Introduction to Gratitude Journaling

1. Introduction: Hello, I'm Helen at from a journal with purpose and welcome to my latest Skillshare class. I'm an author, blogger, and YouTuber, and I absolutely loved to share anything to do with journaling. And I'm really excited about this class is all about making and filling your aim gratitude journal. I think, especially when times are tough, it's so important to focus on the good things are going on around us. So I'm not going to be talking about the massive life events. I'm going to be guiding you through how to pay attention to these small moments every day and provide you with lots of ideas for how you can document that in your journals. So in this class, I'm going to be giving you some ideas for different places to look for things that you might want to document. And we're gonna do some writing, as you'd expect. Also some lettering, some creative kind of play sessions. We're going to use photographs, found items, doodling, and lots more. I think is a really useful if you can find different ways of journaling that see how much time you have, what kind of major in. So I'm just going to show you lots of ideas today. I really hate they inspire you to get started on your own gratitude journal. 2. Tools and Supplies: Before we get started, I wanted to talk to you quickly about tools and supplies. I'm going to be using lots of different things throughout this class, but it really doesn't matter if you don't have the same things as me. If you've got a notebook and a pen, you're gonna be absolutely fine. And what are the lessons I am going to be sharing with you? How to make a gratitude journal. And I think it's really fun if you've got the things at home already to be able to do that. But if not, just use what you have already. So please don't worry too much about tools and supplies and netbook compatibly. Absolutely fine. 3. Making the Journal: In this lesson, I'm going to guide you through a really quick and easy way to make your own gratitude journal. And as I mentioned earlier, this lesson really isn't something that you have to take. You could just skip past that if you want to use your own journals, skip past this lesson and then it join him with the next ones. But I think it's really fun if you have got the tools and supplies at home. And I'll show you my simple ways of cutting down the pages and binding everything together. In this lesson, I'm going to start off by making my gratitude journal. And I've got some scrapbooking paper here that I'm going to use for the cover. And I've also got nine sheets of paper. Some of these are A4 and some of them are A5. And all I've done at the moment is just a fold them all in half and then it put them together. And of course she don't need to make your own journal for this, you could use any journal that you already have by thought, it'd be lovely to have a handmade journal which we can use for recording cut of all the things we're grateful for. So the first thing I'm going to do is decide what size I want my journal to Bay. And I really like the standard size traveler's notebooks. I think that works really nicely. And these are just under four. What about four and a quarter inches wide? By eight and a quarter inches long. So if you wanted to use those measurements, you could or you could stick to something A5 size or anything that you fancy working in. I'm going to keep it really easy for myself and actually use this as the rough template for cutting on. So I'm doing that on the front. And I'll do the same on the back. On the way to a really in-depth tutorial on binding of journals. I do have a class here on Skillshare, which is cord, are making a junk channel where I put different signatures inside a carver. I'm happy with that. I'm going to use a craft knife to trim it down with a metal roller. So that's now my CVD trimmed down to size. And with the papers, I like working with a variety of sizes and colors, but you could of course, gestures or dotted paper or plane or anything that you have to hand. So making sure they're all sitting reasonably centrally inside each other. I'm going to pop those inside the cover. And it can be really helpful to use some binder clips if you have them, just to keep them all in place. And what are now gonna do again is cut along here and I'm going to use this cover as my guide. Once I've cut all the pieces away, I'm just going to tidy up any other loose edges. But it's really nice, quick and easy way of trimming all your papers to the size that you want them feel. Journals. And were things like this are never too worried about them being exactly perfect. But I think it's really nice to have something you've made yourself. Some are going to take the binder clips of Andrew removes the papers for now. The next thing I want to do is mark three holes in my cover. So I'm going to try and find roughly my central point. So now moving into centimeters, somebody go for 10 and a half, make little cross. And then I also want to make sure that I've got another probably about halfway up here. Somebody on the five centimeter line draw another cross. And again do five centimeters along here. And this is where I'm going to add my cotton for binding. And then again to poke my needle tool through the holes where I've marked for. If you've got a needle that was a nice thick needle, that would be absolutely fine. And now I'm going to bring my papers back and I'm going to do exactly the same thing. And I'm going to clip these together again. And this is the only part where you want to try and make sure that your reasonably precise because that's going to help you a lot when it comes to binding them together. So that was 10.5 centimeters down. And then I know that it was the five centimeters either side. So I'm going to do a quick check to make sure that these MIP like they're going to line up. Okay. I think they're not bad. I think that one could just do with giving up a