Little Blessings Book

Years ago, I picked up and used the book “Simple Abundance” by Sarah Brethnacht Ban to bring more gratitude into my life.  I consciously work to incorporate gratitude into my life each day.  Being a scrapbook designer, I read Simple Scrapbooks magazine each month, and have read “Simple Scrapbooks,” the book more times than I can count.  Whenever Stacy Julian is in town, I take her classes, twice in some cases.  Still, until now, I have been unable to incorporate the Simple Scrapbooks philosophy into my scrapping in a personal way.  Well, persistence finally paid off!  This year, everything clicked!  

I am one of those people who started keeping a scrapbook in the days when “archival safe” was a term used only by serious artists.  I do it for the sheer love of creating.  But this past year, I was in a rut.  Maybe it had to do with turning 40.  Whatever the reason, I was tired and overwhelmed, trying to keep up with each important event.  I wanted more.  More meaning, more true to life albums, more joy in creating. 

After CKU-Vancouver, I came home with a beautiful 10 page 6 x 6 album from Stacy’s Simple Joys class.  Although the colors were beautiful, they were not something that I would use for myself.  While staring at this album, I had one of those “aha” moments.  This album would be a beautiful gift!  What a great opportunity to create a simple but meaningful album.  I decided to create a gift album for my mother based on the blessings I received from her during my life. 

My mother and I have a strained relationship.  For many years I have been looking for ways to heal and move forward in my life.  It is not easy for me to say what I feel, but I could always write my feelings down.  What if I wrote my feelings down and illustrated them with images?  Wow, what a powerful story that would be. 

Through this “Little Blessings Book” book, I was able to look at my relationship with my Mother and turn what used to be irritations into true blessings.  The exercise of putting these blessings down on paper was so healing.  I chose to make a copy of the album with different paper for myself, and send the original to my Mother.  Her reaction to the book is not the important thing.  The important point in this case is that I created blessings out of a relationship in which I saw mostly heartache before.  

I loved the process of documenting my blessings so much that I created an album for my son, (Super Kid), and one for my Husband (You Inspire Me), and one about my Father (My Daddy’s Love) who has already passed on.  There is no better way to tell someone how much you love them and why.  {I’ll try to round up some photos for you to see.  Check back later}

I used a 6 x 6 page format, with 10 pages, each listing a blessing I received from the person I was focusing on.  

The project is short.  I did it over a weekend.  I used supplies I already had on hand, and extra photos that didn’t necessarily go with any others.  I loved embellishing each page!  This project is fun and so very meaningful!  You will want to make many of these little treasures!  

Why: 

To increase your feelings of gratitude

To show someone you care

To feel better about your life

To mend relationship

To heal yourself, to let go of the past

Who: 

You, anyone who is blessed 

Single, 

married, 

with children, 

w/o children, 

if you are breathing, you have been blessed. 

Update: 11/05/07

Joy of joys, my Mother came back into my life two years ago.  Unfortunately she has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease.   She is still in the mild stages and we are grateful for each day that we have with her.  Years ago, this little album was a great source of healing and moving forward for me, and I hope for her as well.

The little critter in the photo above is “Almond”.  He keeps me company when I go away without my son.  After my Hula ‘uniki, my family joined me back home in Hawai’i.  In this picture, my Mom, Kai (my son) and I were at a picnic in Kapi’olani Park, and Almond was being adventurous.  

Until next time...A hui hou!

scrap with Aloha!