Gratitude Documented Devotional

Happy November! Tis the season to be thankful! Well... the season to be thankful is actually EVERY season. But remembering to show gratitude to our friends, strangers, our spouses, family, & God is sometimes one of the things that gets pushed to the bottom of the to-do list-- & it's one of the simplest things to do! It's amazing how a little gratitude can affect our lives. Have you ever heard the phrase "Happy people aren't thankful, Thankful people are happy?" There is so much truth to that.

This month, Illustrated Faith has released a devotional kit to be used each day of November leading up to Thanksgiving. It's a plain white fauxdori-sized notebook with simple black prompts at the top of each page. These prompts are meant to be a reminder & point of reflection for all the different things God does for us! This notebook also comes with a clear stamp set with some incredible words & phrases to help illustrate your gratitude as you meditate on each prompt. I'm hopping on board the train this month & am going to be playing along with this thankful challenge.

Today I sat down at my craft table unsure how I wanted to design my cover, so I just chose a color palette & started painting. This is the result & I think I'm in love. I carved a leaf stamp out of a linoleum printmaking block last night. (purchased from Hobby Lobby.) I knew I wanted that to be my focal point above the script words. Since it's autumn and the season of gratitude, I wanted to symbolize the season in some way.

So I used a palette knife & some acrylic paint to scrape some thin layers of color all over the cover. Then I stamped the leaf on with some Staz-On ink. Those little hearts are from the Gratitude Documented Devotional kit stamp set. (The bigger heart that you see is from an old Love, Elsie stamp set from my stash.)

Finally, the "thankful" stamp (from the kit as well) & some of the specks & gold hearts are heat embossed on with some gold embossing powder. I REALLY loved adding the gold touches because I thought it just gave it a really warm & glowing look! Love me some heat embossing! The bottom of the notebook was just begging for some gold washi tape, so I listened. ;) I did have to take my watercolor palette & go over the "wow God" words in black because they were getting lost under all the layers of paint. That ended up working really well. 

On the back of the notebook I opted to go very simple. I heat embossed the same leaf in gold & stamped the same "Wow God" words underneath. I love how the painting from the front makes a colorful little border edge on that back as well! The whole journal was misted with some Heidi Swapp color shine spray ink in Marigold. 

I can't wait to really get going on this book. I know it's going to remind me of all the things in my life that I take for granted. Things that I rely on to just be there. I'm looking forward to making little lists of all the little things I love & are true blessings in my life! It's so rad to think of this notebook being filled up with paper scraps & blessings!

You should totally go get yours & play along with me! There's even a really affordable gratitude printable that goes along with it too! It's a total steal and totally adorable. Can't wait to share more pages with you as I complete them!