little bit. So if you can fold your paper back like that is a good way of being able to still check. And so now I'm gonna go ahead and place my holes through all of these pieces of paper and it can take awhile. So you just have to be patient and keep pushing up until you come right up through the center fold. So now we've got these. The next step is going to be binding them all together. For this, I'm going to use, I've got CRM, a 100 percent cotton quilting thread here, so it's quite strong. But if you've just got regular thread, as long as you wrap it around a few times and do a few kind of repeats of this process. I'm sure you'll be fine. So I'm going to use quite a thick needle for this. And you want to make sure you've got a nice long lengths is much easier to trim some of the don't need to then find out you haven't got enough thread. The way that I tend to find easiest is with this, is to go through that central hole first and then line up with the one in the cover. And then you want to pull this through, but leave quite a nice long threads because we're going to tie these together at the end. And I'm going to hold that inside thread in place. Pellet nice and tight. And again, I'm going to go through the hole in the cover and line it up with a hole on the pages. Once you've got to this stage, you're then going to go back through that central hole. And it should be easier when she'd been through it the first time. And then we're going to go through the whole that we haven't yet her any thread through. And again, I often lift that cover away. So it just makes it a little bit easier to find the hole on the pages underneath. So I'm keeping that loose thread tight. I'm going to pull this all the way through. And you could now definitely leave it at this stage and tie them. But I just want to make sure that minds a little bit more secure because this thread is strong, but it's not proper bookbinding thread. So what I'm gonna do is just repeat that process wherein going through that central hole and then back in at three, the two holes on the other side. Once you've done that as many times as you feel the weight of the paper in your book, then you just simply bring the two ends together. And I usually tie a couple of knobs in here to keep it all nice and secure. Then with any longer at least threads, I trim these off but not too close. And then you should be able to safely remove your find Eclipse. And Java. Hello is then the basics of it all there and ready to go. But I tend to at this point is just look at whether there's any other little bits that need tidying up, particularly if any papers have moved out of pace, you can always trim them down a little bit. But overall, I'm really happy with how that's looking. I see could now decorate your journal cover in any way you like. I'm going to keep mine really simple, but I'm just going to put Louise colored label over the top. If you've got any labels, that's great. Or you can let a straight onto something like this. I'm just going to trim the edges of those off a little. And then again to add some lettering for gratitude journal. And for this, I'm using a Tombow Fudenosuke brush pen with a firm nib. And this is one of the pens that I recommend, particularly feel starting out in lettering that it's one of my favorites anyway. If you are interested in practicing your brush lettering skills, I also have a brush lettering workshop here on Skillshare. So that's, that's our gratitude journal all made ready to fill with lots and lots of things that we are grateful for. 4. Topics to Think About: Now that we have our general ready to go, I want you to talk to you about the kinds of things you could document in your gratitude journal. When I share my pages online, one of the questions I get asked time and time again is, what do I find to write about? And does it matter if you end up writing the same things nearly every day? And I don't think it matters at all. There's no rules to keeping a gratitude journal. But why would encourage you to do is to perhaps look a little wider if you find you are always writing the same things down. And particularly for getting through a tough time at focusing on gratitude can be really hard. But I think it's so important and it can make such a difference to how you're feeling. And I also think when he keep a gratitude journal, it really helps you because you then learn to pay attention to all of the little things that are going on around you. So what I do when I sit and write in my gratitude journal is I think through right from the moment I woke up. So it's things like their feeling of that do vary around me. There'd been some water in a glass by the side of the bed. But when I open the curtains, the bedroom is full of light. My dog runs up to me first thing in the morning because he wants to be cuddled. So even before I left my bedroom, there are so many things I'm grateful for. And if sometimes you wouldn't even notice that they're there, but if they weren't there, you definitely notice them. So that's kind of what I would say is that encouraged you to run through each small part of your day and which things make you smile and would you really mess if they weren't there? Is it that first cup of coffee in the morning, maybe seeing your neighbors when you go outside your car. Safe journey to work and home. So maybe a great book to read, things that you watch on television that make you smile. And I think it's really good to focus on those little things because it's easy to be grateful for the big themes. If you've got a really exciting holiday Berg, you're going traveling. But most of the time our lives aren't like that. So even on normal days, I think there should be lots of things that we should really focus on and be grateful for. And it also helps with me personally it lessen some of those bits that are difficult. Because I can recognize that whilst I might have had a hard day, that's still all of these other little things Our around me and things I'm so grateful for. So that's why I encourage you to do in this. And there is also a PDF in the resources section below. And I'll touch on that a little bit again at later, just with some ideas and prompts to get you started in your in gratitude journal. 