The Difficult Process

Thank you Lee, Christine, Ella and Jenn for your heart-warming comments. Lee was actually looking for the process of my last LO. I tried holding it back so as not to let anyone know how clumsy I am when it comes to scrapping. But since you liked it, you gave me enough courage to spill the beans, so to speak.

First of all, it is no secret that I am a confessed scrap lifter. I got the inspiration of my last LO from an article of Renae Clark in Memory Makers’ magazine February 2007 issue. What everyone doesn’t know though is that I’m notoriously stingy when it comes to my scrapbook materials. Just to show you how far gone I am about this quirky habit, look at the back of my LO (see left). I know, I’m just making life difficult for myself but I do find thrills in saving up scraps for my next project. They do call this hobby ‘scrap’ booking, right?

Moving on to my confession: After cutting out and setting aside all the sections which are supposedly covered by the other pps, I get over-zealous to re-assemble the pieces back together. Which leads me to a recurring pitfall: Due to my eagerness, I usually forget to distress or ink the edges of the pps. By the time I realize it, the pieces are permanently stuck together. Being used to this dilemma, I quickly go into what I call my let’s-see-you-get-yourself-out-of-this-mess mode.

My usual solution for this blunder is to tape the sides of the cs I wish to protect from the ink. But before sticking the magic tape to the cs, I run it through my clothes several times so as to make it less tacky. Since I cannot swipe the stamp pad, I use a dabbing motion to slowly ink the side of the pps. Using the pointed tip of the Petal Point Colorbox stamp pad, I do a finishing swipe on the outermost edges to make it darker. I then remove the tape and do a little dance of joy for yet another successful recovery.

Now for this particular LO, no sooner had I taken myself out of a sticky situation, I quickly jumped in to another one. I had this bright idea to use the reverse side of the Scrapbook Walls plaid pps as a matt for my photo. So I went and cut the matt from my LO ‘horizontally’. Only to realize later that when I re-attach the matted photo ‘vertically’, there would be a 1-1/2” gap on the side. (Doh!)

It’s a good thing I remembered that I have some mulberry paper. It was a gift from my sister over 5 years ago when I initially started scrap booking. I never got the nerve to use it till now so I was amazed at how easy it was to use. All I did was cut it to size, wet the edges and pinched off the wet section, leaving a softly, frayed edges.

I then move on to attach my big prima flower. While adjusting the ribbon, I was again struck with a bright idea: Why not cut off two petals on each side of the flower? This way, the ribbon can lay flat on the paper. Without thinking much about it, I snipped off the petals. (Double-Doh!) The ribbon did lay flat but the flower looked really odd. It’s a good thing I was able to re-attach the petals and simply hid my mistake behind a chipboard tag.

Now, mind you, not all of my boo-boos are entirely my fault. Sometimes it was purely bad luck. As is the case with the rub-ons unintentionally sticking smack, right center on the glued photograph. I tried using magic tape to pick up the renegade rub-on but I only ended up pushing it in and ruining my glossy picture (Oh, man!).

I eventually decided to reprint my photograph. By now, Murphy’s Law was going on overtime: I somehow cropped the picture 1/4 of an inch smaller than the original one, so I cannot overlap it onto the ruined photo (Aarrrgh). Good thing I had a spark of inspiration from CH Herrin. I tilted the photo and made it seem like I intentionally planned all along to super-impose the 2 identical pictures (Whew! Thanks CH).

Tired yet rejuvenated by the sight of a finished LO, I reflected on what I went through. On hind-sight, I believe it is a good thing I made all these mistakes because, one, I got to discover new techniques for distressing (not just myself but the paper, as well). Two, I was forced to use my mulberry paper. Three, I got creative in order to hide all my mistakes – and best of all, my LO looked better than I initially intended it to be. Now, isn’t that a happy ending?