How to Create a Gratitude Jar with Sustainable Materials

At the beginning of this year, I decided to try an experiment with writing down one thing I was grateful for each day. I’m not much for new year’s resolutions, but I was curious to see how this practice would impact my year. Admittedly, I had planned to write this blog post in January, but this season of my life needs a dose of optimism and gratitude, so I thought it would be a great thing to reflect on and share about right now.

Why a Gratitude Jar?

If you were watching Oprah in the ’90s and 2000s, you likely heard her talking about creating a gratitude journal. That’s the first time I started hearing about the practice of gratitude and how many benefits it can have.

A gratitude jar is just one way to practice being grateful for the things in your life. It’s a way to take a moment every day to reflect on positive things even in the midst of life’s stresses. The idea is to write one thing on a piece of paper every day and add it to the jar. At the end of a week, month, or year you can go back and read through all of those things you are grateful for.

Practicing being grateful and having a mindful practice of gratitude could have positive effects, such as:

• improving your sleep
• lowering your blood pressure
• extending your lifespan
• improving your resiliency and patience
• helping you be more optimistic and happier

If you want to give this gratitude practice a try, but are not sure where to start coming up with things you are grateful for, Molly at Transatlantic Notes has some great prompts to start your reflections: Prompts that Focus on Gratitude.

Making your Gratitude Jar with Sustainable Materials

While there are always options to buy fancy new things, my goal was to just use things in my home to create my gratitude jar. This was an experiment after all, so I didn’t want to spend a bunch of money, but I also wanted to enjoy my gratitude jar.

To make my gratitude jar with sustainable materials, I went with things I already had on hand.

Suggestions for sustainable materials

1. Upcycle a jar, tin, or box
2. Use materials on hand to decorate, such as wrapping paper, ribbons, or felt pens
3. Save that is only printed on one side (junk mail, notices, statements, delivery slips) and cut these up to write your gratitude items on
4. If you need new pens, check your local thrift store or buy nothing group

How I Made my Gratitude Jar

I happened to have some vintage glass mason jars, so I started with those. I used one small jar to hold some blank pieces of paper and my pen. The pieces of paper were all gathered from my recycle bin that I cut up big enough to write one gratitude item on each day. I used one large jar to put each of my gratitude items in after I wrote them.

It took a while for me to create a habit of writing my daily gratitude items. I had originally kept my jar out in my living area, but after a couple weeks moved it to my bedside table. Having it right beside my bed helped me remember each day to take that moment to reflect and write down a gratitude item.

My injury from earlier this year interrupted my entire life, including writing down a daily item to be grateful for. In this tough season, I am so glad I have this jar of reminders of the positive things in my life.

Some fun memories from this year so far

Going through my gratitude notes it was fun to reflect on and remember the things I’ve done this year. Some notes were about more extravagant things, like summer road trips, and others were more simple, like being grateful for peaceful moments. There really are so many things to be grateful for.

Have you ever tried a gratitude practice? What did you learn from your experience?

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