You've seen these jars before - on Facebook, Pinterest, or Tumbler with name like the Good News Jar or Gratitude Jar. I'm finally making one.

Instead of setting myself up for failure with a New Years Resolution, I thought a Joy Jar, would be much more results oriented. When a happy moment happens, we jot it down and stuff it in the Joy Jar to be revisited during a slump throughout the year.

Next Christmas, we'll be able to actually remember the events of the year for those holiday updates, and we'll have a whole jar of joy to re-read next New Years.

I'm one of those people who keeps letters and correspondence. I have a trunk of airmail letters tried in ribbon from a friend when she was posted in Desert Storm and later in Bosnia. I have manila envelopes of printed emails from intense conversations that I wanted to capture. I also keep cards.

A project I've been wanting to do was to simply put cards on a ring to keep them organized. However, I ran across this idea on Pinterest: use an old book cover to keep the cards neat. Okay, I'm game.

I collected an old book for the project, removed the innards (look for the pages to be used for future projects), added printed paper inside, punched holes, added rings, cropped the cards to size, and added a little embellishment and voila! I now have a great folder for all thank you's, birthdays, holidays and special notes from the year!

Things I learned: 

• Go to a Scrapbook store before going to the hardware store.
  
• Cards take up a lot more room than this book does.
  
• Without the cards, I would have forgotten half of the events of the year.
  
• Don't punch holes in the bottom for the second ring
• Next year, get a bit bigger book.
  
• I will now be punching holes in more things, more often.
  
• Variations on this could make a fun gift idea - I'm  thinking of getting my mom's memorabilia organized.

This was so much fun and being organized is a great way to start the year. I think I just found my new New Year's tradition. 

Thanks to Sarah Enni, Tracey Neithercott, and Erin Bowman for having an idea and making it happen.