Today, I am Grateful for....

I am usually a very positive person.  Lately however, I have seemed to let myself be more negative and it is wearing down my spirits.  I decided that something needed to change, but wasn't exactly sure what.  I came up with this idea and hopefully it will help pull me out of my funk and get me back to my "A" game.

I have always wanted to bind my own book, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to give it a try.  I give you the Gratitude journal.

This is how it works.  There is one page for every day of the year.  Every night before I go to bed, I am going to write the year, and three things from that day that I am grateful for.  

I think this will be a good idea for several reasons.  First, I am ending my night by thinking of all the good things that have happened to me that day.  Second, I think it will be interesting to see the things I am grateful for next year in comparison to this year.

The book only ended up costing me about $5.00 to make.  I used a bunch of scrapbooking paper that I had on hand and I used just your general lined paper for the insides.  I thought it would simplify things if I made the book separated by months.  Just so you get an idea of the size, the monthly pages are 6X6 inches.  It just seemed to be easiest because then I only needed three different colors of 12X12 cardstock to make all of the months.  The lined papers are 6 inches by 5 1/4 (ish).  It made it so I just cut off the three hole punch side and a little off the other side.  Then I cut the paper in half.  It wasted less paper that way.

The cost came from laminating the monthly pages.  I obviously want this to last a long time and I thought the best way to preserve it would be to laminate it.  It cost about $4.  I also had to buy a binding which cost me $1.00.  My dad conveniently already has a book binding machine, so I was able to bind it myself.  If you don't have one available, any copy shop has that service available for a small charge.  

I am so excited with the way it all turned out and hope that it will help me to become a more positive person.  Let me know if you have any questions about how I made it.  I also, just wanted to challenge all of you to try this out with me.  Even if all you end up using is a notebook or a journal, I think you will find that you are a happier person.