5. Create a Quote Page: Weighs nearly every journal that I make. I like to create a quote or a cover page right at the front. For me, it helps to set the tone for what I want to use that journal for. And it's a lovely way to kind of break any nerves you might feel about that very first page in your journal. So I'm going to share with you one of my favorite ways for adding some color to the background of that page. And then I'm going to hand letter out a quote as well. I'm now going to create a quote cover page. I often like putting cover pages in my journals. It kind of helps to set the tone for it. One of the things I'm gonna do is add a lovely splash of color to the background. And for this, I'm just using some plastic package in. And I'm going to use brush pens. And any will be absolutely fine for this. I'm using Zebra, my liner brush pens, but as long as they're water-based, certain react when you add water to them, they should work absolutely fine. I'm going to just scribble with these onto the plastic in random places. I'm now going to use a water spirit, so to add some water on top of the pan. And this helps to activate the ink. But if you don't have a spirit, so you could just drop some water onto it, use a paintbrush to apply some water. You want to get them quite nice and wet. Unlink gonna turn that packaging and layer onto my page. And I absolutely loved the effects of ocean. Never quite sure what you're gonna get. So it's different every time. And I really like seeing all of those colors mix together. So I'm just going to just keep patting it down until I've got all of the ink off of the plastic packaging. And then the four adding the quotes, you can either leave this to dry naturally, I'm going to use a heat tool or hairdryer or something like that, we say or you could just leave it to dry overnight. I'm now going to add my using it that Tombow Fudenosuke brush pen. And I recommend having a look on Pinterest or Google images for gratitude crates and find one that really speaks to you and think these things will help put you in the right frame of mind when you come to add pages to your gratitude journal. That's my credit page. Nice and simple. I've added is acknowledging the goods that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance. I thought that was perfect because that's exactly what I want to use this journal for to really take some time to think about all of the good things that we already have in life. 6. Let's Get Writing: In this lesson, we're going to focus on the writing aspect of keeping a gratitude journal. And this is probably the most normal way of documenting things you're grateful for. So I'm going to share with you two different ways of doing that. So some long form writing and also capturing short phrases. One of the things I want to do throughout this class is share with you lots of different ways of recording things you're grateful for in your journals. I'm going to start off with some writing pages. I'm gonna do two very different styles on these pieces of paper. And if you feel short of ideas for your gratitude journal, if you look in their projects and resources section, which will be linked down below, you'll find this document here. I've put together some ideas of things to hopefully kind of just work as prompts for you to help get you started. One of my other tips is, I think that blank pages can be quite intimidating. So one of the things I like to do is start off by adding some decoration. I find that it helps to relax my mind. And whilst I'm writing the Declaration, I can start thinking about the sorts of things I want to be writing about in my journals. So I'm going to use some different wooden block stamps for this. And again, I'm never worried about anything being a perfect. I think it's always important to keep in mind the purpose of your journal. What are you using it for, and what you're hoping to get out of it, rather than being too concerned with how precise each page looks. So asked, I'm using rubber block stamps. You could use things like washi tape or stickers. You could use in pieces of patterned paper or add some doodles. Anything the fancy. And it really helps for me because I then find the page looks so much more inviting if you'd like to write on because I'm not being confronted by that blank page where you don't really know where to start. And when I'm adding decorative elements, I tend to work in odd numbers. So for this one I'm going to add three stamps. And as it happens, they stamped images are also things that I would sound very grateful for. Lovely cups of tea in the afternoon, seeing the moon. And that's also got a nature scene with insider and butterflies. Anything to do with nature is something that I'm really into. And then I'm simply going to start writing on my pages the things that I'm grateful for. And what I tend to do with these types of pages is add a line or two to them every evening. Right? Lots of lines of things I'm grateful for. And I just write a sentence and then adults who dot in between each of them so I can see where each one begins and ends. Let's see some examples. I've written things like a really good night's sleep, the smell of coffee first thing in the morning. My overnight, it's waiting for me in the fridge. Katlyn with Barney getting to work on projects that I love. So they're mostly, they're really small bits from every day which just bring me so much joy. And I define with gratitude journals, the more often you write in them, the more you'll account for really good things during the day. And I think it can just be such a good way to change your mind around. And for