The following is cross-posted from the Weekly Gratitude Blog. I will post there every Tuesday and decided to post those posts here, too. For those of you who read both blogs, I apologize in advance. Some weeks the content might be different and other weeks, exactly the same.

When Lori and I were planning Weekly Gratitude and what we might want our blog schedule to look like, I thought it might be interesting to have each of us post a little blog post of our thoughts. I know she plans to post sketches and other goodies, but I have no idea what my intention for these posts is. Some weeks it might just be a collection of random thoughts on gratitude. Other weeks, it might be a pep talk. Or a gratitude-related story that happened to me that week. Or something I find inspiring. Or some goodies I made.

I am really not sure yet. While a part of me is itching to create some kind of pattern for these posts (I am a computer programmer, after all), another part of me really wants to make these posts fluid. I want this to be the excuse for me to sit and take a moment each week to jot some thoughts down. To observe my week. To reflect. In my insanely-busy life, I don’t do that nearly as often as I should. So, for now, I am forcing myself not to over-plan these posts.

All this is to say: the quality of these posts might vary wildly from week to week and I apologize in advance for that.

I wanted to start by thanking all of you for taking this journey with us. Committing to a year-long project is a big deal. But I have every reason to believe that you will get more out of this than you put into it. There’s something magical about declaring an intention and doing it in a group. It’s like when you do your daily walks with a friend, you’re way more likely to actually do them than if you’re going at it alone. Think of us as your gratitude-buddies. When you feel like you might give up, leave us a comment, email us, ask for help. We’ll be here to cheer you on. We believe in this project wholeheartedly and we’re committed to it and to you. And your presence makes it easier for us to work on our project, too. So thank you for being here. Thank you for doing this with us.

I know the next few weeks will be easy. All projects start with a high level of enthusiasm and take at least a few weeks to frizzle out. So take advantage of these weeks. Pay extra-close attention to the little things. The “seemingly ordinary” miracles of life. Enjoy the process and take a moment to reflect. Remember this project is about gratitude. It doesn’t matter if your art didn’t turn out the way you had envisioned or hoped, it only matters that you took a moment to express gratitude. Focus on that.

There will be new ones to come but in case you don’t regularly read my blog and haven’t already downloaded these, here are two sets of digital downloads I had made with the theme of gratitude. The first is a set of photo-overlays and the second is a set of journaling spots. Hope you enjoy them.

gratitude overlays
gratitude journaling spots

I want to remind you to please share links to your projects. We would like to regularly highlight your art/words on Wednesdays and if you’re not participating in one of our communities, the only way we can find you is through the comments you leave.

Thank you again for being here with us. Here’s to a year filled with gratitude!

When I was trying to figure out what format might be the best for me to use for my gratitude journey, I decided to focus on what I value the most: photos and words.

I take pictures everyday. Mostly of my children, but also of other things that are in my life. This is something I’ve been doing every day for the last two years and I plan to continue doing it in 2010. I also write on my blog every day. I decided that in 2010, each of my daily entries will list three things that I am thankful for on that day. This is something I did for a while in 2008 and I really loved it, so I think it’s good to bring it back. This way, I will have tons of ideas to choose from when it comes to doing my weekly art.

Since I am on the computer most of my day, I decided to do my project fully digitally. I made simple photoshop templates that accommodate photos of either orientation and different amounts of text. Each week, I will simply change the date, add a photo, and write my few words. This way, I am not spending so much time worrying about what paper to pick, what embellishments to add, etc. I am just focusing on the core element of practicing gratitude. I have found that sometimes worrying about the “artistic” side can get in the way of things and I don’t want anything to stop me from doing this project and I don’t want anything to take away from the essence of the project.

With all that in mind, here is what I made:

For a landscape photo:

And for portrait photo (I made two options here). One with smaller photo, more text.

And another with bigger photo, less text.

All of these are 4×6 so at the end of the year (or at periodic times throughout the year) I will print them all out and put them in a photo album or box of my choice. This way, I get to have them in paper form as well. And I can embellish the cover or box as I please.

If you’d like to use the same format, you are welcome to download my templates.

The only caveat is that I am using two fonts that aren’t free. For the date, I used “Big Caslon” and for the title and text, I used “Avenir” (in different weights.) Since neither of those are free, I changed the fonts in the templates so the dates are in “Old Rubber Stamp” (free download here) and the title and text are in Verdana. If you’re a digi person, each of the frames are their own layer so you can also change their color as you wish.

If you have questions, feel free to leave a comment and I will do my best to help. And, remember, the goal here is to practice weekly gratitude so when you’re thinking about your own format, make sure to keep it simple and doable.