Hello again,

I don't seem to have quiet got the knack of regular blogging and life keeps throwing little speed bumps in my way! OK some of them have been HUGE speed bumps but I mustn't dwell.

Anyway, my team mates, the Rik Rak Ravers, over on UK Scrappers have organised a circle journal and since it will be a monthly occurrence I thought this might be a good chance to get into regular blogging as well.. I'm told blogging is lots of fun.. we shall see!

So, the idea of the circle journal (CJ) is that you pick a theme and a size for your journal and other people complete pages for your journal for you.  Usually you would make the covers, intro and sign in pages then post it on to the next person... and it goes round in a circle.  Obviously as the journal grows this can get quiet costly when it comes to the postage so our CJ will be shared online and the person completing pages will then only have to post out their pages to the recipient so hopefully cutting down the cost as the physical journal will stay with it's owner.  I'm not sure I explained that very well.

The theme for my CJ is the word GROW.

I have been doing Ali Edwards One little word (OLW) for a few years.  You pick a word at the beginning of the year which 'speaks to you' and throughout the year try and bring that word to life.

In 2011 my word was JOY and I bought the class from Big Picture Classes.. I started off well but didn't complete any pages past February.  Although I watched all the class content (and bought the recommended page protectors) I never seemed to get round to actually DOING the pages, so in 2012 I decided to try again and I picked the word GROW.  I did better last year getting into April this time and completing some of my Joy pages alongside.

I have to mention although I didn't complete the 'project' I found the concept of OLW very useful and by having a word for the year I really did feel I worked on bringing more Joy into my life and I found the word Grow very grounding last year.. I set goals of how I would like to grow my life and managed to achieve many of those goals.. some as simple as subscribing to Gardeners World and some much more challenging such as tackling my hoarding/messy ways.

Although Grow was my word for 2012 I don't feel I am ready to let it go... I still have more growing to do I have decided to keep it as my word for 2013. As the idea with Ali's OLW is to keep your word present in your life I thought receiving a journal page each month based on the word would help bring it to the front of my mind.

So this challenge I have set my teamies:

My theme is the word Grow, you can interpret this in any way you like... things you have seen growing, your garden, favourite flowers, inspirational phrases around the theme grow, ways in which you/things have changed and grown. 

As part of my Grow theme, I would like to learn some new scrapbooking techniques this year so I would like you to use a technique or product which you enjoy.

So to kick the CJ off we all made our first entries in our own journals as inspiration for the next person.

Here are my pages, using a bit of acrylic paint and my current favourite product washi tape:

My journal is 6x6 and can be in any style the maker likes.  I have asked for one 6x6 page so I can make a second page inspired by the first and they will sit opposite each other in the completed CJ.

Can't wait to see how it all turns out!

Thanks for visiting x