“My hands are done. These are the last ones I will ever paint.” — Glenda (74) is selling the final journals she painted for her granddaughters at a special price. Her most loved designs are retiring.

In a small studio above Main Street in Galena, Illinois, Glenda Satterlee spent 38 years teaching other people’s children to paint — and for the last eight, she painted something just for her own. Now arthritis has taken the brush out of her hands, and the 74-year-old is saying goodbye with her most loved piece: the “To My Granddaughter” journal. Why are these simple little books suddenly so sought after? Because this is the last time they will ever be offered.

Glenda Satterlee (74) in her studio in Galena, Illinois. After eight years, she is painting her last covers.

Galena, Illinois. The little studio on the second floor above a shop on Main Street smells of wet paper, coffee and old wood. On the drying rack hang watercolor sheets — a girl in a flower crown, a rose garden, a meadow full of butterflies. On the table lie a paint tin worn down to the metal in the middle, three brushes, a jar of cloudy water and a stack of spiral journals with a little girl looking up from every cover. Glenda Satterlee leans over one of her last pieces, the way she has almost every evening since 2018. But this year is different. These are her last ones.

“I am 74,” she says, slowly opening and closing her fingers. “And my hands do not do what they used to. The doctor calls it arthritis. Both hands. Some mornings I cannot close them around a coffee cup. You cannot paint an eyelash with a hand that shakes.”

She pauses, then adds something that clearly bothers her more. “And honestly, the world changed too. Everybody sends a little picture on the phone now, and it is gone by supper. I don’t even know how to send one. Nobody writes anything down anymore. I just wanted to give my girls something they could hold.”

a life with a brush38 years, 3,100 children — a life spent teaching little hands to paint

Every cover starts as a pencil sketch. On a good day, Glenda finishes one. On a bad day, half of one.

Glenda has done the math. For 38 years she taught art at the elementary school — roughly 3,100 children. Paper turkeys, Mother’s Day cards, a mural in the school gym that is still on the wall.

“In all that time I only ever painted for other people’s kids,” she says. “Then in 2018 my oldest granddaughter, Kenzie, turned thirteen and got her first phone. I watched her at my kitchen table, scrolling and scrolling, and I thought: nothing she is looking at will still be there tomorrow. So I bought a plain spiral notebook, painted her on the cover in a flower crown and wrote on it what I wanted her to remember every time she opened it.”

Kenzie cried at the table. Within a year, Josie and Tatum each wanted their own: a rose garden for Josie, and a meadow full of butterflies for Tatum — with round glasses, just like hers. Then the ladies from church started asking. So Glenda painted more — every single cover by hand, one at a time, at her painting table in the studio. The first stack she brought to the Galena Country Fair was gone before noon on Saturday. She has painted them every year since.

the words on the outsideWhat makes Glenda’s journals so different

Three covers, three granddaughters. Inside, every page is left blank — on purpose.

What makes her journals special is not just the sweet faces on the front. It is the idea behind them: the words are on the outside, and the inside belongs to the girl.

The cover and the pages: Every cover is painted by Glenda in watercolor, straight onto the journal — with a verse she wrote herself for one of her granddaughters — “Believe in yourself, follow your heart, and never stop learning and growing.” Inside, there is nothing printed at all: 60+ lined pages for her goals, her plans, her lists and her secrets, on a spiral that lies flat so she can write right to the edge. In a world where her phone is always asking her to look at something, this is the one thing in her room that asks what she thinks. That combination is why girls keep these on the nightstand long after the last page is full, while a gift card is spent by Tuesday.

a shoebox full of thank-yous“I have girls who filled every page and still keep the cover on their nightstand”

Hundreds of thank-you cards and letters, some of them in a child’s handwriting. Glenda has kept every one.

