DIY: Happy Book Project

I spent some time with my girls talking to them about a new project I wanted to start this year. I really thought it would be a fun project for us to work on together, and could be a great part of our unschooling life. Two of my three girls decided that they wanted to do the project with me.

What is the project? Creating a 2015 Happiness Book out of an old used hard cover book. A bit of upcycling, creativity, time, and happiness are required to make a Happy Book, but doesn't that sound fun?!

Here is the premise of this project:

• Create a book full of happy thoughts, moments, images, and quotes.
• Create at least one page each week of the year.
• Upcycle an old book as part of the project.
• Use only what you have on hand.
• Goal is to focus on what makes you happy, even on difficult days.

The girls and I took a trip to our local used book store, and found our own hardback books to use for this project.

Next, we used an exacto knife and a piece of chipboard to cut away 4 – 6 pages of the book and then saving (not cutting away) two pages. 

We repeated this process throughout the entire book. When we finished we had books that looked like this.

We are cutting pages from our books, because we plan on adding bulky items to our happy pages. This will allow our books to bulge open a bit less. J

This week we created the title page and our first page of happiness for 2015!

The girls and I are excited to be doing this project together.

• We can keep each other accountable. Which will help me stick with my word of the year (BEGIN).
•  Creating with others is more fun than creating by yourself.
• It is simply FUN to spend time together on a creative project.

Maybe you want to create a Happy Book? I am extremely happy to have started mine. Hope you share your Happy Book pages here with me and my girls. 

2015 is the perfect year to focus on Happy!