make a garden journal

Many gardeners keep a journal to record seasonal garden information, but have you thought of combining an art journal with the customary jottings about seeds and harvest? Make memories out of yours. 

Create a Fun and Artistic Garden Scrapbook Journal

Creating a scrapbook journal would be a super easy way to keep a record of the garden:

• what you planted,
• when,
• how much produce you harvested,
• the children’s garden,
• flower bouquets you made for Grandma
• and even future plans and hopes for your landscape.

 

It is a neat way to combine your memories of the garden and your family growth together in one very creative crafty album. Make something creative that is not only a beautiful keepsake, but a useful resource to keep track of garden information that you are sure to want in the future.

Make Photo Pages

Add your photos, use scrapbooking techniques, and make a simple collection of your garden notes AND your memories.
You have heard of garden journals and you have heard of scrapbooking, have you heard of combining the two for a beautiful keepsake record of your gardens and memories of the flowers you’ve grown?

Whether you are new to scrapbooking (like me!) or an old hand, I bet you can find some inspiration for a whole new world of creative fun.

Watch How to Make An Easy Journal

Scrapbooking For Beginners

I am new at scrapbooking, are you?

I am new to scrapbooking, but both the hard-copy and the online types are interesting.

There are so many great artists and companies who have been producing the most tempting papers and elements that I felt it would make a great combination with the garden journals that we gardeners find so necessary.

Who doesn’t need to keep track of their landscape budget? Or remember which shrub was planted in the front yard, or what the name of those perennial plants were in the side garden… or what that great annual container combo was two years ago? So, why not create a scrapbook that includes those facts in a beautiful artistic way?!

That type of information is really helpful to be able to find easily, and with the addition of family memories… Well, what a great a way to keep track of info in a form that is just plain fun!

WHY START A GARDEN SCRAPBOOK?

Everyone believes we will remember how the garden looked in a particular year, or time of its creation.

.. but how soon we forget!

The pictures and notes of those times remind us.

Gardens, like children, have a way of growing up and changing.

A Garden Scrapbook Journal is a precious memory collection of those garden years, and sometimes of the children that played in them, as well.

TIPS I LIKED:

1. Recycle Old Cereal Boxes and Old Notebook Covers into Journal Covers
2. Use a circle paper punch instead of scissors to cut out printed labels
3. Store small tools inside a plastic pencil box

EXPERIENCED SCRAPBOOKERS TOOLKIT:

• Scrapbook adhesive
• Foam Squares adhesive
• Vellum Tape
• Xyron Model 150 Create-A-Sticker
• 12″ paper trimmer
• 12 x 12 self-healing mat
• Fiskars small pointed scissors
• X-acto knife
• Coluzzle Idea Starter Box Template, swivel knife and cutting mat
• Black fine tip pen
• Gold and Silver Gel Pens
• Black calligraphy pen
• Hammer for setting eyelets

What Sort Of Pages Can I Scrapbook?

I suggest a number of different sorts of pages to collect and display your garden info. Of course, you might want to combine pieces of info a different way.
However you decide to compile it, the types of pages usually found in a garden journal create a simple way to construct the topic of a section in the your scrapbook journals. A few ideas on info you may want to categorize together in a page:

Sample Page Ideas

1. Calendar Pages:These are always useful for keeping track of tasks, tips, and garden notes for the month.Here’s my Garden Task Calendar for Ohio
2. Photo Pages for logging the plants, and the garden progress.
3. Envelope or Pocket Pages for keeping track of seed packets and news or magazine clippings.
4. Charts– of frost dates or harvest abundance. Any kind of chart can become a page or part of a page.

How To Make Your Own Pocket Pages

Pocket pages are so handy. Odds and ends that you don’t wish to glue permanently into a journal are ready for reference. Even a place for some extras seeds, if that is what you want.

Get A Kit

Here is a collection to help you get started.

Of course, you can gather together the stickers, elements, papers, etc. on your own to create the basis for your scrapbooking pages. Many people like to do that, but if you would like to simplify your projects by starting out with some ready made collections, try the one below. Especially if you are new to this type of crafting.

Make Your Garden Journal Useful And Pretty

A bundle kit has a little bit of everything, and that is all you need for just your garden scrapbook.

Nature colors, flowers, leaves and pretty backgrounds for attaching everything in an artistically coordinated way.

American Traditional Scrapbook Bundle Kit, 12-Inch by 12-Inch, Great Outdoors

Where To Find Creative Ideas?

There are so many wonderful ideas for scrapbooking, and it takes only a little tweak to turn them into garden notebook worthy techniques.

If you would like a small amount of embellishment for your notebook, or create an entire scrapbook art book that is centered around the garden, look for tips to create artistic memories online.

