Often in life, it’s the little things that bring us the most happiness: that first perfect sip of your morning latte, a small hand slipping into yours, a beautiful sunset after a long day. But how regularly do we stop and make the effort to notice these joyful moments? That’s the aim behind the new project from photographer, filmmaker and Peppermint-friend Hailey Bartholomew. She’s one of two finalists participating in The Happy Project, an initiative that funds ideas focused on spreading good vibes to others. Hailey’s idea, The Little Things, involves posting photos of these precious moments up around Sydney to remind people to appreciate the small-but-significant things in their own lives. She’s in the running to receive $12,000 funding towards this project plus any additional funds raised from her Pozible campaign (see the full details here)! We caught up with Hailey to find out more…

Many people know you from your 365 Grateful project. What’s this latest one all about?

The Little Things is about sharing grateful moments on the streets. This way, as people busy themselves on the way to work or school, they’ll pass by and see these images from around the world. Hopefully it will make us all take stock of the wonderful ‘little things’ in our own lives. It will be like a little street art mixed up with gratitude. Not just my images, but also hundreds of images from around the world.

How do you hope this will help bring joy to people’s lives? And why is this important to you? 

I think I have really learnt the value in appreciating the small and amazing little things in life. It has made me so much happier! In our culture of rushing, working, paying off bills and then finding more things to want, we often forget to take stock. So I hope this project does that – helps us all take stock of the value in the little things. Taking a moment to appreciate this has changed my life, so I feel super excited to share such a simple practice. With this particular project I want to take it to the street, because I love street art. But also because while a book is nice, someone has to buy it… unlike this project, which is free to view to anyone who walks by.

How will the funds be used?

Basically we want to print around 900 posters to paste up around town. We need to pay for a website to take submissions, we need to pay for printing, and we need to get council permission and a few other things too. It will be a mammoth effort because of the scale of what we want to do.

What can people do to help make your project a reality?

We need as many social media shares as possible! We’re in the running for the funding of $12,000… but to win this we need heaps of shares on Facebook and Twitter. So if you like the project, I’d love if you could share it with your friends!