With the American celebration of Thanksgiving coming up at the end of this month November is a great time to pause and intentionally practice gratitude. One way to do this is to make a Gratitude Album for the month of November.
I decided to make a 4×4 sized mini-album to contain a photo of something that I am grateful for each day of this month along with some journaling that I am so excited to show to you today!
I find that when I’m taking on a daily project like this, it is helpful to set up foundation pages at the beginning. Then all I have to do throughout the month of this project is add photos and journaling.
I started this album by clipping papers from the Memory Pockets Monthly Gather main kit and add-ons (I’ll link to each product used at the end of this post) to a 4×4 square in Photoshop. I was able to fit four squares on an 8.5 x 11 sized paper. I printed out enough of these for the cover pages and 30 days.
I used a paper trimmer to cut each square out and adhered two squares together using modge podge. I set it up so that there will be one patterned paper to mat a photo onto and one solid (or very lightly patterned paper) to journal on for each day of November.
I arranged the pages in order and punched two holes in each. I then used ring clips to hold the book together.
The inside cover has a patterned paper on the left and a November calendar on the right. This calendar was actually a square journaling card.
This is the layout that each day will follow for the entire month. On the left side will be a square cropped photo adhered to the page with washi tape. On the right side will be journaling about that particular photo and my gratitude for that day.
Here’s a look at several of the inside pages. They’re all set up in the same fashion with a patterned paper on the left and solid paper on the right with a number. I wrote the numbers in with a brush pen.
Here are the digital products I used to put this album together:
Memory Pockets Monthly: Gather
Gather | Digital Stamps
Gathered: Patterns & Backgrounds
Gathered In | Papers
Gather | Pocket Squares
I’m planning to choose random things each day to include in my gratitude album, but many people prefer to use a list to guide them in tracking their gratitudes throughout the month. There is a great list in the Art Journaling Pad that’s being used for the challenge in the Art Journaling forum.
This is a great list to use in creating either a hybrid Gratitude Album like the one I showed you here or a digital album.
I hope you’ll take some time this month to be grateful and track some of the things you are grateful for!
Kimberlee says
This is such an AWESOME project. I love the 4×4 format! Super cute and simple… that’s a fabulous idea.
The Lilypad says
Thank you so much Kimberlee!!! I try to keep everything super simple or else I won’t finish it. :)