

This one had me thinking. I looked up ‘ombre’ online to get some inspiration, but it was mostly hair styles. I had been experimenting with watercolor on tissue a few months ago, so this background piece was ready to go. I looked around my stash for ephemera that might match the colors as they graduated across the pages, and this is what I came up with. I still think it looks a bit of a mess, but it was fun to try.

Day 26: “Translucent”

This is one of my favorite pages. I kind hit the ‘easy button’ with this one, stickers and envelopes, but I love the mix of neutrals and color. I needed a couple more tuck spots for my journaling pages, although I’m not sure I want to fill that pocket on the right, I like seeing all the layers.

The biggest reason I have decided to take a break from art journaling every day is because I am working on some new ephemera packs for my shoppe. I’ve had a lot of success with my “curated” ephemera packs. In case you haven’t been to my shoppe in a while, my curated packs are filled with bits of ephemera I create, not just images cut from books and gathered with other ‘made’ items. They are pretty popular and don’t stay in my shoppe for long. I will also be selling journals that are stitched and not ring bound pretty soon, I might even try putting some of my hand stitched covers in there. This has become one of my favorite creative projects, and when it comes to creativity, you have to go with what ever makes your heart sing…so I am!

It has been fun having an excuse to come on here more often and catch up with you and I hope I can keep that up with other projects. I will share the last pages of this journal as soon as I get them finished.

Until Then,

As always,

Thank you for the visit,

Have a great week,

~Patty

Junk Journal January: Week 2

~ Patty Radish ~ 8 Comments

Some of the prompts at this point started to throw me. If you’re following me along on Instagram, I’m all over the place. Jumping from ‘catching up’ to the present and back again. As a matter of fact, I wanted to write this blog post last week, but “Garden” wasn’t even started…that’s ‘Day 13’. But, I’m pretty well caught up now.

Day 8: “Neutral”

Some of my favorite neutral images on one page spread. I have been holding on to some of these images for years. It’s alway a good feeling when precious ephemera finds a home. This is the backside of “Stitched” and I wanted to use that paperclip somehow, so I made that old photo into a cabinet card and dangled it.

Day 9: “Foliage”

The background images on these pages are some favorites, but a bit dull. I stenciled over them with some bright greens to liven things up a bit and added the usual suspects…postage stamps and butterflies. I have found Butterfly heaven in one of my new favorite Etsy shops TheJunkJournalStudio There’s a lot of fussy cutting involved, but boy is it worth it!

Day 10: “Layered”

I started with layering some tissue paper bits, brushed on some watered down gesso to push some of the color into the background, then added some neutral paper pieces to help pop the bird, butterflies and flowers. That’s definitely some layers.

Day 11: “Eclectic”

I threw everything onto this page spread. This one is at the end of the journal because I wanted to use that tea dyed envelope, and I couldn’t make it work anywhere else. It was a lot of fun just playing with odds and ends here, I’ll have to do this more often.

Day 12: “Torn Edges”

This is a technique I’ve added recently, inking the paper edges. I used to think it was more work than it was worth, but I have a lot of colored ink pads that I need to use before they dry up, and I thought this would be fun.

Day 13: “Garden”

This did not turn out the way I had planned. I totally made a mess out of the stenciling, flowers and butterflies to the rescue!

Moving along…

Day 14: “Pattern”

Of course the first thing I think of is a sewing pattern. Oh, the hours spent pinning tissue paper to fabric to cut and sew, I loved it! I used some images from a vintage sewing book, pieces of an old quilt, then drew in some hexes with pencil. I really had fun with this one.

Well, I hope you are enjoying my travels with “Junk Journal January 2024”! I go back and forth about how I feel about prompts and daily page spreads. Next time I may try to do one page each, or make 2 journals. I can barely close this one already!

I’m hoping to post ‘Week 3’ next week Wednesday since I’ve finally been able to catch up

As always,

Thank you for the visit,

Have a great week,

~Patty

A Quick Hello…with journal pages

~ Patty Radish ~ Leave a comment

Over the last few, weeks I have been spending most of my time making videos for my YouTube channel. I really enjoy the creative process, but it doesn’t leave a lot of time for much else.

I still have so many supplies, empty journals, paints, art supplies of every stripe, and of course…ephemera. So, I still have a lot to work with and use up.

I probably make and film at least five art journal page spreads a week now, and I really love the process. It’s quite the learning curve, but I really appreciate the brain exercises…to an extent.

This means a lot of creating, cleaning up, staging photos, and editing (I can whittle an hour down to 58 seconds for ‘Reels’ and ‘Shorts’ like a pro!) but not time for much else. I think we have a dust bunny colony growing in our living room.

