Gratitude

 Hello Hello

And good day to you!

Hope you all are having an enjoyable weekend, maybe getting a 'to do' list finished off, or wasting some good quality time with friends and family. I am taking the weekend (what's left of it anyhow) and gettin' crafty, I still have a lot to do and the count down is on.

So I was sittin' in my unusually quiet kitchen earlier this morning sippin' on my first cup of coffee thinking to myself what all I needed to do today because there is a lot and surprisingly enough I can say that 90% of what is on my 'to do' list is something that I want to do...

how amazing it that?

First up is what I want to share with all of you today. I think I have mentioned this before that I am a fan of practicing gratitude...

I attempt to practice it everyday, some days I'm better at it than others but in my quest to keep in practice I made this small gratitude journal. 

The book itself is made using two handmade envelopes along with the hidden hinge binding system, the covers are of chipboard and the inside journal pull-outs are made using some older pattern paper by My Mind's Eye that I found in my stash, inside for the pages I used a heavy weight cream card stock that I picked up at Hobby Lobby.

 What I love about this journal is that it is small and totally cool. Since I made my own envelopes to use I was able to match my envelope paper to the inside cover paper making it quite elegant. Also I only used two envelopes... yes you read me correctly, only two and I'm really not sure why. I can tell you however...it works.

 Within both of the envelopes you will be able to pull out a mini pocket journal spot, open it up and you have a 3 x 3.5 blank spot for journaling on. Then close it and tuck it back into your envelope pocket. My thought for this was that it would be perfect for laying around the house and just as you thought of someone or something that you were grateful for you could jot it down in here.

 Another thing I totally love is the metal bobby pins that I used to close both journal spots and together when they dangle from the outside it reads 'every day'.

 Here's a peek at what those blank journal spots look like, of course you could add a photo or two so long as they are fairly small in size and then use the paper clip to secure it to the journal.

 The closure I created for the entire piece is done using a Tim Holtz hitch fastener and an extra long piece of black faux leather cording, I just wrap it around once or twice and then tie it around the hitch so it'll stay put.

On the cover I added just a few simple embellishments being that the book itself is so small - 3.5 x 5 - I didn't figure it needed anything to dramatic.

So there you have it, hope this inspires you once again to practice your gratitude and/or your creativity. Thank you so much for stopping in and taking a peek and enjoy the coming week.

just B