me, particularly if you're having a hard day is even more important to look for things that you can be grateful for. So on this page, I'm also going to do some writing as well, but I want you to just show you a different style if you don't like to in long form writing he perhaps, perhaps something more visual. This might work really well for you. So I'm going to start off, I'm using a blue uni-ball signal, gel pan. Say I'm going to write out coffee. Again. As nearly always on my gratitude list as something which gets me going in the morning. And then I'm going to make a speech bubble out of it. So for speech bubbles, you can just do an incomplete oval shape. And then you bring it down into kind of like a curved triangle. And one of the things I like to do is add a little bit of shadow or depth. So anytime where it goes underneath or to the right hand side, I'm going to add a thicker line and color it in. And you could of course use any types of pens or pencils for this, you could use lots of different colors if you like, and make something really bright and bold. Some also going to put things like morning walks, because we have our little dog, Barney here, encourages us to get out every single morning. And well, sometimes when I first go out, I'm not really in the mood for it, particularly if the weather's not that great. I do find it really helps to wake me up. And it forces me to pause before I start my day because I think otherwise because I work from home. There's every chance I'd be straight into emails and getting all my savings. So I think it's really nice. I'm really grateful that actually that encourages me to get outside every single day. And just take a moment. I'm going to add a few more of these. And that's something again where you could just every evening perhaps just add another speech bubble, 20 pages, a thing that you're most grateful for that day. Just a wonderful books and music. And so I think it's worth thinking about what kinds of journals a lot each work best for you. Perhaps try out a few different ideas and see what she find easiest to stick with. And I'm now going to finish off these pages and share some photos with you. Can see what they look like complete. 7. Adding Photos: In this lesson, we're going to look at how we can incorporate photographs into our gratitude journal. And lots of photographs on our phone that perhaps never see the light of day. So I'm going to encourage you to print them out either with a fairy tale printout or using a normal home printer, if you can. I think photos can instantly take you back to a moment in one IC photos in my journals are things I'm grateful for. It instantly makes me feel better. I think having those visual things can be a really useful tool. I've printed off a selection of photos. And these are things that I'm really grateful for and I think they're just such a fun and easy way to, again, to add some visual interest to your pages. Also document a single really great for four and not risk them kind of going unnoticed. And I'm yeast a breath. I think it's got a color label printer, but it's absolutely perfect for photos. They come up with a sticky, sticky backing on them so you can just put them straight onto your journal pages. And you can also print them out at different sizes, which I find really handy, especially in journals. I work in quite a few different size of journals. But if you don't have a filter, a printer at home, you could definitely just print them onto some thick printer paper and glue them ensure journals. So I often do this on microwave daily journal pages. I'll put photos down, special moments, things I want to remember. I think it's a really good way to retake you back to a moment instantly. I always think that with photos that within just a few seconds of looking at that, you can be straight back in the moment. So I'm putting three photos on each page. And again, it's another reason I like using the different colored pages and the background because it feels like some of your declaration work is already done. And I think they look really interesting as well when they're mounted on the difference between the black and the craft, the different size paper so you can see the one behind heard peeping through as well. So the next thing I'm gonna do is I'm going to jot down some notes next to each of these. An extra reminder for me of why I'm so grateful for them. So that's the left-hand page complete. And it's why I've written down what the photos are and what they mean to me. So fantastic books are written little bit about some of the personal development books that I've read over the years, creative projects. I'm so lucky that I get spent a large amount of time working on creative projects that I love and visiting new places. And one of the things I like to do is if I've got a few gaps, rather than trying to find things to write down is just add some little strips of washi tape. And he could of course just leave those entirely blank. I'm going to add a little strip there, one here. And then I'm going to add one along the bottom of the page too. And if you've only got the thick strips of washi tape or find is absolutely fine and I love the look of the torn edges. If you just tear them along the middle. And that adds another lovely little bit of decoration to those pages. And I'm now going to do the same thing on this page, but I'm going to use a white gel pen this time instead. So that's the official interest. And just doing a really loose, wavy boxes around my writing. These gel pens are my absolute favorite said the ones I'd recommend if you're looking for a gel pens that work consistently on a wide range of different papers, cod stocks, and I say find the work really well over the top of things like border color if you wanted to add highlights and details. So if enjoined to say really quick and easy page, a lovely way to fill your journal pages with things that you're grateful for. 