Insta-Love Garden Journal

Insta-Love Garden Journal

Last spring when I was at my mother-in-law’s house I noticed her walking around her garden with the journal I had made her three years ago.  It was worn and filled to the brim with all her notes about the previous year’s planting and harvest. I had to do a little search for that blog post for you.

I used a Heidi Swapp mini memory file spiral album, which was so cute at the time, but three years later I see that it wasn’t practical for her needs. I flipped through the journal and decided I was going to make her a new one this year for Christmas.

This one needed the following:

• Room to write lists and notes
• The front of it needed to be plain without embellishments. The way she carried the other one around with her into the potting shed, garden, and even to the store I didn’t want pieces coming off along the way
• Hardback for durability
• Photos of her own plants to make it personal

I decided to use the beautiful Insta-love Floral Instax album. You can see a video of what it looks like right here by Heidi.

The title page already says blessed and so I added the “garden” with American Crafts Thickers in the same color. This page comes vellum so I wanted a photo from the next page to peek through the title. I love how beautifully soft it looks.

Through the first day of planting the garden all the way through harvest, I took photos of her garden. She had no idea that I was compiling all the photos to create this gift for her. She will love knowing these are all her plants!

I broke up the book in 4 parts, each season having it’s own title page. I stamped the season and then added a sub-title embellishment in Heidi’s hand writing. This is available in a Memory Keeping kit.

I left several blank note pages but added a little mini photo collage at the top corner. I made several of these with my phone and an app. You can see how I created collages in this video here.

During summer, I had the most pictures so I made sure to add them when I could!

I decorated the pages using the Instax Card Kits. I loved punching some of the cards with a simple circle punch too. They make great embellishments without the bulk!

I also paper clipped a few cards just in case she wanted to make notes on the back or even add a few of her favorite seed packets.

When Fall came around, there were so many photos, that I decided to do some more collages. I wanted to make sure I didn’t take away from her journal pages, so I tried to add the photos to the vellum pages. The average person might not know that it takes a special pen to write on these. So when I could I removed extra vellum pages so that she wouldn’t write on them with the wrong pen and her ink wouldn’t transfer to another page. If you are looking for a great pen, I love a good fine point permanent pen like Sharpie.

I also use Heidi’s stamp set to add check lists to some of the pages for “to do lists.”

I hope this inspires other plant-lovers to make a journal for themselves or one they love as a gift! I can’t wait for her to open hers on Christmas morning! I am sure she will love it!

Supplies: Heidi Swapp Insta-Love and Memory Keeping collections

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