I’ve heard that question asked maybe a hundred times. What exactly is a circle journal? ScrapJazz.com defines a circle journal as “A themed album that is passed throughout a group of people, each person completing a page/layout in the album before passing it to the next person.”
While this definition is true, it doesn’t really answer the question completely. My personal definition of a circle journal is a special journal or book that is sent amongst friends, each adding their individual pages.
I think what makes a circle journal so unique, is that they seem to be springboards for creativity. You choose almost every aspect of what will go in your own personal journal, except the completed page. You can set a color scheme, topic, materials used, and layout design; almost anything you want. However, you have to leave it up to your friends to actually do the rest.
After you have started this beloved circle journal, you will have to let it go. It needs to be mailed “round-robin” style to a list of friends. Each person will receive the album, add their items and mail it on to the next person on the list. Eventually it will make it back to you and you will receive a beautiful album that details the lives of your friends.
The typical number of participants for a circle journal, seems to fall around 8-10 for a good book. It seems to be standard that some groups have a mail date each month on the same date. This allows each individual to have the book for approximately a month to work on.
However, recently I have seen some circle journal groups only allowing a 2 week turn-around time. This means that the album must be received by the recipient, pages completed and then returned back out in the mail in just two weeks period of time. It might not give a lot of time, but at least you get your album back faster.
Circle Journals are a wonderful way to more intimately get to know your friends or allow for the opportunity to make new friends and get to know them better!
What a great way to use our love for scrapbooking!
Special thanks goes to Allison Weiss, the scrapbooker who created the album in the above photos! Great job Allison!