But at least I’m having fun….and filling up journals!

I may not have a lot to say in my blog posts until I get a little more organized, but I can share fruits of my labors, aka; journal spreads.

If you are interested in seeing how these pages came together, you can visit my channel by hitting the YouTube button in my sidebar, I’d love to see you over there!

Until next time,

Thank you for the visit,

Have a great week,

~Patty

Happy Stoppings and Startings…

~ Patty Radish ~ 4 Comments

A couple of years ago I thought it would be fun to put together a journal of the ephemera packs I make for my Shoppe, and like many things I start…yeah. (the link to original post is here)

At this point you shouldn’t be surprised that still have half finished projects that need tending to one way or another, meaning: either finish them or dismantle and move on. I’m happy to say that not only did I take a project off my list, I started a new one…again…wait a minute!

Oh well, If you are interested in my process, read on:

Step one: Tear all decor from said journal

This is one of my favorite photos, geishas in ‘Kiss’ makeup. I took this off the internet and printed it out to make a birthday card for my brother years ago. ‘Kiss’ was the first concert I ever went to, big bro took me of course. I have the best brother ever, fyi! I had printed an extra one out for me.

Step two: Make a pile of sticky backed journal decor

This tag is no great shakes but so much fun to make. I’m moving to a larger (wider) size of this style of journal and this tag helped me knock out a page of this one…that I’m moving out of… if you know what I mean.

Step three: Move said pile from one creative space to the next making sure they all stick together awkwardly

I really struggled with this page spread, but I’m really happy with the way it turned out. The large tag and the journal card are made from a painting experiment I’m still working out. The pocket is from the “pile”. (the flowers are from a different project I had to let go of…long story)

Step four: Pry the sticky ephemera off each other every time you want to work with it for extra frustration

The pocket and stamps are from the “pile”, the photo of my dog ‘Lily’ is from a different pile. Part of the “Gratitude Dailies” project that pooped out.

Step five: Put and end to it by cramming as much stuff on to two pages as possible…then add a butterfly

I’m the first one to admit that my pages sometimes look like a hot mess, but I’m having so much fun! One of my favorite things to do is find homes for wandering ephemera or repurposing journals that go awry. I seem to spend a lot of time with “Clean up on aisle 5” projects. But there is a lot of inspiration out there and a lot more projects to start, stop and drop like a hot potato.

So until next time,

Thank you so much for stopping by,

Have a great week,

~Patty

Video Overwhelm!

~ Patty Radish ~ 2 Comments

I recently went on a bit of a video making spree.

Here’s a thought: “Wouldn’t it be fun to film every time I worked in one of my art journals?”. (Shoulda thought that on through a little more!)

Yeah, what I ended up with is a huge backlog of footage in various stages of undress to deal with. I do not recommend taking on something like this if you don’t have a ton of time on your hands, or are as unorganized as I am. (palm-to-forehead)

Also, because I have been dealing with the bird’s nest I created, sharing on social media felt like too much, this blog included. So, with many apologies for the length of this blog post due to overwhelm, let’s get started…

Using a master board as decor pieces

These are the “stills’ from my videos. They are all on my YouTube channel either as a “Short” or video if you are interested. The link to my channel in the sidebar.

Shameless Advertising.

An Amazon shop approached me to make a video of one of their art journaling kits. It’s not quite my style, but it was fun to do something different. The link to the BLEDS Shop is in the video. (and that’s enough advert for them).

“Summer’s Bounty” Embellishments

But here is an advert for someone else I would like you to check out ‘TheJunkJournalStudio‘ shop on Etsy. Her shop is fantastic…I’m obsessed! I share a bit more about her shop in the video, so go take a look.

More from “The Junk Journal Studio”.

I hear there are a few people out there that don’t like mushrooms, at least I seem to follow the mushroom haters for some reason. Well, I’m not in that camp, I love them…and so does the moose!

Using my vintage scrap box.

I have a box of nonsense on my desk where I throw things I’m too lazy to put away. Well, it overflow-ith, and here is the result. Even I’m amazed at how long I can keep stuff around.

Creating little worlds.

I’m trying something new lately. One of the things I love about this type of journal is it doesn’t have that binding wire down the middle, but I was still creating my pages like there was. So, now I’m trying to work from the middle out so that it looks like one piece, instead of separated, if that makes sense. I’ve been slowly working in that direction if you’ll notice in some of the page spreads above, but this one was more intentional.

Well, that’s it for now. I’m going to try to post these video catch-ups during the week from now on, hopefully not as long, because I have other things I want to share on my weekend posts.

Thank you for stopping by,

Please take a look at my channel,

Have a great day,

~Patty