Glenda pulls an old shoebox out from under the table. Inside are hundreds of letters and cards. “Thank-you notes. Some of them write every year,” she says. She takes one out, dated 2020:

“Dear Mrs. Satterlee, my granddaughter wrote ‘make the volleyball team’ on the first page of your journal. She made it. Now she says the book is lucky and won’t let me borrow it.”

There is a simple reason for that kind of attachment: meaning instead of mass. While factories print the same “To My Granddaughter” slogan on mugs, blankets and pillows by the million, Glenda paints one girl at a time. A single cover takes her the better part of a day — from the first pencil line to the last eyelash.

She keeps a drawer in the studio that she calls “the drawer of nobody.” It is full of things friends carried up the stairs to show her. A mug with a granddaughter poem in a font nobody can read. A throw blanket whose print cracked in the first wash. A notebook whose pages came loose the week it was given.

“I can’t do anything with any of it,” she says. “Not because it is cheap. Because nobody is in it. Somebody wrote those words for nobody in particular. A girl can tell. A girl can always tell.”

the last collectionThe end of an era — and one last chance

The last collection: 73 journals, all painted in the 20 months after her diagnosis.

When these are gone, Glenda puts her brushes away for good. “There is nobody to hand it to. Kenzie can do a lot of things, but she can’t paint like this — and now I can’t either.”

On the table there are still 73 journals. Her life’s work. The last collection that will ever pass through her hands, painted in the 20 months since her diagnosis, in the best hours her hands had left.

To get them into good hands, she has done something unusual: a clear special price on every journal. Her commissioned watercolor portraits go for $250, and at the Galena Country Fair these journals sold for $60 apiece. “My granddaughter Kenzie (21) helps me sell them online — at my age I do not know the first thing about all that internet business,” she adds, laughing.

It was Kenzie who photographed them on the kitchen table and set the whole thing up over a single weekend. “She told me I was not going to spend my last good summers sitting behind a folding table at the fair. She was right.”

seven small thingsWhat sets Glenda’s journals apart

Biscuit, 8, has slept next to the paint tin since 2018 — the same year as the very first journal.

100% hand-painted: Every cover is painted individually by Glenda herself, at her own table — no stock pictures, no production line.

Her own words: Each verse was written for one of her own granddaughters. That is why it doesn’t read like a greeting card.

Blank inside, on purpose: 60+ lined pages for goals, plans, lists and secrets. Nothing printed, nothing telling her what to think.

Lies flat: The spiral opens all the way, so she can write comfortably right to the edge of the page.

Made for a backpack: A sturdy cover that rides along to school, to practice and to Grandma’s house.

For any day: A birthday, the first day of school, a graduation — or just because. Most girls start writing in it the same day.

Limited: Only 73 journals left from Glenda’s final collection. Once they are gone, there will be no new ones.

from their homesWhat real customers say about the journal

Photos sent in by customers.

for the girls you love“The perfect gift for the girls you actually love”

What makes the journal such a good gift is not only the painting on it. It is the story behind it. “When you give a girl one of these, you are telling her somebody sat down and thought about her,” Glenda says. “A little book for her own plans — and something that will never exist again.”

Her customer Brandi K. (39) from Schaumburg confirms it: “I gave one to my niece for her twelfth birthday. She actually teared up — not because of the notebook itself, but because of the words on the front. Knowing a grandmother with arthritis painted it for her own granddaughters makes it something else entirely. Then I had to order a second one the same week, for my own daughter.”

only hereWhere can you buy Glenda’s journal?

The journals are available exclusively through this page. Her granddaughter Kenzie runs Glenda’s small shop corner there, and that is the only place you will get an original journal from her studio.

Be careful elsewhere: there are endless “To My Granddaughter” notebooks, mugs and blankets out there now — mass-printed slogans, thin paper, pages that come loose after a week. In a small photo they may look similar, but nobody painted them for anybody. Hold one in your hands and you will feel the difference immediately.

Every order comes with a 90-day money-back guarantee. If the journal is not right for her, one email to info@cedarandtinco.com is enough and you get your money back.