Tyndale bloggers review: Gratitude; a prayer and praise coloring journal

Gratitude: A Prayer and Praise Coloring Journal invites you to bring creative journaling and the calming act of coloring into your quiet time with God. This beautifully designed interactive prayer book from Tyndale’s Living Expressions collection helps guide your thoughts as you pray about concerns such as health, overcoming stress, personal relationships, and more. Gratitude gives you a way to celebrate and give thanks to God for the many blessings he provides. Filled with over 100 designs to color, plenty of space for journaling and sketching, and 40 needs-based prayers, Gratitude helps you express your devotion to God with your whole heart!

My Review:
So I dig most coloring books I come across, and I fall in love with just about every journal. So imagine my excitement when this baby showed up in the mail. The cover is so pretty and looks like someone really put a lot of thought and attention into it (and not so much like they were trying to make a buck on the coloring book craze going on lately) It's multitextured, has calm colors, and is hard enough to provide a proper base if you don't have a table and are coloring/journaling on, say, the bus. 

One irritation I usually come across in coloring books is hand cramps from drawing in so many tiny spaces. The illustrations in this book have a nice mix of small and open spaces to color in so your drawing time doesn't require a brace.

Some pages have straightforward prompts, but most of them have devotions or scriptures and leave the space for your own reflection or, if you're like me and like to write out your prayers, a prayer to match the devotion.

Know an adult who thinks millenials are silly? Do they think coloring is for children? Give them this book so they can color on the down-low and keep up their Adult image. Even if they start out only journaling, it's only a matter of time until they start saying "well you know, coloring can be a meditative state and bring you closer to God and calmer with everyone else." Then you can give them another coloring book and go halfsies on pencils. 

5/5

Book Review: Instant Happy Journal

This colorful diary inspires journalers to apply happiness guru Karen Salmansohn'sInstant Happy principles to their everyday lives, with 365 prompts to encourage a year of gratitude.
     On the heels of Karen Salmansohn's wildly popular gift book Instant Happy comes this happiness journal, with daily prompts to help you think about and apply happiness wisdom to your own life. Each page features a specific intention, inspiring quote, surprising scientific fact, or thought-provoking question to ponder. When you approach your day with Salmansohn's "happiness prompters" in mind, you amp up your ability to notice (and create!) many more joyous moments in your day. But that's just half of what it takes to live a supremely happy life. This journal teaches the top two habits of happy people: to naturally set their intention to enjoy a happy day, then end the day reflecting on what made them happy. When you end your day writing about what went right, you further strengthen your happiness mindset. With fill-in dates so that you can write and reflect at your own pace, this little journal features a graphic design and fresh attitude perfect for today's modern happiness-seeker.

More book info  | Author Info  | Amazon  | Goodreads

My Review:

I haven't read the companion book to this journal, but the author put her mission statement in the beginning of the journal that gave meaning to this journal and made me want to read the book one day. I got a physical version of this, and the cover is brilliantly designed. It's hard to protect the pages inside but flexible so you can maneuver it to write in the pages without damaging the cover.  It's also got a little ribbon as a built in bookmark.

What I also love about this book--other than it's a journal and I love journals--is the design of the pages themselves. The journal areas are short enough to not overwhelm you and long enough to write down what you have to say in regards to the prompt. And the prompts? Love them. They aren't too vague nor too specific, so no matter what you do for your daily activities, they apply to your life. I haven't used pencil on these pages or crayons, but the pages take to different kinds of pens really well. I haven't yet had to look at a pen and say "well, can't use that one. Bummer." 

And also, you can fill in your own dates. Why is this great? Maybe we don't have time to write every single day, especially on overtime days. Maybe this page doesn't apply to my day as well as THAT page does. The fill-in-the-date format lets you do these pages at your own pace, in whatever order you want. Buy this book for you, for a friend, a coworker, or family member. You won't regret it.

I got this book for free from Blogging for books in exchange for an honest review.