8. Using Envelopes & Pockets: In this lesson, we're going to be focusing on adding some interactive elements to journal pages. So you're going to be looking at pockets, envelopes, and tags. And I use these in lots of my generals. I think they're really good way of making your journal interesting and also being able to talk in a little bit of private journaling. Now I'm someone who loves lots of fun interactive elements in my journal pages. And if that sounds like something that might appeal to you, then things like envelopes and pockets can be a really great idea. So this is just a normal envelope. I wasn't going to do is use some washi tape. And I'm going to just put some on each side to create a kind of hinge. You could clear it your page, but then you can't use any of the page underneath it is if you do something like this, you've still got all of that space to write or create on as well. So I'm just tearing those strips, adding one on each side. And what I think would be a nice idea to do is add some decoration to this envelope. So I've got some lovely stickers here. There's lots and lots of wonderful shops on Etsy that specialize in dealing stickers for journals and planners. So if you liked the idea of stickers, they're such a nice, quick and easy way to add some decoration. It's definitely worth having a good look around. I've added on, I'm going to use these little pieces of paper, write down a few things I'm grateful for, and then tuck them inside the envelope. One of the things I really like with interactive elements is when you then go back to look in those pages, you might well have forgotten some of the things that you'd written down. Most of my journals have pockets and all kinds of little hidden pieces of journaling. And I think it's just a really lovely way again to add some extra interest your journal pages. So that's my writing done and I think it'll be a really lovely idea to perhaps write one on there every single day and then tuck it inside your envelope, ready to pull out and read at a later day. Especially if you're having a hard day perhaps opening that, often, reminding yourself of the things that you're grateful for. And I'm going to leave that page blank for now. I've no doubt as I continue to use this gratitude journal or come back and fill that with writing at some point. Now on the opposite page, I'm going to add a pocket in some tags. And in the project and resources section down below, I've put a template in there so that you can print these off. And what I'm going to do is use these as a guide to draw around some patterned paper. So I can then add them onto my page. You may already have some patterned paper or card stock in your stash. If nor other places I find are great human, you can buy lots of them online. But often when I've bought Kraft magazines and if card making magazines, your friend find that they have lots of different papers included with those. I don't always know what to do with it. The time by 10 to keep hold of the minify of them, want to do some pockets and tags in my journals. I know that I've got those there ready to use. So I'm going to just carry on at tracing around these for a couple of tags as well. And then come back to put them in my journals. Now cut out. And I thought what I'd like to do before adding the pocket onto my page is to add a bit of stencils as a background. So what I'm gonna do, this kind of leafy stencil and I've got some ranger distress oxide ink in under Sage. I'm going to use an ink blending tool. And this is another one of my favorite ways to add some quick decoration to a journal page. Because again, it takes away that whitespace. This also really easy to still be able to write on top of it. So I tend to use paler colors so that I know my writing books still standouts. And I'm going to add all the way until it covers the entire page. Now, done. Lovely background and it only takes a couple of minutes. So while the ink dries on that, I'm going to get my pocket ready. Notice on the template this little dotted lines. So with low-end my cutout pattern paper with it and just made some pencil marks so that I know where to make the folds. And I've got a folding tool for this. If you just use your finger or a ruler along the edge of it, that will be fine. Just like it so that I know that that age is nice and crisp. Line forever using templates like this to make lots of pockets from different papers. Often sit down and make quite a few in one go, and then just put them in my drawer so that anytime I want to add a pocket, hopefully I've got a piece of patent paper already cut out and ready to go in the style or color that I'm looking for. Kate, so that's the pocket ready. I cut out a tag from the same paper. And another thing that can be really good to use, things like luggage tags, gift tags, anything like that. The modal things you can then tuck into the pocket of the more interesting it becomes. Suddenly I'm going to use some glue to stick that to my page. And I'm using a glue stick called Pritt. And I'm going to run that along the edge of each of those folded tabs. And I find you don't tend to need lots and lots of blue unless you've used a really heavy paper or card stock because it's going to be held in your journal anyway. I don't think you need to add loads and loads. I'm going to pop that right at the bottom of my page there. And I've decided I want to add a little quote on to this journal page. And I've got the sticker book from Tim Holtz, ideologies, small talk. But you can find lots of great quotes on the internet, on Pinterest which you could print off or letter yourself. In this little quote says, what seems ordinary is often the extraordinary. And I think that fits in really well with the gratitude pages because it's nearly always these small everyday things that are most grateful for. So I've cut that in half. We're going to add those to the top of my page. And then I'm going to write a little on the back of these are things I'm grateful for. And you can definitely use these to add photos or putting some tickets of somewhere that you've been teasing. You're really great. Perform one to remember. I've just added a little writing on to the large luggage tag for now. And I'm going to come back later and add some more on that and on the back as well, and just pop into the pocket. And what I usually do perhaps over the course of the month is also write something, take these out and write some more things. I'm grateful for general writing and interactive spots on your pages. 