Accidents Happen

Let me start with an apology.  I struggled a bit with Friday’s blog post (technical difficulties) and as a result, I got in a hurry and sent it out without checking for typos!  Oops!  I am usually much more diligent than that.  I did correct the errors, but for those of you who subscribe by email, I’m sorry….

We all make mistakes sometimes.  Usually it’s best to confess them and move on.  But mistakes in scrapbooking or other crafting can be harder (and sometimes easier, depending on your perspective) to deal with.  Just last week, my Aggie Mom friends and I were decorating some wooden picture frames to sell in our Parents’ Weekend Boutique booth and we accidentally decorated some of them upside down.  I had to get my dear hubby to drill new holes in the right place!  Ooops!  

I’ve made some doozies over the years.  Some I try to fix, and some turn out to be happy accidents and I leave them be.  Here’s a few I’ve dealt with over the years.  Can you spot the changes in this first layout?

After I completed this layout, my son informed me that the dates I used were wrong.

Changes made:  replaced the file folder, including all stamping and journaling.

After I completed the "Night Ops" layout, my son came home for Christmas and informed me that I had the dates all wrong.  This meant I had to retype all the computer journaling, re-stamp all the images, and hand journal the rest.  Oh, and I had to cut a new folder because I had already ruined the other side AND it had staple marks, rendering it unusable.  I couldn't remember which die cut I used, so I tried ever die and stencil I had on hand, but they were the wrong size.  It wasn't until months later that I remembered I had been at a retreat when I cut the folder, so eventually I was able to go back and cut another one to finish the page.  This turned out to be a "happy accident" because it allowed me to do a better job of stamping the "For Your Information" stamp, my handwriting looks better, and I got to re-stamp "URGENT" as well.

I don't have pictures of the original "mistakes" on the rest of these, but the captions explain what went wrong:

This was a page I made when I first started scrapbooking.  I originally made it with a
manilla background and pastel tags in an assortment of colors.  I hated the way it turned
out, so after discussing it with several "pros", I decided to make it a dichromatic page
instead.  I love it so much better now!

That mustang wasn't on the original layout.  The journaling has changed, too.
Originally, I had a cute picture of "Fred the Fish", the unofficial mascot of the
high school swim team.  Unfortunately, my daughter informed me that the
team adopted Fred the following year, and that he was not part of the 1998
Homecoming float.  To fix it, I replaced Fred with a mustang die cut and I replaced
all of the journalling.

This layout is an example of a page I did not fix.  As you can see,
when I stamped "October 3", my blocky stamps gave less than
excellent results.  I didn't have any more of the sparkly white paper,
so I just decided to leave it be.

How do you deal with your mistakes?  Are you a leave it and forget it?  Do you turn it into a Happy Accident?  Do you fix it somehow?  Do you tell others about it?  Share your scrapping mistakes in the comments…we’d love to hear how you dealt with it!