A Circle Journey Book

Having lived in a few states now, my daughter has quite the little list of far-away friends. She loves keeping in touch with them all!

One day this summer when the kiddos needed something different and fun to do I dragged out all of my old stamping supplies. In the days before I had children I actually did a lot of stamping, making cards with friends and I still have all of my stamps, stamp pads, special scissors, etc. I get them out for the kids once in a great while.

In the process of getting out all of these supplies, I found a little journaling kit that I'd forgotten all about. It was a Circle Journey kit, which I don't think they even make anymore. It's basically a correspondence kit for friends and comes with a small journal, extra envelopes, stickers, and journaling ideas. I had bought it thinking to keep my circle of high school girlfriends in better touch ...and that didn't happen. It had never been used. It suddenly occurred to me that this would be a very fun thing between The Princess and her friends in Arkansas.

She agreed! And she began her first entry in the circle journal, first writing to them, then adding stamps, stickers, and photos. Think: mini scrapbook!

Then she got it all ready to mail, along with a self-addressed envelope. The idea for her and her friends is for her to write in the journal and send it to one of her friends back at our home church in Arkansas. They in turn do their journaling thing and pass it along to another friend at the church, and then another, and another ...who then mails it back to The Princess to start the circle again. She's already gotten it back once, so the journal is on Round 2! She's really enjoying it so far. It's a whole other level of pen-pal-ing:)

You certainly wouldn't need to have a special "kit". A mini scrapbook, some small manilla envelopes, along with some stickers, stamps, photos, and whatever you think of that can fit in an envelope would do the trick! This would be a very fun project between just two friends, or five friends. It's all about the journey, right?

I need to remember to get out the stamping and scrapbooking supplies more often! Even Mr. B got in on the fun as we also made cards to send to far-away family members. It doesn't take a lot of time and as long as you use washable ink pads, the clean up is relatively easy.

And the memories last forever.

*****
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