9. Creating a Gratitude Flower: In this lesson, I'm going to share with you one of my favorite projects and that is creating a gratitude flower on your journal pages. And I think it's so lovely and creative and is a good way to Pat's try out a few different lettering skills and just create something which is just a little bit different on your journal pages. I promise you, it's not as difficult as it looks. And I'm going to guide you through every step of the process. On these pages, we're going to create a fun gratitude flower. And we're going to add lots of lettering inside it. So the first thing you're going to want to do is draw some circles. And this is what we're going to add our lettering inside. So I'm going to have it so that it's slightly near the top of my page. So I want to be able to have the stem coming out underneath. I think I might have one circle a little bit wider. And C, you just want lots of different size circles to begin with. And we'll add some writing inside each of these. And this is something that you can then fill in all in one go. Or if you wanted, you could add a little bit of different lettering to it every evening. And once you've got your circles and you're happy with the size of your flower. We want to start making a kind of coil shape. So I'm going to use a pencil to indicate that that line's going to go in there. I'm just going to do the same all the way around. So just keep bringing those lines in words. Same is then that we're going to keep writing all the way round in a circle until we reach the center. And I'm now going to also quickly sketch out some petals around the outside. So I'm just gonna do some nice looped petals. You could also do something like a big sunshine with this. And rather than having petals, having the rays of sun coming out of the side. Or you could even try turning this into a kind of a mandibular design. Say, well perhaps try something different every month. I think that's one of the things with gratitude, journaling is finding something that really works well for you so that something you enjoy filling in on a regular basis and really enjoy looking back through. So now I've got that first row of petals. I'm just going to add a second one all the way around the outside. Again, I never worry about things being too balanced. Flowers are often not particularly symmetrical there we think of them as being like grants. And as long as you've got the overall feel that it's a flower. And he's going to look really pretty whence you've added some color and all of your lettering inside. So it's going to bring this round right up to the top. And then I'm going to add a stem coming out. I think I might do that on one side here. And possibly have a nice big leaf coming out over here too. So it's a nice place just to add some simple designs. The next thing I'm going to do is use my Staedtler pigment liners. So it's a waterproof pen to ink in the petals, the stem, and the leaf. And possibly just add some markings in the center of the flower. And I like using a waterproof pen because then if I want to add a wet medium over the top like watercolor or watering down my brush pens. I know that this ink isn't going to smudge. So I'm just going to ink in these all the way around. Thank you. So I've INT01 orders the petals, added some markings in the middle, and I added the stem and leaf or is being indecisive because sometimes my duties, I like to inking the lines, but actually I think I prefer it when they're raised afterwards. So I'm just going to add the lettering in. And what I'm gonna do is use some different pens and add some different styles of lettering. And I'm going to use those pencil lines as my guide for where the letters are going to go. Suddenly start off by writing. The, one of the first things that I'm grateful for is a family. And because each of these lines is a different size, you'll end up with some really quirky style of writing. And I love that about it because I also think it takes the pressure off trying to do anything too perfect. So I've got my family written in now. I'm just going to do little dots. And I'm just going to keep swapping pens and trying out different things. So if you're wanting to try out some different lettering styles, this can be really fun way to start it. Because I always say there's no pressure with journaling as long as you've used your page to do what you'd hoped, which in this instance is to record things that you're grateful for, then it really can't be wrong. And it's a great way to get that practice in soft and some bubble writing for this. And I'm going to draw some little lines across each of my letters. But just have fun with different lettering styles. You can copy what I'm doing. Look at some fonts on Pinterest or something like that and use this as a great place to try them out. It's now I've got my lines across. I'm going to use purple brush pen to add some color in those stripes. The next I'm going to do some faux calligraphy. So I'm gonna write the word out in the same way that is FIOS going to be doing a brush lettering. I'm going to write a letter out the word books. Again, a really quirky lettering because of the fat on trying to make sure that every letter hits the top and bottom line. So that when we erase those pencil lines afterwards, we've still got that lovely spiral shape. And so