There is a whole library of books dedicated to scrapbook creation, in your bookstore and probably your local library, too.

EASY WAYS TO DECORATE GARDEN JOURNALING PAGES

• “On topic” stickers, bird and wildlife, plants, garden tools, all garden related stickers
• Garden and flower paper background, cut in shapes or as accents for notes
• Keep seed packets and use them to illustrate flower and seed information. use the handy planting instruction on the back of a packet for remembering cultivation info.
• Pressed flowers and leaves
• Using leaves as “rubber stamping” tools.
• Take plenty of photos and add those to notes about the landscape.

Artful Garden Journal

See Morgan’s informative Journal post for ideas on how to put it together. Illustrations are all by Val Webb on her post.
Do you paint or draw? Combine a sketchbook and journal in one.

Garden Journal Scrapbook Necessities

CUTTERS, MATS, ETC.

Good tools make a world of difference.

If you watch any of the many tutorials available, one thing that is noticeable is the quick work that some tools make of awkward or tedious jobs.

I am always impressed how the flat tool used for making folds orthe paper cutting tools halve the time and create such professional looking results. Not like my fumbling fingers and school scissor attempts at exactly the same tasks!

Professional Results, Quick Cutting

Fiskars 12 Inch LED SureCut Folding Rotary Paper Trimmer (154470-1002)

Ever watch a scrapbooking tutorial ? They almost always use a rotary cutter to quickly make the shapes they need with a sharp clean edge.

Cut your photos, background papers, even seed packet information, cleanly and accurately.

Paper Trimmer How-to

What Sort Of Scrapbook Supplies Do You Need?

Yes, you really need these scrapbooking tools.

• Punches
• Scissors
• Straight edge rulers
• Scoring tool
• Adhesive tools
• Glue
• Rotary paper cutter

SCRAPBOOK ELEMENTS AND EMBELLISHMENTS

Some you might like …be on the lookout for

• Anything related to garden tools
• Photos of your garden
• Flower elements
• Trims that look like fences or arbors
• Envelope areas for seed packet storage
• Use plant labels for labeling photos

Color Coordinate with Stickers

Garden Theme Scrapbook Stickers (19253)

Garden colors fill this famous Mrs. Grossman’s sticker collection that can accent the garden journal pages.

With items ranging from bird watching to flower containers, these can decorate notes you make in your scrapbooking journal.

Idea For Using Stickers
Don’t be boxed into the idea that garden journal scrapbooking is just for adults. This could be the start of an art or science project, or just a fun summer activity. Simplify the whole project into a home made “lapbook“. Children love stickers, so use them for entry accents, to add pizazz to photos, etc.

Inspirations

See how crafty people put together their projects.

Digital Resources

• Tomato Garden & Salsa Recipe Scrapbook – Digital Scrapbooking Blog : Digital Scrapbooking Blog
  Digital Scrapbooking and Lapbooking- freebies on site
• Garden Scrapbooking Titles
  Scrapbooking title inspirations for our garden notebook or journal
• Printable Scrapbook Sketches – Scrapbooks Etc.
  Find free printable scrapbook sketches. Find everything you need to create a beautiful scrapbook.

Garden Quotes For Your Journal

Here are a compilation of some garden worthy quotations to print out or construct, write in, or otherwise add to your pages. You could even use a special quote as the theme for an entire page.

Cute, Wise, or Just So True

A little dirt never hurt

Bloom Where You Are Planted

Getting to the Root of It

Grow my little one!

Growing up Together

Toadly Fabulous

Beware of Snap Dragons

Anybody who wants to rule the world should try to rule a garden first.

5 dollar hole for 50 cent plant

So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

“Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.”

– Luther Burbank

We come from the earth, we return to the earth, and in between we garden.

Learn to be an observer in all seasons. Every single day, your garden has something new and wonderful to show you.

Gardening imparts an organic perspective on the passage of time.

– William Cowper

“She calls herself a ‘general gardener’ because she grows everything and loves everything that grows.”

~Elizabeth Lawrence

June, the time of perfect young summer

L’HEURE PASSE, L’AMITIE RESTE, Time passes, friendship remains

SOL SPLENDIT OMNIBUS, The sun shines for all

From my collection of garden wisdom.

How-To Encyclopedia

The Encyclopedia of Scrapbooking Tools & Techniques

If you are new to scrapbooking, or just like to learn new and exciting techniques this is a wonderful resource book.

Inspiration Encyclopedia

– Get Wind of All The Top Tools and Techniques
Get the tools you need for the projects that you want to try. Find some inspirations for a different style than you might have otherwise imagined. Create!

Do you either journal your garden projects and produce or do you have a scrapbooking hobby? Had you thought of combining the two?