Jo and I love to scrapbook, but we admit that sometimes we get in a rut while working on huge projects. Whenever we need a little inspiration and want to have some fun, we organize a Circle Journal.

A Circle Journal is a scrapbook that is made by a circle of your friends. You choose a theme for your album, and each participant in the group creates a layout for you to put in your album, using your theme. In turn, you create a layout for each of their albums/themes, and in the end you each have an album that was created completely by your friends, and you are surprised by the delightful results.

Sounds like fun, right? It really is! Keep reading and I’ll tell you all you need to know in order to organize and participate in a circle journal. I’ll even include below a handy instruction sheet (with two pages of themes ideas) that you can pass out to everyone to get started!

Gather the participants

Start polling your friends to see who might like to participate. I suggest between 5 and 10 participants. Fewer than 5 isn’t as fun and more than 10 becomes too large an effort. If you have friends who have always wanted to start scrapbooking but were never sure how, this is a perfect way to get them introduced to (and hooked on!) the hobby. Some of my favorite layouts I’ve received have been from people who never scrapbooked before this project!

Let’s say you end up with 8 people in your group. That means that each person in the group will create 7 layouts to give away, and will receive 7 layouts from the other participants. When you’re all done, you’ll each have an album with 7 layouts in it.

Note that your participants don’t all have to live in the same city. If you select members who live far away, they will just need to mail you the layouts they create when they are all done, and you will mail their new pages back to them after the project is over.

Set a time limit

Procrastination is a Circle Journal’s worst enemy, so you need to set a deadline up front so that people know what to expect. I recommend one month per participant. So for a group of 8 people, you’ll allow 8 months from beginning to end. That leaves you one month to do each layout plus one month to goof off. I know that sounds like a long time, but trust me — some folks will need it!

If you are the person organizing the Circle Journal, I recommend you send e-mail reminders (or make phone calls) to the members of the group every month, reminding them of the time that has passed and to keep the journal fresh on their minds.

Decide on an album size

You will need to decide on the size of the albums that will be used for the finished Circle Journals so that everyone will know what size to make the layouts. You should choose a common size like 12×12 or 8×8. I recommend 8×8 because it is an easy size for everyone to work with and there are a multitude of cute albums available in that size.

I’ve also had a lot of fun with using albums whose covers can be decorated. For the last Circle Journal I organized, we all used inexpensive kraft paper-covered albums, and we decorated and painted them to suit our themes. Getting to decorate our album at the end was just one more fun touch to the project.

Choosing your themes

The really fun part about this is choosing your theme. You get to pick anything you want, and everyone has to comply! Some of the folks I’ve done this with have choose themes centered on themselves, such as “My family”, “Cities I’ve lived in”, or “My favorite TV shows”. If you choose a theme like this, you need to provide a list of items for everyone to choose from (how else will they know what your favorite TV shows are?) and they’ll each pick one for the layout they create for you. The end result of a theme like this is an album that is specific to you.

Another approach for your theme is to center it on the people participating instead, with a theme like “My first memory”, “How I relax”, or “My favorite movie”. If you choose a theme like this, your friends will each document something about themselves on the layout. The end result of a theme like this is an album that tells little stories about your friends.

Yet another approach for your theme is to choose a broad subject and let your friends use their imaginations to fulfill it. Some good examples of this are “Interior design”, “USA”, or “Animals”. This is my personal favorite type of theme, and I’ve been known to choose abstract themes like “Blue” or “Eight”. Everyone always gripes at my “hard” themes at first, but they end up having the most fun coming up with a way to match the theme (some examples of “Blue” layouts that were made for me are: “Blue Suede Shoes”, “Smurfs”, and “Denim”).

The Circle Journal Guide I’ve included at the end of this post also includes two pages full of theme ideas, so if you need some inspiration, just take a look.

Creating your layouts

All the deciding has been done, so it’s time to get started! Everyone will work independently over the next few months, creating the layouts for everyone else’s albums. Keep all the pages you make until the very end, and don’t show anybody if you can help it — it’s way more fun to have the big reveal at the end.

While working on your layouts, I highly recommend you check out Oriental Trading Company for unique and fun scrapbook supplies. They are not your typical scrapbook store, but they have an ever-growing collection of really cool stuff you can’t find anywhere else.

If you need some inspiration, check out the pictures on the right of this post. These are some of the layouts that were created in the last Circle Journal we did. I’ve marked them each with the name of the theme they were for.

Time’s up! Assemble the books

Once everyone has completed their layouts, arrange for everyone to get together for an assembly party. You will all hand out the layouts you made for others, and they’ll give you the ones they made for you. This is the most fun part, as you will get to see what everyone has been working on for your theme. It is also a lot of fun to see others react to the pages you made for them.

If you have out-of-town participants, just have them mail their pages to you and you can distribute them on their behalf. Then when you have all of their new pages gathered, just mail them back out.

This is also a good opportunity to have everyone bring the actual album they selected to put their layouts in. If you choose to use blank albums that can be painted/decorated, you can add an extra level of craftiness to the project by having everyone decorate their albums at the assembly party. What fun!

The Circle Journal Guide

Here is a downloadable file I created that explains the concept, rules, and guidelines for Circle Journals. You can print this out and give it to your group participants, or just copy and paste the text into an e-mail if you wish.

After you customize this guide with your names and dates, it will serve as a great summary for your participants, to explain to them how this will work. I’ve also included a bunch of theme ideas in the Guide to help you get inspired.

Good luck with your Circle Journal and we’d love to hear how it goes!