Not Every Page Can Be a Masterpiece or OMG, My Eyes!

Just avert your eyes if the ugliness becomes too much to bear.


[People at My Party 07: The pictures weren't horrible, but I had a layout in my mind that never came out. The patterned paper was the final blow.]

Sometimes pages don't turn out quite like I imagined them. That's OK, my books are filled with lots of pages that would never win a contest or garner comments in the online galleries. They are still good pages that I am proud to have share our stories.

No this post is about those other pages. These are the ones that make it into the book, but cause an involuntary flinch every time they are revealed by the turn page. These are the ugly pages. I made them. They are mine. While I do own up to them, I also admit they are disasters. There can be lots of reasons for it. But it's usually one of two things: a good idea that just never came to be or bad stuff that left little to work with.

Layout Disasters: There are those moments when I am inspired by some awesome technique or layout, and feel like I should definitely give it at try. This often requires a shopping trip for some new tool or special supply (that I convince myself is worth the money because I will use it often). Once I have the new purchase, I start putting it all together. I agonize over the measurements, or the placement, or the construction. Most of the time I can see the disaster looming early on. Yet, once invested, I don't look back. I finish it up, get it in the book, and try to salvage what scrapbooking dignity I still have left.



[Ready for the Water 08: Scraplifted this one. Trust me, this random collection of odd embellishments was stunning on the one in the magazine.]


[Pisces Girls 07: 52 Sketches #26. This sketch and the pages others submitted were adorable. For some reason I picked the ugliest combination of papers possible and never quite recovered.]

Awful Pictures: Then there are the times when I look at the pictures or the papers and try to find some spark of inspiration. It's tough when you look at photos and realize none of them are that great. None deserve to be a focus. I try to find some way to organize them and hold onto the story. I have taken the coward's way out and filed the pictures away forever.


[Cookie Time: This paper was incredibly cute until I decided it needed to be saturated in pink and red. I committed to the stickers, and then realized too late they weren't doing a thing for me.]


[Another Birthday 08: The paper was beautiful and glittery. The pictures were less than mediocre, but everyone was so sweet to celebrate my birthday like this, that I wanted make sure I captured it in the scrapbook. To make it worse, the titles and journaling are impossible to read.]

Either way, when I see these finished pages, I reassure myself that not every page can be (or has to be) a masterpiece. Telling my family's stories isn't a contest; the scrapbook is supposed to capture the memories, not showcase the techniques. While today they may be cringe-worthy, thirty years from now people will want to see the faces and revel in the memories. Guess that means every page, even the ugly ones, are part of the bigger story of my family and part of the story of my scrapbooking journey.