Gratitude Game and Giveaway

Happy Autumn, Ladies and Gentlemen! Autumn is one of my two favorite seasons! One of the main reasons why I love it is because of Thanksgiving! Of course, I'm grateful for my blessings and life experiences all year long, but the start of Autumn brings those things to the forefront for me. Last year I kept a gratitude journal for the entire month of November, and I'm making one this year too! I tried to "strongly encourage" my sons to keep one too, but that only lasted about a week! So, this year I tweaked my approach to getting them involved in recording their gratitude. Like most kiddos, my boys love games, especially when there is a prize involved! I decided to make a container to be placed in the family room (so it's always visible) that they can deposit a strip of paper with a gratitude statement each day.

 Supplies: Patterned Paper, Stickers, Chipboard: Crate Paper; 

Ribbon,Stamp: Maya Road; Ink:Jenni Bowlin; Embossing Powder: Tim Holtz

I recycled a chip container to be the deposit box. I used Mod Podge to secure the book paper and patterned paper to the container and then decorated it! I cut a hole in the lid of the container so that the slips of paper can be easily slipped in. Easy Peasy! The container is sitting on a table with a pad of paper and pen so that we can stop by anytime and drop a gratitude note it in the box! So, if your kiddos are motivated by competition or rewards like mine this is how I set up the "Gratitude Game" that we will play for the month of November (maybe longer):

1. Each person should deposit a gratitude statement into the box each day. I had to give my boys a limit for each day because my youngest son is a clever one and quickly thought that he would write a bunch in one day and fill up the drop box! So, I told them there was a max deposit of 3 per day and if they felt the need to document more then they should use a journal, too! Ha! Have to stay one step ahead of these kiddos!
2. At the end of the week we draw a random winner to win a little prize like a small toy, renting a movie, getting to have a later bedtime for a night, or getting to nix of a chore for a day.  My boys are  motivated by "winning" so I stress the point that the more entries they place in the container the more likely they are to win for the week! I love to hear the various things that we are all thankful for, so in addition to drawing a weekly winner, we read the sentiments aloud. It's a fun family activity that can generate great conversation at the dinner table. I'm keep the strips of paper and may make a mini album or tuck them in an envelope on a layout. I plan to make this a yearly tradition, and it will be fun to see how we change from year to year. I'm also thinking that we will take our Gratitude Game with us on Thanksgiving day! We will set it up at the door and have the guests write a statement and then at dinner of afterwards we can read everyone's gratitude statements and maybe do some random prize drawings there too!

Now... on to the GIVEAWAY!!!!!

A Grab bag of Studio Calico goodies!!!

I would love to see what Thanksgiving projects you have created recently. And, if you have not made any I would suggest making one of these little gratitude canisters because it's really easy and fun.. I didn't think of this until just this moment, but you could have each person in your family decorate a canister instead of having just one!  If you need a starting point check out page 12 of the current issue of Scraps of Color E:spire because Camille created a super cute digi that you can use an an element for your project! And, there are Thanksgiving layouts on page 28 to use as inspiration for creating a project, too.

To enter the giveaway leave a comment with a link to your new or recently created Thanksgiving or autumn project (altered art, card, layout, or anything else you create) and you are in the drawing to win these goodies! Easy as pie! 

And if you would like an additional entry blog and/or facebook (an additional entry for each one) about the giveaway and leave another comment with the link to your post!  


I will draw a winner on December 6 on my next SOC E:spire blog post, so you have plenty of time to get crafty! Again, thank you for reading and supporting Scraps of Color E:spire! I am so grateful for each of you!

***I can only ship within the USA.***