Super easy New Year tradition…

Update: Christmas has passed and the new year is upon us.  Please feel free to facebook, share or even pin this to pinterest - this is such a fab idea and something my family is excited about… Happy New Year – may it be all you ask for.      
(My inspiration was a  version of this idea originally found on Pinterest during the year…)

So with Christmas nearly upon us I figured it might be a great time to look forwards to some New Year traditions.  I love a good tradition as much as the next person and usually I love those ones that happen by accident (like the traditional birthday cake my Mum made as I was growing up, it was called a 'slippety cake' and all the candy was designed to slide down the outside – a tradition that was the result of some frosting that was a little too runny one year, I suspect!) but I saw this idea on Pinterest and had to give it a go.   This project is also posted on the Prima Educators Blog as well – (worth a little look!).

It's a gratitude jar.  A designated jar with a pen and small pieces of paper provided.  Whenever something good, cool or generally fun happens that year, it should be written down on a a small piece of paper , folded up and put into the jar.  At the end of the year the jar is opened and all the good stuff is read through -  it's an idea is just about as good as mixing peanut butter and chocolate.. seriously, very cool.

I'm a little buh-humbug about things like this, but you know what; I think my family would rock this, the kids would get into it, so here goes.

I found an old jar.  I sanded the lid so that paint would stick to it.  I gathered some embellishments, paints and some favourite flowers – I'll admit, I've used these exact same flowers over and over lately, I'm in love with the teal and red thing, and even more in love with the Shabby Chic thing – I'm going with it.

I painted the lid with some Gesso and added the 2013 on top and then added more paint – it's incredibly rustic looking, that is perfect, just how I wanted it.   I covered the jar with a strip of Tea Thyme paper, inked edges and slapped-on white paint for artistic effect 🙂

Then added a doily (taken from the coffee shop where I may or may not have had a cheese scone this morning) and a favourite vine – this one is an older Prima release but when you love a product you stock up, exactly what I did with these vines.

Then you start adding flowers.  Teal and Red are auto-pilot embellishing for me.  When my hand reaches for my old favourite Corine flowers, I don't fight it.  I have a "Go with what you love" scrapbooking policy lately.

Embellish, distress, ink and paint to your heart's content.  I have added various different flowers, leaves, crystals and one of my favourite vintage trinkets with the 2013 on it.  This was orginally black but a little white paint rubbed in and it soon fitted in to the theme of my jar.  I've also added white paint over and around my white flowers.  Today's goal was obviously to make it as shabby as possible!

At this point we call it done.  A really quick project using all the products I love.  It fits in beautifully with my already white-and-teal lounge theme and it'll sit all year next year gathering wonderful family memories for me.  Roll on the good times!

Laters

Supplies used:

844721     Tea Thyme Paper
543242    Winter Branches Grape Vine
548834    Corine Flowers
552473    Avon Rose North Country Flowers
560577    Crystals
559694    Welcome To Paris Vintage Trinkets
550073    Alphabet
Others:    Jar, Paint, Doily, Pen & Paper