Journaling and Journal Jars

Can I just say I love having these activities in my home?!  With the logistics of my last ward, we needed to have it at the church building...but having it at my home makes life so much easier :)  

Anyhow, this activity turned out better than I imagined!  I had done it before, but I made the jars a bit simpler this time.  So, for this activity I went to the dollar store and picked up some cheap jars.  At Michaels I grabbed some cheap journals.  Hobby Lobby had felt on sale, so I picked up some of that, some green vellum, and the burlap roll.  I found journal prompts all over pinterest, so pick the ones you like best.  This site has some great prompts. And This one is based more on things you are thankful for, but would be perfect.  

 To start this activity off, I sat down and asked the girls if they had a journal.  We then went through all the different ways people journal.  I showed them one of my journals from when I was young, showed them my family blog, scrapbooks, family history stories of my ancestors, etc.  We then talked about how the scriptures are like a journal...recording what happened so people can benefit from the information.  

I then shared about my Great Grandmother, who wrote in her journals everyday without fail.  Even at the end of her life when the highlight of her day was watching her son walk by to go take care of the sheep.  Those journals are now treasured.  I told them even if your day is boring, there is always something you can talk about, which is where the jars came in.  We cut out the journal prompts and put them inside the jars, so on days there seemed like there was nothing to talk about, they would have something to write about, and how happy they will be down the road to have these journals.

 Then we put our jars together.   I had the burlap precut as well as the felt.  The felt needs to be cut about the size of a CD or DVD.  I had the vellum cut into strips so they could cut their own leaves.  I also had my little saying already cut out and ready to go. 

I helped the girls hot glue the burlap and the flowers.  The flowers are super simple.  With the round of felt, cut it into a spiral and then just roll it up and hot glue the ends.  I'll take some pics next week for a better tutorial.  We glued on the flowers, the leaves, and my saying that went along with my story about my Great Grandmother.  

My inspiration for this activity came from Make and Takes