now what I'm gonna do is on any of my down, which strikes again to add another line. So that's where it would be thick coming downwards if you were using a brush pen. And now inside each of these, I'm going to color them all the way around until I reach the center of my lettering styles. So that is the lecturing on my gratitude flower, all done. And as you can see, even if there's bits where the writing is a bit wobbly, it really doesn't matter. You still get a lovely fun effect. Sounds can make sure all of the ink is dry and then erase those pencil lines that we put down. So the final thing to do on this is to add some color to the petals and leaves. You could definitely just color them in. But I decided I want to add some watercolor. I'm going to give fairly careful because that isn't watercolor paper that I've used in my journal. But I can usually get away with at least some light watercolor on there. So I'm going to mix up the yellow and the orange for the petals because I fancy it being really kind of sunshine knee and cheerful. And then mix up a green for the stem and leaf. And the paints that I'm using are career Jackie Gan Zai. Because any kind of paints would be fine for this sale. He could use colored pens, pencils, anything you like. I've mixed my paint colors. I'm going to just start painting some of the petals. Not going to use too much because I say, it's not waterproof, it's not watercolor paper, so it is going to wrinkle a little bit. But I really like that effect, so I'm not too worried at all. And it's going to drop some dots of orange into the petals and they're all going to run into each other. Which is absolutely fine. If you wanted to do something sort of more precise with colorings, you'd need to let your layers of paint dry. But I love using the wet-on-wet technique and just kind of letting the paints play together and seeing what they want to do. So I'm roughly guessing where that pencil line around the outside. And just painting as close to it as well. I think it would've been just can't do this now all the way around the outside of the flower. I'm really happy with how this is now looking. And I'm going to mostly let the flower dry naturally. So I'll probably just leave this page overnight and come back to my journal tomorrow. But I am just going to dry these bottom petals off quickly using my heat tool so that I can add the green paint to the stem and leaf. You can probably see that these pages have wrinkled a little bit. I think a role they've handled the pain brilliantly. And on this side I've used plain Tommy river paper. And on the opposite side I've used dotted radio paper. And I have this paper inside quite a lot of my journals. And I think it's really great for being able to add different mediums on. If I wanted to do a proper watercolor piece, then I would definitely want to use the watercolor paper because you can do so much more with it. But for journals, I think it's great if you've just got something that will handle it just enough. So you can still play with watercolors, new journals and have fun and watercolors, one of my favorite mediums to use. So that is it, That is my gratitude. Flower done. I think that's one of my absolute favorite projects so far in this journal. So I hope you have lots of fun with yours too. 10. Using Found Items: For this lesson, we are going to be using a found items on our journal pages. So I would encourage you to do at this point is have a look around you for any food packaging or anything like that that you've got that you're really grateful for. So maybe your favorite snacks, favorite drinks, tickets from places that you've been to, anything like that. And then come back to this lesson and I'm going to talk you through how you can use those items in your journal. So these are some of the found items that I had a lying around my home. So of course, some packaging from one of my favorite teas and one of my favorite snacks. We get some free gardening catalogs come through our door. And I always keep these because I love gardens, flowers. And there's so many wonderful images in here. I also love pressing leaves and flowers. And I'm so grateful for anything to do with nature. So I know I want that and my journal pages. I love things like peaceful postage stamps, napkins, leaflets, anything like that. So the itss is to just find things that make you happy or that you're really grateful for that represent that in some way. And then Anthem is a collage TO journal page, says can be really quick and easy exercise. I'm just going to have a play around with all of the different pieces and see how I want to paste them on my page. I've cut out the things I want to include and I've had to play around with them on my page. And I'm now happy with that placement. Start just simply gluing them down. And I think this is a really fun idea to perhaps devote a couple of pages in your journal each month to just clearly in any found items. I often use my junk journal for this. And it's a great place to just add anything really that I find maybe on days out or could be a new food that I've tried, I really enjoyed. And it's a really nice reminder. And their offices so quick and easy to do. And it's another thing that will make your pages completely different to anybody else because your favorites and the things you find a bound to be different. And they only take a couple of minutes to put together, I think a really satisfying and interesting to look back through. Especially then as you see perhaps how your tastes change over time. Or when you flip back through pages, you might be reminded of something that you really enjoyed. Perhaps you could in a ticket from. My act is a really nice reminder to go back there and have that experience again. Sounds can take few minutes to play the style I'm going to use print stake, but are mostly posts. We're going to use a little bit of PVA glue. My pages. I'm just going to write a couple of notes around different items and packaging just to remind myself of what. So that's my few notes added. I hope you have lots of fun creating your own pages. 