My second favorite holiday is just around the corner and this year we are hosting the Thanksgiving meal. Do you know what that means? It means as the host of the celebration, I get to keep this year's Thankful album.
For the past few years, using an inexpensive 4 x 6 photo album, I've created journals of gratitude that include everyone present at our Thanksgiving gatherings. (Here is my album project from 2009; here is the one from 2010.)
I designed a new set this year and you don't need Photoshop to use the files, just Adobe Acrobat, some cardstock, a bit of patterned paper and a small photo album.
First up, a cheap little album from Target.
I found this last week and at first I looked at the colors and thought, "Hmmm. I think I'll just re-cover this with patterned paper I like better." But once I saw that the paper I wanted to use worked just fine with these colors, I decided to scrap the covering idea. (The part I'm not really mentioning is that I had a bad Xyron adhering accident and the album covering attempt looked like ka ka du jour, but I digress. Good thing I bought two of these little guys.)
Next, a few sheets of paper from a new Echo Park set.
I also decided to include some of the green papers from this collection to match the greens of the photo album.
Then I printed out a title page. (Mine is in brown, but the set also includes orange.)
The files include crop marks to help you trim out the cards to the correct sizes. Here are the album cards that people will fill out.
Then you just print a bunch of them out and adhere small strips of patterned paper at the base of each card to dress them up.
For the gathering, I'll place them on the table in a tin with a pen and encourage people to fill them out. I'll also remember to take a photo of each person to use in my album.
My tradition has been to give the album as a gift to whoever is hosting the holiday gathering which means this is the first year I get to keep the album.
Over the past few years, I've also heard from blog readers who use this concept at home, encouraging family members to fill out gratitude cards throughout the month of November and even into December.
It's a simple way to count (and document) your blessings.
Learn more about the set by clicking here.
Speaking of gratitude, I have two new templates (one in 8.5 x 11 and another in 12 x 12) that might inspire you to save and document what you're thankful for on a scrapbook page.
