We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.
Frederick Keonig

I’ve been thinking a lot this year about what makes me happy, and I think that images and photos are a big part of what makes me happy. I’m very visual over all and I take a lot of photos. I’m interested in design and layout, I love to draw and so on.

In my diary I’ve glued some images from magazines that make me think of happiness. The thing that keeps these collages together is not only only the glue from the glue stick but my theme of happiness!

So, here are some images/symbols that makes me happy. Each image in this page can be described using many different words:

Diary Collage of Lycka - Happiness
These images makes me smile.

And in words the list could contain:
Rickard Scarry, bunnies, playing music, books, Hello Kitty, kawi, pink, strawberries, cats, handmade stickers (bought on Etsy), penguins, traveling, museums, fika, coffee cups, vintage, Pippi Longstocking, filmisar (trading cards with movie stars), frogs, making art, love, fairy tails, Shrek and Fiona’s love, animations, letters, cake, colours, words… etc, etc. I’m sure you can find more words in there.

Here is another collage from my diary;

7 October 2007 Happiness diary collage nr 2
Children’s books, life, illustrations, birds, fabric… and so on!

How to make a happiness collage

Do you want to make a happiness collage for yourself? Try this. Take a couple of magazines and a scissor with you to your cozy corner. Only cut out images that speaks to you; that say something about what you like, what colours you are drawn to, who you are. Then randomly glue them to a page and admire your happy page!

This is not only a great way to have fun, but also an exercise where you are getting to know yourself and your taste! You’ll learn about what makes you happy and when you know this you can bring more of that into your life. Thus become more happy? I hope so.

When Gretchen of The Happiness Project asked what sites makes us happy, my answer was the photo sharing (and storing) site flickr.com! There I find visual inspiration/happiness daily, and share mine too.

These are some of my favorite images from Flickr right now, and all of them made me happy:

Inspiration Mosaic - October 2007
Inspiration Mosaic, October 2007. Click on the image to see the images better and to link to the sources.

If images make you happy too, how do you celebrate that?