11. Doodle Pages: We're now going to do some really fun doodling together. I think it is a great way to practice a bit of creativity. You don't have to worry about your artistic skills with this, I'm just going to be doing some really simple doodles using gel pens. But any pain that you've got is fine and just have a gain because I think it's joyous. It takes me back to being a school and add in little doodles inside my notebooks without any fear of whether it is going to be good enough or anything like that. It's just a time to play and express your gratitude in a different way. On this final page, we're just going to have some fun adding some doodles to represent the things we're grateful for. And I think again, this is another really lovely thing to do. Perhaps every day just add one doodle of something that you are grateful for that day. It's a lovely way also to kind of practice your creative skills and give yourself a bit of confidence because things like this really don't need to be perfect. If you don't, if you think that you'll do it or hasn't really represented what you wanted it to represent. You can always add some writing next to it so that you remember what it is that you are documenting in your journals. So I'm starting off with a really simple rainbow. So I absolutely love it. Or I see a rainbow when I'm out doing the dog walk in the morning. And I'm just using some gel pens, whichever colors I had to hand. So I'm really not worried at all about the kinds of colors that I'm using. I just want this page to be bright and cheerful. So that's my little rainbow added. Next. We've had a mixture of weather here recently. We've also had some really lovely Sunday afternoons. And there's a certain point in the afternoon where the sun comes around the back and have a lovely beam of light coming across my desk. And it looks so beautiful. I love the light coming in. So that's something that I'm always grateful for when we get to see the sunshine. So I'm going to add a really quick and easy son to my journal pages. So I'd definitely say, Just have fun with it. Don't overthink it and sad and gets a lovely way to get a little bit more confident perhaps with your creative skills. And also if you've got members of their family at home, be a great thing to deal with your children to. They can either have their own gratitude journals or they can add some little details inside yours. So I'm just going to carry on, add some more details to my pages and then come back and share them with you at the end. Sunshine, I've also got a pen so to represent stationary. So tea and coffee walks in nature, reading great books and journaling, and being able to celebrate special occasions with family and friends. So I really hope that inspires you to have a go and create your own doodle journal pages. And as the month goes on, I've no doubt I'm going to be adding lots more on there to just keep representing all of the things that I'm grateful for. 12. Summary: I feel like we've covered a lot in this Skillshare class. So I just wanted to give a quick recap of the different types of journal pages that you could create in your gratitude journal. So we started off by making our own personalized journal that you may have decided to use, one that you already have. We then did a page with a water color effects background. We then did some writing pages looking at the options between the long form or adding just shorter phrases. We then added lots of photos as the things that we're grateful for. We then moved on to pockets and tags. I take my now actually for when I did some of her writing on the page underneath, That's a good tip to make sure that your pages aren't too bumpy when you're working on them. We then did our pizza for gratitude flower. We then moved on to found items with different packaging and things that were around our home. And then finally, we finished with a page of doodles representing the things we're grateful for. So really helps us, helps to show you how many different options there are. How you can really use your journal to kind of create a document things in a style that suits you. And I for fine, depending on my feelings on one particular day or how much time I've got different styles will suit you better. Sometimes I want to write and write. And other times I know that I've got some beautiful photos or packaging that I want to stick em. And if I'm in a creative mood, perhaps at the weekend or I've got a bit more time than I'd like to hit is I'm going to want to get some paint out and have a play around. So I really, really hope that you've enjoyed this Skillshare class and is giving you lots of ideas for urine journals. 13. Class Project: Now that you've watched all of the lessons, I want to talk to you about the class project. And for this, I would love you to take a picture of any of your gratitude journal pages. It doesn't matter if that only partway through and not finished. I just love to see how you're getting on. And I think it's also really great for other students to be able to see those projects below and look at how other people are tackling these sorts of things and get lots of fresh inspiration. So you do please just take a quick picture and share them in the class project section. 14. Thank You: Thank you ever so much for taking my Skillshare class. I hope you've learned a lot from it, and I hope that you'll just full of inspiration and ideas for how you can fill up your gratitude journal. I really hope also that it helps you to pay attention more to those things that we can all be grateful for. And it really gives you that feel-good moment when you're using your journal. And when you look back through those pages. Thank you again for being here and I can't wait to see you in my next Skillshare class.