Lindsey - Thanksgiving

Hi - Lindsey here - "thankfully".  I know in NZ we don't celebrate Thanksgiving today officially. However, I try to be thankful every day as I have been given so much -in particular today I am grateful that my son has turned up unexpectedly! Such a lovely surprise.

During April last year, I was fortunate enough to attend the glorious Nic Howard's Autumn Escape at Wairakei during which there were a series of Make-N-Takes which had to be made into a mini album during the course of the weekend. I wouldn't normally even contemplate this sort of thing for a very good reason - I am absolutely useless under pressure. Anyway, in a moment of utter recklessness, I totally abandoned the plans for the layouts which I had prepared kits for and decided to give this a go and (much to my surprise) ended up with a Gratitude Album.  It's not too bad - considering - so I am going to show it to you.

I can't really put all the pages here as it would take up a lot of room (there's about 24 and I could have gone on and on!) but I will put the rest up on the Gallery for you to have a look at - if you are interested. Luckily, I had with me at the Autumn Escape, a Seven Gypsies sticker sheet with a Gratitude theme and some Cosmo Cricket papers from their Early Bird range, some Kraft paper to make the pages and some Kaisercraft Album Rings. I didn't make the pages too lumpy-bumpy because it annoys me when I can't shut the pages properly (plus I didn't have the time for fiddle-faddling around with loads of flowers etc). So - here it is:

I can't tell you how much pleasure this little book has brought to me - sitting on the carpet, smiling as I turn the pages and - once again - counting my many blessings. I am therefore recommending that you have a bash at making your own Gratitude Album - perhaps it could be an annual tradition. Wouldn't that be interesting to compare them in "years to come"?!  I do so hope that you too will have so many things to be grateful for that you won't be able to squish them all into one mini album. If you need more inspiration, just Google "Gratitude Albums" - there's heaps of stuff online.

While we are on the subject of saying "Thank You", I also wanted to show you something else - if you have the time to linger... ...  I was recently the recipient of two lovely "thank you"notes and they were so appreciated. They inspired me to get going on a bundle of thank-you notes for myself. Each one is topped with a gratitude quote. They are all made from Echo Park "For the Record" 6"x6" pad. I know most of us these days will say our thank-you's by text or email but how much more grateful do you look if you actually send a real card, in an envelope, with a stamp. Pretty darned appreciative I'd say. These cards aren't that fancy and are easy to make. Once Christmas is over and done with, I am definitely going to go through my leftover-bits-box and make some more of these and I am going to make a point of finding opportunities to send them. I am also going to get my two "little darlings" over one day for a spot of thank-you card making as I am sure they will have lots of presents at Christmas and we are trying to instil in them some good manners.  OK - so here are my cards:

In case you are wondering about the framed quotes: I found a frame stamp, measured the inside area, printed off the quotes on a sheet of A4 and then used the acrylic stamp (which is see-through of course) to frame each quote. I think I got about eight quotes on an A4 piece of paper. Hope that makes sense.

Incidentally, I have accumulated about six pages of Gratitude Quotes and wotnot. If you have been inspired to make some thank you notes, drop me an email (lindseymarch53@hotmail.com) and I will send them to you to save you a bit of time. Just put "Gratitude Quotes" as the subject so that I don't accidentally delete you from the Spam box.

Why are my blogs always so long? I think I have nothing to say and then all these words and pictures appear. Weird! Well anyway, thanks for looking. It's nice to see you here again.

Lindsey
x