More Q & A: Storing Seasonal Ideas

Hello, friends and a Good Wednesday, to all!

I have a great journal question from Emma today:

Hello, Dawn ... If you find a craft idea or recipe for, say St. Patrick's day in mid-January, do you glue it in your daily clip book now and then file it away to use for March? Or, does it stay in your darling book and you read back to find it later? I truly love these posts! Sincerely, Emma

 Oh, Emma, one of my favorite things to discuss: finding and saving (with hopes of using) seasonal ideas! Thank you for your kinds words - I am so glad you are enjoying these posts. :)

Now, I must be perfectly honest and first say that, although I am quite diligent about the finding of information - information junkie, right here! - I'm not always so organized about the storage (and retrieval) part of the equation. My problem is that - as I've confessed previously - as much as I love adding stuff to my journal, I'm a bit loosey-goosey about the endgame procedure. I do read back over my journals quite often, but the indexing of information does not happen as consistently as it should.

So you've inspired me, Emma! I am going to get better at this, starting now. I'm thinking of our recent conversations when I say: my journals are beautiful to me, but they should be useful, too! :) I recently re-vamped my seasonal planning binders (shown above) and re-ordered their insides a bit ... added new tabs and weeded through the miscellaneous (messy) papers and whatnot. I will go into greater detail about all this in my (forthcoming) "Binder Breakdown" post ... but here's a glance at my "Deep Winter" planning binder:

The front cover features a January inspiration page ...

... while the backside shows February's page.

(These are the decorative monthly pages I made when creating my binder - but ended up leaving out, lest the planner become too bulky.)

Also Emma, you inspired me to bring my old journals out of storage - because I am going to go back through them, one season at a time, and find all that "saved" information! I have not looked at my old journals since we moved here (two years ago this summer); as of now, they are in storage boxes in the garage. So I went down there yesterday and picked out the ones that are timely for Winter and will start combing through them ...

Here are a few ... I can't wait to dig in and revisit all those Winters from years ago!

(Note: These small books are quite different from the large Yearbook system I use now! But for many years I used these basic little notebooks and was perfectly happy with them. I would choose a patterned paper for the cover and then I'd tape my Mary Engelbreit daily calendar page on top to denote the start date. Lastly, I'd add a pretty ribbon as a pagefinder. There was usually a couple of months' worth of journaling in each notebook, but I could never write past the mid-point because they'd get too bulky from all the clippings! And this is why I moved on to the loose-leaf system I use now.)

Oh, and speaking of pretty journals, I want to share a link with you all for Shirley Ann's lovely blog, Under an English Sky, where recently she shared a bit about her own domestic daybook.  Our journaling style is very similar, and what a pleasure it is to be on the same page - so to speak - with Shirley! Today's snow pictures are not to miss, either ... :)

But to get back to your question, Emma - in the scenario you described, what I would do (ideally) is add that St. Patrick Day craft or recipe to the journal and then make a note of the idea in my seasonal planner (Early Spring: March-April) index. If the idea was not suitable for my journal I would add it directly to the planning binder OR to the Food binder under "Seasonal." (I currently have hanging folders with recipes that need to be sorted this way!) I don't keep seasonal recipes in my seasonal planning binders, simply because there are too many of them!

So here are a few examples ... these are pages from last year's journal (now stored away in my 2014 Yearbook):

On this page there is a moisturizing soap craft that I thought would be nice for the wintertime - the sweet almond fragrance, the dry winter skin issue ... I'd add that to the Crafts/Activities tab. (With a note to dry marigold petals next summer!)

This shows a cute plastic cup snow-globe craft. I'd also note this in the Crafts/Activities tab.

 Above is shown a baked grapefruit donut recipe - which sounds perfect for citrus season! I'd note this in the Food tab.

And here's one last example, because I just added this one today:

These gorgeous purple Ball jars ... oh, MY! My lovely friend Tanya linked them for me on my Facebook page because we share a love of Mason jars, and immediately we thought of how they might work nicely in Lenten (or Advent) crafts and activities ... Friends chimed in - Mary Ellen, Jennifer and Donna (who also linked solar-lantern lids which make the whole thing EVEN more intriguing!) - and we all oohed and aahed together ...

So that I would remember this - not just the jars, but the fun, friendly interchange too - I opened the image in a new tab, printed it out, cut it out, and added it to today's journal page. It's a fond memory and a potential activity at the same time!

So what I will do is this - I will make note of this product/potential ideas in my Early Spring binder (under the Lent tab) and the Late Autumn binder (under the Advent tab). I will also add "order ball jars" to my "to-do list" because they are already sold out at Amazon and I feel they might be difficult to find elsewhere!

*** 

Well!

As usual, I have gone on long enough, I think! But I hope this rambly post answered your question, Emma - please let me know if I can describe things more clearly. It really isn't a perfect "system" at all, but I do enjoy it and hope to make it work better for me with a little time and effort!

:)

Enjoy your evening, my friends ... see you here again very soon!